Be Not Afraid of Love: Lessons on Fear, Intimacy, and Connection

by Mimi Zhu

I had pushed my emotions so far away that I thought I had lost all ability to feel.

Capitalism seeks to replicate numbness not to heal, but to ensure that we can continue working and consuming to avoid pain, which is deemed unproductive.

capitalism expertly endeavors to pacify intergenerational pain and create more cycles of addiction. Furthermore, corporations attempt to sedate hurt people who deserve healing, and get richer from profiting off the pain that they have caused.

X’s rage had nothing to do with me and was also not my responsibility to heal, especially because my safety was at risk. His rage had developed a life of its own inside him because he had no healthy ways of releasing it. Either he forced himself to not feel his rage or he forced it upon others—and that is abuse.

I refuse to believe that we are doomed because our collective anxiety shows that we care. I refuse to succumb to despair because our worry shows me that we no longer wish to be controlled.

Suppressing our sadness can grow into a cruel cynicism, making us scared of our own feelings and doubtful of the fullness of life.

Instead of funding the police, we need to fund health care, education, housing, and therapy. The carceral system is a tattered Band-Aid that infects wounds with no interest in healing them.

I had come such a long way. It was so fucking hard, but I felt so fucking free.

I do not seek romance as a desperate distraction like I used to, though my heart is wide open to the arrival of romantic love as a blessing in my life.