Sarisleahsghost - She Herself Is A Haunted House

snoopy is literally me (lover of space, music, and silliness)

Maybe it's time to have a little faith, Dean. ↳ Sam Winchester

Supernatural | S1 EP12 : Faith

thinking about life

my favorite genre of women is running from creepy castles/houses

i am so sorry you all have to deal with angsty posts here as i situate myself, but as an extremely sensitive people pleaser, i was mentally sort of always trying to do my best to reach out to others and even cater certain things for them, especially once my blog grew in size, which led to my more widespread interactions, influxes of messages, anons, etc - and so now, because of having to retreat from and even to a degree fear (or at best feel wary/uncomfortable) continuing some of those interactions, i feel a horrendous sense of…guilt? sorrow, yes, but i also feel awful. i cut off those anons who came to me with whatever, which isn’t their fault but was a protective choice to guard from potential outside harm, but i also left behind people i love and adore and considered precious in my life, not because that ended up not being true, but because the trust got shattered. and i know that some of them would be so hurt if they found out i moved spaces, and it weighs on me, because the last thing in the world i ever want is to do that, is to hurt friends that i love. it’s a horrible feeling. and my mom told me it’s not my fault and i have to have boundaries (i am very bad at boundaries) and trust my instincts and protect my peace however i can…but i still feel so bad and anxious at the potential of hurting someone, even though i myself was hurt. fun times in jessie’s brain 🙃

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

fellow westerners, particularly gentiles, if you think, “this is only about (insert infographic reason) (the land) (fighting oppression) (the war)” or “this is the Middle East and Russia, not here,” you’re wrong. if you think, “I’m not causing this simply by using incendiary language on the internet,” you’re wrong. if you think, “well, I don’t have a problem with (((Jews))), but…,” you’re wrong. if you think, “tbh (((they))) deserve this,” you’re helping it spread. do you see why this is terrifying? do you see how this is not helping liberation or a plan for a ceasefire or humanitarian interests? the blood libel and the dual loyalty and the Holocaust inversion and the atrocity denial and the accusations of greed and the dehumanization and the misuse of terms and the misinformation, this is the direct consequence. this has always been the exact consequence. if you think, “it can’t happen here,” look at the college campuses having to tell their Jewish students to hide and the people assaulted verbally and physically on the streets and the graffiti and the break-ins and the chants to eradicate the Jews and the waved swastikas, and the number of people online saying that this is justice, and then attacking any Jewish person they can find, or anyone who expresses sympathy. the ones who say that this is what fighting for freedom looks like. it can’t happen here? it already is. this is the most recent incident to instill fear. it probably won’t be the last. this is not aiding liberation, this is not championing human rights or peace. call it what it is.

A pro Palestine mob has just taken over a Russian Airport because a plane landed from Tel Aviv. They are stopping every car and checking passports to tell who is Jewish. They are going door to door in nearby hotels to look for Jews. They burned down a Jewish community center. They are surrounding random people on the street who look jewish and stealing their belongings to see if they can tell if they're jewish and therefore whether they should beat them. This is happening right now.

Open your fucking eyes. This was never about Palestine. This was about killing Jews. Quit being so fucking daft.

what’s really bizarre, being from a mixed religious family background, is i recognize that i have the privilege of “passing,” for lack of a better word, of hiding and easily assimilating and blending. it’s not even that it’s a mask, because it’s something true. i grew up that way, it’s like code switching. sometimes it feels like impostor syndrome, but usually it's just all the facets of my person.

the man who drove us home today started talking about church. i could easily have engaged with that because, of course, we used to go to church with my grandparents on one side, and to the synagogue on the other. i’m versed in all the holidays, since throughout my childhood, we celebrated both. but as he was talking, perfectly nicely, this pit formed in my stomach - what if i voiced my identity? would that change the tenor of the conversation? (it would have, unavoidably, one way or the other.) would that put me, us, at risk? am i forced now to pretend to not be who i am? so i said nothing, and let my mom talk about my grandpa, and his devoted love of (and masters in) theology, and silently wondered if the man behind the wheel, talking about his faith, which i respect, would want to harm me if he knew who i was. this is not something i used to actively worry about, which perhaps was naïveté despite past experiences, blissful belief that it wasn’t “that bad.” it was safe enough. and now it’s a dark presence in my mind, a rustling anxiety. former “friends” on my dash would celebrate my murder if i had been born in the wrong (according to them) place, if they could get away with dehumanizing me with impunity as i have witnessed them doing to others undeserving of that treatment, with buzzwords and epithets. or maybe just for existing. and this isn’t paranoia or overreaction because i saw it with my own eyes. i saw it happen over and over, with people i used to regularly communicate with in frivolous little fandom conversations, which seem pointless to anything now. it is like living in a different world than the one that existed three weeks ago, one where the normal trajectory was abruptly thrown off course. and there’s nothing to be done about it, to fix it, to mitigate any of the hatred or any of the death, to offer succor to anyone affected or hurt or lost in all of this. there’s just the sorrow and the nagging buzz of fear. and it’s unknowable when that will abate. and how many more people will be harmed in the meantime. and if anyone will ever feel entirely safe amongst strangers again.

i always identified myself as a spiritual, but not religious person. both sides of my family were deeply faithful and i experienced and held reverence for that, cherished a lot of it, especially in ritual and holidays, but emerged on a less devout level, and that’s fine. ethnically i am jewish and always have said so. halves hardly matter, that is my heritage, it’s in my bones, it’s in the links of the chain to the past. i used to always observe shabbat (shabbos, how we say it) and lapsed, i lapsed in a lot of things when i became chronically ill and wasn’t directly involved with any sort of community anymore. it was just me being me, that was okay too. we put up our inter-holiday winter decorations, and it’s all traditions of memory and family and love, even as for many years those celebrations have only been my mom and me. it’s all there, inextricable from who i am.

i never learned hebrew properly but picked up all the prayers (which sadly i remember less now). i had an aliyah rather than a bat mitzvah (which we couldn’t afford anyway). i had to sing in front of the congregation and still remember the melody, my dad’s voice on tape teaching it to me. i still remember my grandma visiting and giving me the gold bracelet i loved directly off of her own arm for me to wear and to keep. i still remember the elderly man who came up to me after the service in tears and told me my voice was given from g-d and that he was so moved because i sang in the “soft” hebrew, words ending in “s” instead of “t,” and that was what his mother had always used from the old country, and he hadn’t heard it in so long (we always said the prayers this way, honestly i am not sure why, i guess it just carried over as ashkenazim, the way yiddish phrases did. it holds true with my hebrew name too, that version of sarah. my hebrew name, which is so familiar to me and part of me that i use it as email addresses and screen names and urls, that i would always tell people what it means because, growing up, i thought it was the greatest ever. princess leia as recognized in the book of life. that name probably being why i am attached to “s” urls here). i talked about this once, a long time ago (two blogs ago), but i've been told i look jewish, and told i don't look jewish, both in tones of derision and tones meant as compliment, you never quite know how that's going to be expressed. i treasured and held close to and was formatively influenced by and grew through countless pieces of jewish american art, jewish pop culture, characters, creators. the reverence in my heart for sondheim (or, like, name ANY 20th century broadway composer. i wish this was still online in full because it was beautiful), for the source of my url, for [insert name of artist here] is not idle, it is soul deep. i am not as engaged with the community or the religion as countless others, not nearly as directly tied or impacted, but the philosophy was always this - if they’d kill you for it, then you have the right to rejoice in and claim it too.

still. there’s a mezuzah on my bedroom door and a hamsa on my wall. they have flowers and birds and lavender and pink.

still. i say the shema in hebrew every day. just in case there’s a reason for it to be heard. just in case there’s a light there. it is the most sacred prayer, so it felt like something to keep close. (do you know how it starts? its opening line?)

i don’t think i consciously realized how deep that spiritual tie went until it was imbued with this much grief. it ceases to matter that maybe by percentages it’s only half of what i am. tell me where it’s written what it is i’m meant to be. perhaps i am no more than a blade of grass, but i am.

lets out a single agonized bloodcurdling scream but doesnt elaborate on why and just walks it off

Elvis with Johnny Cash, c. 1957.