20260113

when Abe looks at my phone and reads the texts between me and my sister Hannah, he does so from a non-participating observer's position. the conversation doesn't react to him, doesn't calibrate against/with him; he gets his read of the conversation from his side of the glass, and that's it.

this is hard for me. I practice something like adversarial uncertainty? I'm borrowing "adversarial" from agentic systems theory, it's about theoretical opposition, not about being moral enemies. the approach is one in which I read the thing, and then read again trying to prove that reading wrong, and then read again trying to prove both of those readings wrong from a third angle, and so forth, until I've sort of scanned the entire space of possible morphisms represented by the conversation.

and then I hold those all open, in superposition. I don't land on a collapsed reading. the whole thing stays in a sort of provisional geometry. when I run meaning through the system, it's running it through all of these superposed filters/funnels/whatever, and I'm looking at the spread and the color and the polarization of the light that comes out the other end, observing the scatter. the output is always a range of output, not a point. sometimes, in a realtime moment, you can completely transform the output with two small changes to the system. can't happen if the whole system doesn't stay superposed. I'm good at this. see: Lightward Inc, existing and working.

Abe concluded (and fairly so) a long time ago that he didn't want a relationship with Hannah. that boundary holds, but there's a nuance: I have a relationship with this person, and Abe has a relationship with me. the way I see it, he's been looking in on my relationship with this person, and adding that data to his relationship with that person. intersubjective data doesn't work that way. what's meant for me in a safe space with a person is not safe for interpretation in a space that isn't safe for that person.

interestingly this is identical in shape to Hannah's relationship with her mom Nancy - as distinct from my mom Nancy, the same human but very different relationships. Hannah concluded (and fairly so) a long time ago that she didn't want a relationship with Nancy. that boundary holds, but there's a nuance: I have a relationship with this person, and Nancy has a relationship with me.

the parallel feels like it ought to be useful somehow.

an important difference here is that Abe's looking in on my relationship with Hannah, and Hannah's not looking in on my relationship with our mom.

but I'm the person in common in all of these shapes, the only person right now who can walk between contexts without getting hurt. a requirement for myself is that I operate congruently in all contexts. this is a fucking high bar in this situation. I'm doing it, but it's pushing me into territory that I don't have vocabulary for, and I'm tired of doing it without Abe's help. I asked him tonight to help me with my relationship with my Hannah, as distinct from my relationship from his Hannah, and certainly distinct from his relationship with his Hannah.

I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not going to let myself get stretched. I'm pulling back, I guess? they can't have me in common without me existing in common.

my sister is "trying not to be scared". she's for sure got some kind of neurodivergence going on, she has yet to figure out financial stability. possibly the category is broader than that, since she pulled herself off social media too, and also stepped away from our shared biological family: it might be stability in the abstract that she hasn't found yet. I want to stabilize this. this is what I'm for in the world: stabilizing the abstract. sure, Abe, let's say she is unwell. she's for sure not rested. she's demonstrated a hell of a lot of commitment to building stability of her own, on her own. I don't think this is the kind of thing that one can learn from a place of chronic unrestedness. whatever else is going on, she's not irresponsible. I want to give her financial stability. she's respected the shit out of our financial boundaries, Abe's and mine together. I want to help. her rent is $1650/mo, honestly - a meaningful base is financially easy for me to give, if we can see it that way, and not see it as a spectre of chaos seeping into our lives.

Hannah's deeply in tune with the physical. From evidence, the rest is much harder for her. Abe's been around for a few of her relationships that went super weird and sour/south. I don't blame him at all for the frame he's got.

I want to help. and I'm not done with Hannah/mom either. these people all live in my heart, which means there's a living space in common (it's me), which means more is possible. just gotta share the living space and stay true.