It's my birthday this weekend! Will be going off in the woods with a few friends for a little time out of the city. Since I'll still be on antibiotics for my wisdom teeth extraction and had a rough couple weeks(years?) in my relationship, I'm considering taking it very easy substance wise.

The consent conversation has started on our Board and the tension around the subject is palpable. It's hard to have conversations with people that preface the subject by "i'm a survivor", have thought about the subject a lot and have strong opinions on how to do things and best practices. By hard - I don't mean that they don't listen but that I feel a big gap in understanding and emotional involvement we need to bridge. They say "we need to enact policies" and are very eager to move forward. (Maybe?) because certain things just feel obvious to them. And when I answer that I'm not informed and not comfortable taking decisions for a community without more conversations with more people first, I feel it hurts them. Like I'm dismissive of their experience, when what I actually want is include more people in the conversation. Top down policies by what is essentially a vanity Board is the best way to make a community feel powerless - even if the policies are sensible. And making people feel powerless about consent is a powderkeg. Besides, this shit if hard for everyone and having this on the forefront of my mind is not easy. Doing it over zoom is also not the best because you lose a lot of humanity in the process.