TCS is my nerdy passion project. TCS crosses my mind and my heart when I see and think about my kids, my partner, my family, other couples, children at my children’s school, children and couples out and about. I care about that long ago little me that makes adult-me – personal strengths weakened at times by complex trauma, parentification, still struggling with insecure attachment flare-ups – all the more believe in the purpose and mission of TCS for all people.
I love TCS like politicians love their next election season the day after their last win…..
like classical liberals love social freedom and fiscal responsibility……
like teachers’ unions love Democrats and taxpayer money…..
like the elites love their power and wealth…
like some self-described status quo killers love the status quo.
I’ve thought many times over the last 1.5 years of shutting the site down. My guilt, my anger, my hurt, my panic, my distaste for cruelty, my shame, my self-criticism. When I think of actually clicking the “cancel” button on the website subscription, the thought cuts like a real knife. It would obliterate a piece of my soul to fold it. I’m a little bit completely quirkily nuts in general with a heart of gold on this project.
A smarter, less stubborn woman would deactivate the website. Enjoy the beautiful home, handsome spouse, synchrony sex (oh yes, you-know-which book fused into my vocabulary), two great children, travel, and cut my losses with the painful and devastating muck parts of my story. However, I’m not that smart, and I am that stubborn. Ask my love, ask family, mine or his, friends through the years, former coworkers, former lovers, and former therapists.
I need to stay close to my vision like fish need water.
TCS is my divine command from a God that my agnostic, spiritual self is not sure I believe in. (in any case, Jesus is one cool due whose teachings we should listen to). It is not personal gain in status or money keeping my site alive – holy cow, so far it has been quite the contrary. It is love, passion, and belief that TCS is one of the things that the world needs, in this time of political polarization and fracturing, it is the most profound emotional charge in my psyche, one of my deepest meanings for my existence. Of that I am sure.
You can always learn something new as long as the heart beats, and now I know with incontrovertible evidence: I’m just a little too damn miserable without TCS in my journey, which I hope is longer than it is short.
In Peace,
Jen