Amber Lowe

A dash of weird, a cup of nerd, and just a few of pounds of love in one far too talkative package. Amateur Professional.
#Writer #Critter #NotAQuitter

[Amber Lowe @ToastyxToast]

This year didn't go as expected.

Life changing events repeating since summer culminating in a layoff just before my birthday.

But y'know what?
As stressful and uncertain as these times are - it's a chance to shake off the ashes & grow something new.

Looking forward to 2024. 🖖

[positivity moon @arrtnem]

On paper it is gorgeous. Two toothbrushes in one cup. Tiny socks on the radiator. Someone whose face you know in the dark reaching for you at 3:12 and not leaving. A small person with your eyes and their laugh eating cereal too slowly before school. It sounds like the closest thing to safety we have ever invented.

But a lot of people did not grow up watching love look like that. They grew up watching marriage be a war that never declared itself out loud. 19:40 on a Tuesday, plates not quite slammed, voices just quiet enough for the neighbors not to hear. A father sleeping on the couch for three years. A mother doing the emotional admin for five people and getting a wilted bouquet once a year as a receipt. The child learns quickly that forever can be a threat as easily as it is a promise.

You say mini mes. A lot of people hear smaller witnesses. Witnesses to debt. To screaming in the car park. To one parent disappearing for six months and calling it adjusting. Some bodies carry the memory of being the kid who held the camera and took the Christmas photo where nobody spoke to each other for two days after. They do not crave that house. They crave never putting anyone through it.

There is another layer no one likes talking about because it sounds too practical for a sacred topic. Mortgage rates that bite. Groceries that feel like a test. Friends burning out in two jobs and still wondering if they can afford a dentist, не те що дитину. Bodies that already wake tired. The idea of bringing in a small, breakable person is not just cute to them. It is a spreadsheet with red numbers and a nervous system that shakes.

And then there are the ones who were never told they were allowed to want something for themselves first. To them, choosing no partner and no kids for now is not selfishness. It is the first act of self parenting. It is finally learning to feed the part of them that was always the one doing the caretaking. They are not missing the desire. Sometimes they are surgically removing the compulsion put in them by a culture that treated women as wombs and men as wallets.

Some people hear spouse and feel warmth. Others hear spouse and feel a hand closing over their life. Some people look at a child and feel their chest widen. Others look at their own sleep schedule, their own untreated trauma, their own rage in traffic and think not yet, not like this. That is not nihilism. That is responsibility. The bravest thing some people will ever do is break the chain by not adding another link.

Marriage and children can be the most beautiful thing. They can also be the most efficient way to hide from yourself. It is easy to call it forever if you have never sat with your own loneliness without a witness. It is easy to say mini me if you have not yet met the parts of you that should not be replicated without serious editing. Many people want to arrive to that altar and that nursery with less unprocessed violence in their hands. That takes time. That looks from the outside like drifting.

If you are lucky enough to want it and still be soft when you picture it, hold that gently. Do not turn your hunger into a ruler you hit others with. The world has given plenty of reasons to be afraid of binding contracts and tiny hearts. Climate, war, courts, childhood bedrooms where love was conditional on performance. Not everyone has healed enough to gamble a child on their hope.

Ask people what they want under all the noise. Some will say a partner and kids. Some will say a room, a dog, three good friends and work that feels honest. Some will say I do not know yet, I was never given space to ask. The distance is not as far as it looks. Everyone is hunting the same thing under different packaging. A place where their nervous system can stop scanning the door. A hand that stays. A tomorrow that is not a threat.

You can stand in your dream of spouse and children without needing the whole planet to agree.

[kəira ♡ @keiranikole]

ppl saying “just use your PTO or sick days” when that’s not the point 😭 the point is the rigidity of everything and how inflexible society is and how work consumes most of our daily life

[Brooks | 🏳️‍🌈 @brookstweetz]

So like….what was the point of every studio having their own streaming service if you can’t access their full library?

[derek guy @dieworkwear]

My argument is simple: people who say they want to see a return of American manufacturing don't actually vote with their dollar. Let me show you. 🧵

[gbemisoke @Gbemisoke]

"death by a thousand paper cuts" is something people who are really interested in having long term successful relationships should know about. It's a lesson many learn after the fact tho. Like that guy who wrote about his wife divorcing him because he left dishes by the sink.

[Amber Lowe @ToastyxToast]

@sashasaidsum Everything but yellow, ngl. 🤣💀

[Karly Kingsley @karlykingsley]

Tell me more about how you’re deeply concerned that men are transitioning just to prey on women in bathrooms but you’re not concerned at all about the men who are preying on women out in the open and becoming elected officials.

[Dave Peasant, Aspiring Lorax @aspiringpeasant]

I saw something last might about this. How MAGAs are no longer gloating about "liberal tears" because liberals aren't crying.

The first time was a shock.

The second time everyone knew exactly what they were doing.

So liberals see this, rightly, as an assault on American values and the futures of their children and grandchildren.

They're not crying, they're cutting fascists out of their lives because now they've got to deal with the world the trolls made.

And so the trolls are all stuck with one another now, but the problem is their primary motivation was gloating over the Liberal Tears. So they're out of steam. And the MAGAs actually fucking hate *each other* too, so I'm the absence of snowflake tears they're quickly going to turn on one another.

When you elect fascism in my country you have told me who you are. You are full of hatred for the most vulnerable people in our society. You don't care about the environment or public health or education or human rights or the rule of law.

Fine, but we don't owe you a second more of our lives so you can feel better reveling in our sadness. We've gotta deal with the shitshow you've brought to our shores, so suck it up, buttercups.

[thatonemaddy.bsky.social @thatonemaddy]

Watching Gen Z men veer right hits different for Millennials. We lived through Columbine, 9/11, the Iraq War, 2008 crash, 2016 election, covid, abortion bans, & now this. We watched institutions repeatedly fail us while older generations selfishly protected the status quo. 🧵1/

[@TheCoreyRichardson on Threads. Follow Me There. @vexedinthecity]

The people in my autism parenting groups who are just figuring out what gutting the Department of Education is going to do to their kids, after they voted for Trump. Whew, chile. It’s a whole lotta, “They can’t do that, right?” Nah, bro. They can and they’re gonna.

[Amber Lowe @ToastyxToast]

💙 Vote 💙

[Amber Lowe @ToastyxToast]

@GingerGorman 🙌

[Craig Kofi Farmer, M.Ed. @State_Farmm]

Your boy is officially a PUBLISHED author 💚

I couldn’t be happier that my Ghanaian mythology story is out in the world. Black boys have always deserved to be the heroes of their own stories, and I hope you love this story as much as I loved writing it. See you in Asamando 🇬🇭

[Callum Stephen (He/Him) @AutisticCallum_]

The autistic urge to not register red flags as red flags because you’re so used to people misinterpreting your harmless behaviours and you don’t want to do that to anyone else, so you go *overboard* trying to find acceptable explanations for other people’s unacceptable behaviour.

[Astoria Lionhardt | REBRAND! 👑🦁 @Maowsers]

⚠️DO NOT BUY THIS LITTER BOX⚠️

🧵🔁

This automatic litter box is KILLING cats. I want to share this around because a lot of people are buying it and a lot of cat owners are unfortunately falling victim to this. The litter box in the picture is an automatic cleaning-

[Amber Lowe @ToastyxToast]

@OakleafInsignia I... well...

... it can be two things!

[soup 🤍 @alorazei]

"no means no" doesn't only apply to sex. it also applies when your friends say they don't want to drink anymore, when they say they don't feel comfortable with affection, when they say they don't smoke weed. respecting people's boundaries doesn't only mean when it comes to sex

[Pixie @ChaosPixieMagic]

No no, nobody is misrepresenting you sweetie.

You are proving our point. A lot. Like every time you open your mouth.

Just because YOU can’t imagine something existing in a fantasy world doesn’t mean the rest of us have to struggle. Some of us are more creative than that.

[Riley 🏎️ ⊃∪∩⪽ 🍉 @rileyanntoine]

It’s a generally bleak time for television; not just because of The Acolyte. Everything gets cancelled. Nothing gets a chance to find its footing like before. Companies wonder why no one’s watching and it’s because no one wants to get invested in an inevitable unfinished story.