Nthmosts Open Letter to Noisebridge
Bravespace Post - January 9, 2026
Hey just dropping in here to say i've been extra cranky, extra on-edge ever since Tuesday. There are reasons for that you can read in the Meeting Notes.
https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Meeting_Notes_2026_01_06
Some people don't understand immediately why i, personally, would be cranky.
Friends... For an entire month I carried the collective grief of a community that had lost faith in anarchy itself due to its inability to act on a very tricky situation.
A community that has lost several good members to this situation, people whose belief and love for Noisebridge were the strongest of any of us.
That's GRIEF that has to be processed. Relational loss. Guilt, shame, all the rest. It's not MINE but I carried over a dozen individuals' grief to be able to act.
I'm still carrying it. And i haven't had a chance to discharge it in any way. I need a good long cry, probably w/ 🍄
So... please be gentle with me. Don't take it too personally if I'm terse and just want to be left alone to work on my thing.
If you interrupt me a few times -- especially if i'm trying to answer your question -- I'm not going to be very easygoing about it. Sorry.
Emotions are real things. This will pass. But for now, please understand you need some gloves to handle me right now.
Thanks. ♥️
https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Anarchy_Paralysis
Follow-up (4:07 PM)
Also, please don't force me to answer for why i don't want to pursue some topics of conversation and some things I do.
Why would you do that?
Just let me tell you what's going to frustrate me. Ask me later when I'm not boiling over why some topics are OK and some are less OK.
Requests like that are asks from me to do more emotional labor to make you feel OK about my boundaries.
Just.... Wait, please. This will pass.
In the meantime, i'd appreciate a hug. And chats about the weather, and nice places to take long hikes.
Follow-up (4:19 PM)
Also:
I realize there are a LARGE number of individuals in this community, some of them who i know care very deeply about Noisebridge and other people, who are also simultaneously very uncomfortable with expressions of need for care.
And who are going to feel uncomfortable with the fact that the care I took on was as a direct result of their failure to act.
I don't care 🌈
Recommendation: STFU and get over it. 💙
I did this KNOWING this would be where I ended up. Voluntarily. And because I care about you.
🙏 So, you're welcome.
And also: there's no debt here unless you stick your heads in the sand on this.
It's gonna be OK. I will not feel this way for ever. It will take a lot less time -- and demonstrate people understand the load I took on -- if ppl just show up.
Thanks 🙏
Addendum (added a few hours later)
- Addendum: People keep saying to me, "don't burn out!" That just puts the burden RIGHT back on to people who actually do the work. A little acknowledgement and support goes a long way here. Not hero-worship: modeling relational care.
- I am simultaneously:
- capable of holding many people's struggles
- someone who needs to be held too
If this community wants to get better at not sublimating bad feels until they become insane crises that require someone like me, then the entire system that IS that community needs to get better at acknowledging and relating feelings.