Days 0674, 0675 & 0676

i come from a land far far away from where I live. And where I live is a small town with a big town dream.

I arrived here at 23, married. 

I made zero friends. Not because I am putrid but because everybody already has their friends down here. And those they aren’t friends with are family or people they went to school with.

More than one person said to me: oh, I’m not looking for friends, I’ve already got the ones I want.

Which I thought was just plain stupid. And very shortsighted.

Unless no one ever moves anywhere else (which does happen here far too much) friends come and go and come back again.

That’s the beauty of friendship.

And the nature of your friendship with even just one person can alter and change and grow and explode. The power can shift, the degree of need can agitate from one side to the other.

I existed here for about 15 years without any real friends. Partly it was small-townitis  as previously described and partly the controlling and introverted relationships I got into.

But about five years ago I hanged jobs and started to find My People. The ones who genuinely got ‘jokes’. The ones who were interested in big questions and politics rather than what was on tv last night (unless it was a leadership debate), and the ones who cared how I was when I wasn’t in the office with them.

Those friends made me stronger: finding them is the reason I’ve made the Good and Hard decisions I’ve made in the past four years.

Days 0672 & 0673

I can feel a niggling descent coming on.

I was feeling strong – strong enough to cut the happy pills down.

And it is so much nicer not to feel over-padded.

But now strong feelings are rushing in to fill the gap.

And I’m angry. And pissed off.

A child is not something to be manipulated.

How do people claim to love someone who they cause so much pain?

Love isn’t pain? And if it is, then fuck that. I don’t want it. I’d rather have someone be kind to me.

And, just by the way, the next person I barely know who feels the need to explain to me that men are treated as less than women in family court – persons who know nothing of me or my situation – can just go tell it to a plant or a shrub. Because really.

Days 0669, 0670 & 0671

Some days only leave room for expletives in my head. After three days of it; that is still all I have to share.

I really do not get chest-burning angry very often. As a consequence I have no practice explaining it other than this: Fuckadoodledoo.

With thanks to a wise woman for enlarging my vocabulary.

Day 0668

i just had to talk myself down from panic cleaning a glass stove top in a rented shack I have been sharing with 10 women.

When I woke up, I wandered into the kitchen for a cup of tea and spied a coffee tin, sugar and a dirty spoon sitting there.

I knew enough to stop myself.

And I did some thinking while the panic and fear throbbed through me.

I was being Pavlov’s dog yet again; expecting He Who Shall Not Be Named to scream in my face.

‘How could you be so stupid! You’re wrong for putting those there. You don’t respect me … Etc’

The room was silent but my ears still rang with the screaming. My heart pounded. Adrenalin rushed.

I cleaned the spilled food up to calm myself a bit. But I made myself stop there.

Until I have the space in my head to know  it’s me that does or doesn’t want it clean, I’m willing to sit halfway.

At least the anger I feel when I realise what a robot I am is slowly growing stronger than the fear of his unholy temper. Slowly.

Days 0666 & 0667

A tool who has done something unforgivable smiles broadly at his victim because he’s used to being forgiven.

Days 0664 & 0665

So someone who is nasty gives up their right to expect any generousity form me.

I concur. And I think I finally actually believe that is true as well.

So, does it then follow that someone who is nasty to me – who treats me poorly – gives up the right to expect me to be happy to see them? Of course.

And also gives up the right to expect me to be kind to them? Yes, I think that is also the case.

But does that mean I am allowed to be unkind? As in, I can be unkind – express my anger at my treatment with a One Finger Salute perhaps – and not feel that I am a terrible person?

I don’t seem to be able to give myself that.

And yet, I think it is entirely reasonable.

If I passed that Halfman and he was on fire, I would stop, put it out, get him some help.

But when I pass him and he smiles at me with that smile that expects me to be happy to see him, well I think it’s ok to be less than polite.

But clearly I am working hard at believing this for some reason.

I wish I was a meanie: maybe I would be more accepting of my humanity then?

Day 0663

What do you see in a person’s smile?

Do you see what you want to see — a lover, delighted to come across you unexpectedly? 

 Can you trust that what you see is true? 

That a twinkle in the eye is theirs and not something you placed there? 

 There are awkward smiles. And gassy smiles. Ones that can’t be helped. Reluctant smiles that burst out at you from the edges first.

There are frustrated smiles and frozen grins.

Polite smiles. 

And huge ones that rip the clouds away and sweep you off the ground. 

 But never before have I seen a smile that is so wrong and misplaced: so irrelevant to the person it was delivered to.

It was the same smile — from eyes to lips — that was given to me at the height of infatuation. And yet there it was on that same face today: the one that thinks I’m a big meanie, the same face that has been convinced by its owner that I am somehow bad for not being compliant and quiet. The same face that turned red and railed away at me in absentia and tried to belittle me to others because his wrong couldn’t be admitted and owned.

That smile — today’s version of the Love Grin — creeped me out.

Bullet dodged indeed.

Days 0661 & 0662

Woof!

That’s me. Pavlov’s dog here salivating when my bell rings.

I find nothing more frustrating than realising He Who Shall Not Be Named’s delightful presence in my life has modified the way I am, the way I react, the way I breathe.

I don’t take responsibility for it; it’s not my fault. But it does make me decidedly grumpy.

Apparently, every time I am asked about him in therapy I change completely. I sit differently, breathe differently, speak differently.

Like a dog who has been hit with a stick every time it opened its mouth.

Afraid of Him is now part of my body, my organs, my soul.

That seems so unfair.

Is it possible to slough it all off all at once somehow?

Or do I have to go through all that continuum: aware of it, notice it, stomp on it?

That’s hard bloody work.

But work for which my grumpiness motivates me.

I will not give him the unrealized pleasure of frightening me in spirit. I. will. not.

Next time I hit that place, I am going to force myself to relax, to be myself. To stop letting him influence me.

Fuck the way he treated me. I did not deserve it. I do not deserve the hangover.

Days 0659 & 0660

Swipe left for ‘Nope’. Swipe right for ‘❤️’.

Tinder is a genius piece of social commentary.

Because it really is essentially that dichotomy when I meet someone: I either am interested in that way or I’m not.

Now tinder is about as superficial as it gets and it is truly a wasteland of men posing next to cars with beers in their grip.

So sexy.

But if you subscribe to the Malcolm Gladwell ‘Blink’ theory, you know all in that instant.

The but that made me run away was this: engaging in conversation with someone I do know at all and feeling like I need to impress them.

You’d think of all places one would feel totally free to be oneself that would be it. But no.

I was still there contemplating putting their needs first.

At least I was aware I was on the cusp of doing it. That’s progress right?

And let’s just say this truly is one small town.

Days 0657 & 0658

Yup. I am so not ready to try again yet. I thought I was but you know, the whole bothering to pay attention to someone else and worrying whether or not they’ll like you is tiring and – honestly? – a bit tedious.

So I get the subtle kick in My behind: I’m still really into Me Time and figuring out what that is. 

There’s far too little of it around to use it to concern myself with charming a male I don’t know very well.

I can see that Me Time has progressed from a total ‘me on my own time thing’ to an integrating of friends into Me Time. That is healthy.

Maybe I’m just ready for more of that?