notonline222
2/09/23
forced to think a lot about contraceptives lately. it's interesting how life turns out. if i didnt have this job, i would have never given any of these ideas a second thought. i took birth control from the time i was probably... 16 to 19/20? and i stopped using it because i thought it was making me depressed. but it turned out i was just depressed. but i really never gave the actual act of taking birth control a second thought. i told my doctor i was sexually active (much to my mother's shock... or feigned shock... what did she think i was doing with my boyfriend?) and she asked if i wanted birth control. i said yes, because i say yes to most things that are suggested to me. which is not the best way to live, surely, but the combination of anxiety, naivety, and passiveness that informs who i am typically lends itself to that mode of being.
it's a very interesting experience to be reminded of my privilege in this way. i suppose that's the thing, you don't realize it until you do. otherwise, it just seems how the world should work. you should be able to just get access to healthcare (whether or not one thinks birth control is health care is not what i care to discuss at the moment, i mean it more generalized. i went to the doctor. i was given something. it could have been anything). however, i also find it interesting that it was so easy for me to access it that i really had no idea what it was, how it worked. now that i'm in the position to be... well. that's another thing. i would like to say informing, but that's both and over and under statement. anyhow, i feel a need to understand (which is... strangely... not required or even suggested for me to do). there is. a lot. to understand. politically, socially, historically, scientifically. i just hope i can do well by this. i wonder if it matters. something has to matter though, so i guess it is this, for me, for now.