Day 0467

I have limits. They are rather grand and ideological but I do have them when it comes to people and relationships.

What I don’t have is trivial limits in relationships. And by trivial, I mean mundane, not unimportant.

In other words, while lying to me is a relationship Deal Breaker, making me feel shitty because you’re having a bad day is not.

And I’m starting to think it should be.

That the nuance can be found in the degree of deal breakage crossings that limit does rather than in softening of the limit until it is limitless.

So, for instance, I give you an extra inch because I am being kind and reasonable. And you turn around and say, that’s mean to give me an inch, it should be an inch-and-a-quarter or you’re being selfish.

My historical reaction is: oh yes, why didn’t I give away more? I am selfish. Here is an inch-and-a-half.

What I will now say – and have always said to my kid when he pulls this one – is: if you don’t want the treat of the extra inch, let’s forget it and move on.

I had to do that with He Who Shall Not Be Named yesterday.

As with all new experiences it was scary and I questioned myself at every second.

But it built something – all that scary effort – it built a line in me and around me. I suppose I’ll have to defend it from The Beast occasionally.

But it’s a helluva lot easier to defend a line you can see and feel than to grasp madly for one you’re not certain should be there.

Days 0645 & 0646

Fark! In spite of life looking up, I am still not superhuman. My Ex can still create a sense of foreboding over his potential behavior that makes my heart race, my teeth grind and my hands shake.

If only The Best Advice Ever had come many years ago instead of recently:

Date dickheads if you have to, just do not breed with them.

Days 0642, 0643 & 0644

Am I completely deluded to think that my trait of seeing the best in people is a good thing?
Because I am beginning to see that the line between ‘wishful thinking’ and ‘seeing the best’ is very very very thin.
And it can’t just be hormones and loneliness that shroud beings like the Halfman with a beauty that isn’t actually there – a beauty I project onto him.
If I did ‘see the best’ surely there would have been little enough of it not to interest me. But if what I do is ‘wishful thinking’ then what I saw was what I wanted to see, what I needed to see.
And that possibility is scary in a world of men with wonky moral compasses (compassi??).

Days 0640 & 0641

Does a man’s approach to a first kiss reveal his personality flaws and fabulosity?

I don’t mean where and when the kiss happens, but the actual mechanics and technique.

If it’s matter of fact and insistent, does that mean the man doesn’t have any desire to unpeel the onion layers of my personality? That he’ll believe that what he see is all of what I am.

The one that doesn’t get the hint of tightly gritted teeth as a fortification against their probing cow-tongue and tells you to ‘just relax’ as if that’s what’s keeping your incisors on high alert. Is that the man who never takes a ‘hint’ — not that I’m a fan of hints generally but telling someone to get their tongue the hell out of your mouth seems like it would put paid to any continuing mouth-to-mouth activity. (And maybe that’s the lesson here: it should be said and it should end then and there).

The ones who start gently and slowly get to know your lips and your kisses; they are the ones who watch and think and care? Or do they just need you to take the lead?

Kissing is weird in the scheme of things. It doesn’t make a lot of rational sense; you can’t be vigilant and on alert for predators while you’re doing it. It doesn’t improve fertilisation (as far as I know).

But it can be really amazing – with the right person. Gross kissers are gross; like expecting a prince and getting a certified accountant. The sooner you get out of there, the better

Beautiful kissers are poets, tangling you up in their mouths, listening, changing rhythm, letting their words fall onto your lips like snowflakes.

Days 0638 & 0639

The only numinous experience I’ve had in life is motherhood.
And almost every moment of it is the very definition of numinous: terrifying yet also beautiful.
Today, which is filled with barf, nosebleeds and refusal to take medicine, is still one of those days.
Part of what makes parenthood terrifying is the trivia.
But mostly it’s the weight of responsibility and inability to control everything that freaks me out.
To see evidence of how you live your life walking around in human form can be somewhat confronting.
But this all has its fun ‘twisting their young minds’ moments too.
I had my kid convinced for a long time that there was a fairy that brought him new pajamas.
Parenting is terrifying and gross and it’s almost impossible not to fly by the seat of your pants the entire time.
And it’s also a process of constantly letting go: maybe successful parenting is the longest good-bye we ever have? And a very very long process of remembering your own self?

Day 0637

I’m allowed to say when I’ve been treated poorly. I’ve more than learned that during the past four years.
But I’ve also learned this: I’m allowed to say what was done that caused the poor treatment.
In fact sometimes saying it out loud or in a blog or wherever is an entirely powerful thing.
People who do mean things probably already hate themselves for doing them – at least my bleeding heart view tells me they do.
But that doesn’t mean we need to be kind to them by not stating what was done in black and white.
To pick my favorite example:
Halfman more than knew what he did to me. He hated himself for it – or for getting caught but he still persisted and denied and even had the moral vacuum to try again.
But what hurt him more than anything – what weakened him completely – was to be told or to read what he had done in black and white.
Somehow my doing that made me the mean one in his eyes.
But I watch these women who have decided to take their bodies back after having naked photos put online without their consent; the ones who put their own naked photos on the web by choice to take their power back, and I think: that is power, that is rising beyond not just above.
Rising above is just another way of letting a perpetrator not face what they’ve done. We seem to consider it elegant because there aren’t any ugly emotions or unpleasant words involved.
But to rise beyond … That is the new goal for me.
There is power in outing a Halfman even if he is truly the only one who knows who he is.
There is power in saying of He Who Shall Not Be Named: You are an abuser of women and children. I feel sorry for you but I will not pretend it didn’t happen. You put a fist to my face and you will have to acknowledge that or spend all your energy pretending the truth is not true.

Days 0634, 0635 & 0636

When I was about 16, I really pissed off a young woman who turned out to be a frenemy (though we didn’t have a word for it in those days: they were just a friend who wasn’t that great to be around. This one kept getting mad at me, telling me off and then a few days later she’d come and apologise, only to get mad at me again soon after.

I couldn’t be bothered after a while.

I think what I’d done to really annoy her was this:

She had spent a lunchtime moaning about how her parents never believed her and questioned her when she said she was going out as if she was lying about where she was going.

Now, we all knew she was lying about where she was going — she had told us that she was.

My mistake was to say: But why should your parents believe you if you are lying to them. Surely they are treating you the way you deserve to be treated.

I’m sure it must have sounded pretty prissy coming out of a 16 year old’s mouth, but I didn’t mean it that way. It just seemed so obvious. If you’re lying to someone, you can hardly blame them for realising it.

In the end it’s a case of the emperor having no clothes and the dislike of having your nakedness pointed out.

Halfman hated me for that too. When I finally realised what he was doing/had done to me, I think he expected I would just fade away into the background but I didn’t. I pointed out what he was doing and although he never gave me the satisfaction of acknowledging I was right, I know it killed him to be told he wasn’t wearing any clothes.

Even with small things. I caught him stalking me one night on Facebook — I could see an old profile of his pop up in my window because – in those days – he’d been classified a ‘close friend’ and fb loves to tell you when they’re online too.

But I couldn’t block him from seeing anything because he suspended his profile in between uses.

When I told him I knew what he was doing, he first denied it, then told me he didn’t respond to demands and then pretended he didn’t know how to reactivate it even though he’d clearly done it many times before.

I admired his ability to cling to his not-actually-there clothing.

But I did wonder what the inside of his head must look like to allow him to keep on lying even when caught out so obviously.

As I age I find it harder and harder to bother not telling people when they aren’t actually clothed; when their reasons/excuses are ridiculous.

I no longer sit politely and clap when a speaker fills a room with ridiculous excuses for being cruel to people just because that’s what we’re trained to do. I get up and leave. Or I stand and turn my back.

Or I find a way to out them in my work (I write stuff for a living).

I think this is a new measure for me — I will measure my honesty by how willing I am to declare the emperor naked when his meat and veg are clearly on display.

And my innate Canadian politeness should see me through any consequences.

Except for a white lie situation, is it ever rude to tell the truth?

Days 0632 & 0633

Know what’s irksome?
Having that face or that tone or something – I’m not sure what it is even after 43 years of experimenting – that indicates I’m just being polite with I say ‘no’ to something.
You know how it goes:
Mother-in-law: would you like another cup of tea?
Me: no, thank you.
MiL: You don’t need to be polite about it; have another cup.
Me: No, thank you. Really.
MiL: I’ll get you one – it’s no trouble …
Me: No, please. Really no.
MiL starts making tea.
Me: (getting desperate) No. I’m not being polite; I don’t want a cup of tea.
MiL laughs quietly, makes cup of tea, puts it in front of me.
Me: Fuck you, fuck bucket! I said NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (Flips table over and walks out the front door.

Or, more frequently:

Me: oh, thanks. (Sips tea to be polite and resents every second of it).

At the level of a cup of tea it’s annoying.

But when it gets to the stage where no one can hear me say no to anything, it’s pretty disempowering.

Is the problem the listener’s or mine?

Because I’m pretty sure I can and do say No more frequently than might be expected.

Days 0630 & 0631

I’m not a lover of the phrase ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’. As much as I see the sunny side of things and can pull a positive experience out of a pig’s ass, I don’t like the implication that you should accept the lemons.
And sometimes, let’s admit it, there are only extremely weak positives to be found (‘I’m still here’ being the one I pull out when there ain’t nothing else to grasp at).
All of which is preliminary to understanding why it has taken me ages to be able flip the Halfman experience into something positive.
‘Flipping’ is my version of making lemonade. It doesn’t require me to accept that the shit thrown my way was in any way acceptable, but it does allow me to find something worthwhile in the mire.
So, I’ve finally got the distance to do it and, if I can pull myself out of the anger, hurt and anger, this is the flip I can do:
I set aside what That Thing was actually doing, and the lack of humanity that would have allowed That Thing to treat me that way and I can see that I had the opportunity to have a six month relationship with a dream.
Now, please don’t think I’m referring to That Thing as ‘dreamt’ or a ‘dreamboat’. Nuh uh. What I’m saying is I had the opportunity to have an intense relationship where I felt admired and cared for with no obligation to build relationships with his family, no requirement to be overly involved in day to day shite and anxieties. We – well I – enjoyed my time with that dream that listened and talked about interesting things – that not real object that cared and told me I was beautiful and enjoyed the same activities as me. And charmed my son, and responded to my worries and my thoughts like they mattered.
So when I’m in a place where I’m strong enough to block out all the reality of what Halfman was doing, I can almost sustain the flipped version for a few minutes.
But it does make me wonder; is someone who cares about me so seemingly much just because I’m me, only real in a dream?

Days 0628 & 0629

How does a northern hemisphere grrl remain cook on a blazing Southern Hemisphere day?
She remembers a trip by train to a remote township on the shores of Hudsons Bay.
-43 is what the MEC zipper thermometer said as she and Her One and Only stood at the shoreline (which you couldn’t really distinguish from the frozen Bay) looking toward the Arctic.
Only eyes and lashes showed but she could feel them freezing within moments. Every sound (of which there weren’t many) was crisp and shattering. Everything except the occasional worn side of a shipping container homestead was white white white.
The only signs of life were inside the library/gym/rec centre where a large white cockatoo sat rather absurdly in a cage within.
The soles of her boots were frozen solid.
The cold hurt. It ached.
It felt like a hell of a lot of work to remember there were less bleak places a few hundred kilometers south. Well, not that much less bleak – we are talking about Winnipeg here. Where he hostess had to take a hair drier to the pipes to get the shower water flowing.
The heat in the antipodes sometimes feels like a wall.
The cold in that place was like a cell – it had four walls, a top and a bottom.
It was hard and sharp and forbidding.
And amazing in some way that has never left her.