Regardless of your life, your childhood, your genetic predispositions, who you had sex with, where and whether you said no or not, there is one thing you can do to overcome all. Own it.
I wouldn’t be as me as I am, if I hadn’t unintentionally started doing so.
There are tales I’ve told, details shared, that pull gasping reactions and pats on the back. That’s not what I’m here for, though. I’m not looking for someone to tell me that what I’ve done, conquered, blocked out, is okay. That I’m strong or a survivor.
I’m not trying to wave a flag of prior abuse and a wear a sash proclaiming me an abuser because I want people to learn from me. I don’t think people much learn from other people at all. I am simply, like I said here, someone who chooses to see a “line and step over it, just in case someone needs to see a friendly face on the other side.”
We all make mistakes. We all fuck up – it’s the human condition by definition: evolving through learning from mistakes. It’s what we do about those choices we made, how we go forward that affects our future karmatic deficit.
Yeah, I feel like a shitty mother for yelling at Isobel. But I choose to not feel like a shitty person because I explain to her exactly why I’ve yelled and what it is that she can do differently to lessen the frustration or panic I felt to bring about my raised voice.
Yeah, I treated JDawg like shit at points. But I’ve never constantly treated him like shit. When I didn’t, even when it was excessively undeserved, I’ve been the model of best friend to him.
I’ve said goodbye to friends easily, harshly and publicly. And from those good-byes, I’ve not carried forward the same mistakes and mistrust into the other friendships I’ve made. And I’ve never not acknowledged my part in a scenario.
In any scenario.
So, point is.
I was abused, emotionally and physically by my father. But I chose to let it continue.
I took the really bad drugs at a really young age. Because I wanted to be fucked up.
I started an eating disorder at seven that would continue – depending on your viewpoint – forever, and it’s cost me more than nearly anything else could. But it’s made me really fucking candid about everything else, because when you wear your pain everyday, it’s not possible to hide the stories that go along with it.
I got raped because I said no at the last possible moment. It took me a few days to walk, then I told the fucker off. Six months later, I kicked him in the balls.
I found out my father was dying and I pretended as if our relationship was unmarred. And it made hating him after his death so much easier.
I cut my mom out of my life a decade ago. Then I let her back in nearly two years ago. But with some distance.
I’ve been bipolar for more than half of my life and repeatedly attempting suicide was the salvation I needed. Every single time. Now, it’s not anymore, because of those times.
I’ve grown amazingly close to people I’ve never even met in person. Closer than most I have. And I don’t regret it for a fucking second.
I don’t regret any of it, really. Because it made me me. Screwed up, emotionally unavailable, at times needy and untouchable, shrinking away from hands and embraces, self-degrading, unable to accept a compliment, quirky, sarcastic, an ear, a source of advice, self-absorbed, a bookworm, a writer.
I am, at my most simplest of forms, a culmination of everything that’s happened to me and that I’ve caused to happen. And the next steps afterward.
But what I haven’t been willing to do, ever, is simply be a victim. You will never catch me professing wan attitude over lives not being ruined, acting as if I have the sole right to hurt about it. If I ever attempt to help someone by telling my story about fucking people over, shoot me in the head because I really don’t want to be that self-important.
The day I wake up and think that my drama is fucking wisdom to other people and that I have a responsibility to share it, at the risk of negatively impacting several others, just to help even one? A cleaver – right in the chest.
Because that me that I am? Is a blogger, man. I’m no fucking more important or smart or talented or wise than anyone else. And I’m certainly not willing to rip people’s hearts from their chests to demonstrate it.
Einstein said “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” and it’s perfectly true. I’ve learned and moved forward to be able to own my shit because I’ve done different things, expecting different results. And gotten them. In fact, I’ve been most surprised in life when I’ve gotten the same results from different actions.
If I was being deceitful and frankly a manipulative bitch, I’d expect to be treated like one. And I’d deserve to be, until I repaired the damage. The way that is most appropriate to the damaged parties, not my spiteful, self-serving, flaky self.
This past Thursday I got to go out because I asked two friends, fellow Twitterers, Colleen and Chris, to be my pseudo dates to Vancouver’s Twestival. After Isobel was dropped off at the daycare lady’s apartment for her daughter to babysit, we met up in Yaletown to skip over for the semi-cramped, kind of sweaty, uber fun event.
I spent most of the evening at my friends’ elbows, avoiding the bazillion cameras and iPhones. Apparently, the third drink someone’d bought me did me in since I posed for this – what was the vodka thinking? The only other time that I was caught (unposed), only my fabulous hair was nabbed, thankfully – hair that did not make it home pinned all the way up, despite the volume of product and 27 bobby pins used.
I picked Isobel up later and drunker than I would have expected. She’d had a great time while I was having a great time, I’d been asked out for further drinks by two people – overall, except for the photographic evidence of my attendance, it was a WIN.
Wonderful.
Then today happened. With every one’s messages online and blog posts and people walking down the street with over-priced bouquets. And I was fucking bitter, let me tell you. Because, well, even for the women whose husbands didn’t pony up $30 for three tulips for the Non-Holiday that I consider Valentine’s to be, there was still a husband there, to call an asshead.
Not that I want a husband.
It just would be nice to have something to expect from someone maybe.
But Isobel was with her dad for most of the day, arriving home with presents in the form of a teaparty set (<sarcasm>woo the freaking hoo!</sarcasm>) and an outfit for which the shoes and socks were sized for people half her age. {I mean, I know she’s small, being 30 months and still wearing some 18-24 month sizes, but come on, 12-18? Isn’t that pushing the mininess a little?}
Anyway. She did not come home with crafts and wonderfulness for me, despite the fact that something has (until this day) always been done for her dad. Nor did she want to spread much wonderfulness when she was here – she was pretty happy to ignore me for imaginary tea, to whine and to not listen to a damn thing I asked of her.
Really a stellar day.
So I was feeling all in-a-funk, even though the lovely Lotus sent me some flowers.
Solution?
Act as if.
Go for a walk to return Space Dogs {guess who got to pick the movie for Friday Date Night?} to the store and buy an extra, unneeded, unaffordable cup of coffee. Eating a package of cinnamon hearts the entire way.
But first. I needed to look the part of a happy-with-the-world divorcee whose life isn’t over, and who doesn’t wear the tiredness, overwhelmtion and lack of sex for seven damn weeks in eons on her sleeve.
Also, the actor in this role doesn’t smell like neediness.
So I put a dress on top of my jeans. And I put some pants on Isobel and we rolled.
So, yeah, we returned the rental and got me a cup of coffee and I ate a pack of cinnamon hearts – all while wearing a dress. Fun times.
What do I wish had happened?
I would’ve put Isobel to bed and she would have been soundly sleeping when my phone had dinged with a message to go outside and look at the half-moon. And upon grabbing my keys, smokes, camera and baby monitor, I would’ve.
Maybe he would have been standing right there at the front door, or walked out from some hidden place, but he’d be there, saying he needed to kiss me. Then he would.
Magical. Sweet. Soulful. Unending.
The kiss would break off naturally, without that heat I’m used to wherein I must remove every inch of fabric immediately, to get it on as soon as possible. This would be the kind of kiss that made me breathe, barely above a whisper, “more. again.”
Slowly and without a need to rush.
He would have wrapped his arms around me in the moment, keeping me warm and safe, close to the very centre of everything that existed, because the rest of the world – the cold air, the cars driving past, my daughter asleep two flights up – would have melted from my mental periphery.
That I would stand there for three minutes, twenty, an hour and seven, simply drinking in his essence and remained completely vertical and clothed is a surprise to me. In fact, it’s not something I’ve ever considered in a fantastical sense. The need to breathe in his air, to feel his hand on my cheek, for him to brush my hair from the place where our mouths and tongues meet…it’s foreign.
But ever so delectable.
When we finally part for good, taking six inches of space for each of us to regain our separate realities, there’s a bittersweet and faint smile turning up the corners of our reddened lips. He must go back to his four walls, and I must as well.
But I smile, for the next few days, peaceful. Touching my ragged-nailed fingertips to my lips with a slight pucker, licking the corner of them, hoping for a taste of what he left behind.
That is what I wanted today. And instead, I got no from Isobel and controlled silence from JDawg and noise in my head.
