Defining Patience

Currently my life is calm.  It's nice, peaceful, fulfilling and on my terms.  I will be the first to admit that I am a control freak but I am also the first one to put aside my own selfish wants to accommodate others needs and feelings.  So ultimately, me being alone, is pretty much as good as it gets I suppose.  I get to live in my little world that no one tramples on and I don't have to care-take over anyone else.  I have my routine and my schedule and I don't have to work it around anyone else.  I don't have to make sure things are done according to someone else's ideals and I am much more content and happy with my surroundings as a result.   Pride is a word I would use.  Pride and comfort.

I take inventory quite frequently on my progress with healing.  Measuring how far I have come in such a short time to get back to where I was prior to drowning.  About a week ago, I had a memory pop up out of the blue of "The Good Christian" berating me.  I remember being in a foul mood about something, I was upset about my daughter for something.  It was always the situation where if I was upset or mad, he would become even more upset and angry as if I weren't allowed to have those emotions or he assumed that I was mad at him and he didn't appreciate that.  I can't remember the details but the scene that popped into my head was him standing across the room from me and glaring at me while bitching about something and saying "are you in a shitty mood cause your daughter won't talk to you or is it because you are pissed off your mom is dead?"
It was around Mother's Day.

Things like this can crop up out of nowhere.  When it happens, I get anxiety, I feel fearful, this wave of feeling like I have to walk on eggshells comes over me and I have to talk myself down and remember/remind myself that I am the one in control now.  Not him.  It was ok for me to be upset about something, it was NOT ok for him to say that.  It just makes me ill I tolerated that...

I wanted to be a beacon of warning.  I wanted no one else to be hurt by this invisible monster that just creeps up in your life and takes you down.  I didn't want anyone else to have to bow to his standards which is a game of changing rules, double standards, moodiness and denial.  But I can't.  it's not my place to tell others that stupid is as stupid does.  This doesn't mean I can't lead a path to awareness of mental abuse.  If I were told in the beginning that this was who he was, there is no way in hell I would have believed it.  It's only now, linking up the pieces and recalling the red flags that were there from the beginning, that I am able to know for myself what to be aware of in the future. It's all I can do.

The things you hate about others are the things you hate about yourself.  So, in this philosophy I have been turning the mirror to myself and taking a big look at the reality of what I hate about others and what I am failing to admit to myself.  This has been a little confusing at times because things like, I hate that I was told I was unworthy of love. Well, I never have thought or felt that way about anyone so that isn't applicable.  But then I say, I hate the way someone else tries to control everything, and I have to reckon with my own dictatorship. 
And I do.
And things change.  Within me and around me. 
Letting go of ego is a lot more difficult for those of us who had none and regained confidence.

Patience is being able to accept a different outcome than the one you were expecting.  I am perfecting the art of patience by releasing expectations.  It takes practice, but you do it because, it's not about you.

I have direction in my life, a plan, friends I can count on and who can count on me.  My kids are thriving and happy, not having to live under the pressure of living with an authority figure who hates them.  We went camping a couple weeks ago and it was probably one of the best, most relaxing and fun times we have had camping.  At the end of it, i knew I was in the right place at the right time because when I folded up the tent, it all fit in the fucking bag, zipper closed. 
That means you're doing it right.

Over a year out for being single.  No dating, no offers, no interest.  I'm 60 pounds lighter, still fairly attractive (I hope anyway) and working on that degree to go with the brainyness.  But I look around at the general population of men around me and it just turns my stomach.  For one thing, trying to find a single, attractive, smart, nice man my age, who doesn't live at home and/or have a drinking problem is impossible.  So, the ones that are single, do not fit the rest of my own personal standards.  And yes, I am allowed to have standards.  I prefer people who accept responsibility for themselves.
I watch other couples and more and more all I see is how needy and clingy men are.  They cannot be alone.  They are like children, needing someone to take care of them.  They have this woman standing next to them that does this because she knows how much this partner of hers takes but everyone pretends its she who is the lucky one....  You know, cause he is a great provider (I have NEVER had that, don't know what that is like), he is a great dad (on the weekends) and he ..... whatever.
I can't currently fathom anyone in my life.  I feel like I would have to make sacrifices and compromise all in the name of providing for someone else.  It's such a turn off.  I question if I am lesbian but sexually, no.  Not an option.  I hate that I feel so protective over myself that I can't make an effort to find another to spend quality time with.  So I stopped thinking of it as an option.  Sex department wise, it's cool, I have no libido anymore.  It's a little tough to feel desirable when there isn't anyone to make you feel you might be.  My last trysts so long ago, left such a bad impression on me, it's just not worth the effort.

I have a  co worker that is newer to me and every now and then we get to chat and I find out more things about her.  She is my age, she has two teen boys, she is tall and super pretty, has this gorgeous smile and is awesomely friendly.  Divorced and remarried, she just has her shit together.
The other day I found out that they had just completed the building of their home and I felt completely deflated. I cried later. So very happy for them, I mean how exciting is that?  Its been a big dream of mine for two decades to build a geodesic home, I think that's awesome.  I was deflated because I realized that was not going to be me.  Ever. 
I have always wanted to have a big Halloween party, never happened. 
I always wanted a birthday party for myself, never happened.
I would have even been happy with some kind of birthday acknowledgement!  Take a trip, have a vacation, have inheritance, have family, have fucking medical insurance....
(on the heels of finding out I need to come up with like $7,000 for medical treatment....)
I can't help but compare.  Things I have looked forward to my whole life have been slipping away  left and right while people are standing in front of me getting it handed to them. It's jealousy.  It's anger and it's fear.  So I can be mad, I can feel upset. 
As long as I can let it go at the end of the day and have patience with myself.  The patience that is accepting a different outcome than the one I was expecting.

When the ulcer becomes a bleeding one

I have no idea where I am going with this.  I've got a few balls in the air right now and I'm either in a process of avoiding making a list of things I HAVE to tend to by this Tuesday, convincing myself it's ok to just SIT once in a while or thinking about what I need to put on aforementioned list.  I'm smack dab in the middle of a decision that will or will not have an impact. (yes, an impact.)  The decision itself has been made, I'm literally trying to plan the aftermath and that is about the silliest thing I have tried to do...
lately.

I have these certain fears that paralyze me in life with regard to what I have been taught of 'survival'.  Not having a place to live being a priority, having a reliable car, being able to keep utilities on and food on the table.  It's the fear of running out of any of these necessities that keeps me in this bubble of anxiety, permanently, because I have no one to rely on.  It is a full time job for someone like me, earning a backbreaking income, to keep a head above water, much less the addition of two teenagers.  I don't get to 'plan' anything.  There is no savings for travel or vacation (whatever that is). Retirement fund?  Yes.  My plan is to work until I have no choice but rely on social security because I don't have any other options at this point.
 
So we throw school in to try to upgrade us at least enough to bump us into the next tax bracket. 
I have to rid myself of some income I have coming in because what it is doing to me physically alone is not worth the peanuts I make, in the long scheme of things.  So before it eats me into permanent negativity I have to let it go because I can't afford to obsess about what is going to become of someone who has a husband that is/has been a provider for her.
That has multiple residences. 
That has family.
Not when the cost is me feeling completely disrespected, un trusted and used.  I've had enough of that.
I've come to terms that it's going to be alright.  If it comes to a point where some action or decision needs to be made, I will do so and try to believe I will make the best decision at the time. 
Fucking control freaks.....
We are assholes.

It's been over a year since I have been in any kind of relationship whatsoever and just about as long to celebrate celibacy. 
I turned 40 with no acknowledgement and have felt invisible and rejected ever since.  Well, some days.  It's not an ego booster to not have any attention.  Mantras don't help.  It's confusing.  Confusing, freeing, ironic and ever evolving how I feel.  Is it that I think I need someone or is it just hormones?
Again.
It's the shitty smile.  It's the lack of time.  It's the blatant history. It's the look I have of "wounded-man-hater" I suppose.
I'm picking and choosing more and while before perhaps standards would be more relaxed as time went on, I feel like mine are becoming more stringent.  Not just with regard to dating, I just mentioned that is not a thing, obviously, but with regard to any personal relationships. 

I still have a lot of negativity towards the 'good christian'.  A lot of the feeling has become nothing.  Just non existent.  I don't pay attention to things I don't want to and I try not to feed the anger flames but at times some word will be heard or some flash on tv and I am taken back to a memory of unfavorability.  The other day it was when I gave him a letter I had written when we were only like a year and a half, two years in where I told him there were times I felt afraid of him and it made me uncomfortable.  So I have this whole situation in my brain and at the same time my brain is going "SEE!!  You were a fucking IDIOT dollface!!  You saw it then!  He acted like he was offended anyone would think that about him and HOW MANY years AND people have come across with saying the SAME THING OF HIM!!!"

*sigh*
So then I'm back to my present and I feel embarrassed and hurt and sad.  So it's another cycle of delving into all the things I have to take care of, need to do.  Life would be so much easier with a live in assistant to take care of all my needs like paying bills and cooking and cleaning. 

I think I need a girlfriend.
Forget sex, I have no libido anymore. 
No need for it I suppose.
I think I need to feel better about myself somehow and I need to have confidence I have this thing called life, not figured out, but doable.  I need to have hope for something. Right now its all work.  It's work and school and home and about 90% of it, on my own.  It's all in kind of a limbo right now and I just feel overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed and underappreciated.
You'd think as a woman, I'd be used to this shit by now.

Truth and toilets

I think it's absolutely cowardly to run away from your responsibilities.  Maybe you need some time or help to get through taking care of what you are personally responsible for, but here I am, 11 months later, still picking up after someone who left me and delusionally thinks I owe him any goddamn thing.  It dawned on me he had been doing that the whole time I have known him.  Would rather get up, walk away and ignore whatever it is he didn't want to deal with.  Which was a lot.  He used over half his tax refund catching up on car payments that he was behind on.  Not because the money wasn't there, but because he didn't make the payments.  So many other things through the years that were ignored and a back turned on.  It's really unbelievable how little one person will take responsibility for himself after boasting on being such a stand up man.  Ironic.

I'm getting settled in my new home and the kids are genuinely happier.  No more feeling that oppressive, choking feeling of intimidation in the room.  Makes my stomach turn to think of it now.  I'm getting a routine going in my constant movement through the days.  I made the realization I had lost 50 pounds, effortlessly, in less than a year when it had piled on over the course of 6 years due to depression and insecurity.  When I take the dog out for his walk in the morning, I smile 'just because' and I'm very much enjoying my productivity and ability to remain more in the moment.  Losing stresses and having anxieties buried.  I'm enjoying every minute regardless of the insecurities I still feel that live inside me.

In dream analysis, to dream of a clogged or overflowing toilet is a sign of emotional repression.

 Toilet
To see a toilet in your dream symbolizes a release of emotions. You need to get rid of something in your life that is useless. 

To see a clogged toilet in your dream suggests that you are holding and keeping your feelings to yourself. Your emotions have been pent up too long and you need to let go of the negative feelings.

To see an overflowing or flooded toilet in your dream denotes your desires to fully express your emotions

Dreaming about a flood with mud and/or garbage spilling out of the toilet indicates that your feelings are repeatedly being belittled, undermined or unacknowledged. You feel disrespected."

Over the years, I have continually had dreams of disgusting toilets.  Overflowing, no stalls, just gross and at times, overcrowded, bathrooms.   I always hated them, they were always so vivid and left me feeling confused.
So you can imagine my excitement when I had my first dream about a month ago, where there was a clean bathroom!  Since then, there have been a couple with maybe some clogged toilets but still having stalls and still being able to find a clean one.  It felt amazing, oddly enough...

Also lately though, most every night, I am having dreams of trying to escape.  Either with a group of people or by myself.  In weird locations like on a ship or in a big city.  Countryside or houses.  I'm either being hunted or trying to get away from someone dangerous.  I am finding my way out of forests, rivers, warehouses, cities.  I even had one the other night where I received a pep talk from Carl Sagan...
I have no explanation.

I am so put off by the idea of dating.  Not that I have the option to.  That would require someone being interested in me.  Those that were, I'm just not interested in, point blank.  So I'm back to where I was before when single, feeling like I have the plague.  I was musing awhile ago that that could be the reason I ended up acting on so many losers.  Just wanting attention, any attention, was what I was seeking.  When you find someone willing to give it to you, you settle out of some weird sense of desperation.  Well, at least I did.  My desire for attention, while still strong, has been prioritized for things like loving myself and having standards.  Not to mention my own insecurities on my own physical attributes keeping me from reaching out. 

I'm scared of being interested in someone and finding out too late they are controlling and I am giving way more of myself than I should.  I look around at all the single males I know and there is one thing about 90% of them have in common.  They do not want to be alone.  It's like they can't.  As I live in my head and I try to figure things out about myself, I always visit the question of "why do I feel like I want someone?" and I have a huge feeling most men don't ask this of themselves.  They go from woman to woman, sliding along and feeling like it's a life or death situation to get the next one.  Even lined up beforehand.
Sounds familiar...

The few I do know that aren't on a mission to find what boils down to a convenient supply of sex, are living life.  Its not a priority.  They (hopefully) are finding fulfillment not in other people, but in themselves and what they are doing.  These want to surround themselves with others like minded.  Where a relationship isn't something you seek, it's something that just evolves.  No pressure and no judgement, because it's not a priority.  So I feel like I was on the other side of the fence, feeling incomplete without a partner or feeling I had to take what I could get and I've tunneled my way under the fence, poking my head up gopher style, and checking out my new digs.
;)
I don't want to be sucked in to someone who is just wanting someone for their own comfort, adoration and convenience again.  I certainly don't want to do that to someone else either.  The other thing I am relieved of by not being concerned with dating is having to put up with men who put on a front of being interested but it's only a physical thing they are after.  Why the hell can't people just be adult about sex?  Why put yourself back in a high school mentality when life isn't even a competition anymore?

I feel like an 80 year old reminiscing.  I watch these other people, single, coupled and I see the dynamics between them.  What works, what doesn't, what eachother tolerates and what each sacrifices. Not necessarily to compare my own past or present but just studying people.  It's only natural the topic of relationships should be on my mind and now that I am getting to a better understanding of myself, I'm really seeking my tribe.  I'm not gloming on to people I think will like me, I'm being more selective about who I spend my valuable free time with.  I want to have more enriching experiences and I want to become more unbiased.

I think a lot of my thinking lately is skewed because I live in my head so much.  Working alone, one day off a week, full time school, a very rare adult to talk to.  The subject of loneliness creeps on and I have to remind myself, it's not in my control at this time, so I have to be ok with that because that is the truth.

 

Slice of Cake

I feel lighter.  Not just in the weight I have lost. I feel as if the past 7 years never happened.  I feel as if I have moved from my old apartment to a new one. That’s how I feel.

My brain tells me other things to contradict that feeling but now that I am no longer having to be in any kind of shared vicinity with the ‘Good Christian’, it has been so much easier to push the negative thoughts away.  Challenged only by the fact I have no positive thoughts on he as an entity.  I have flashbacks of him telling me I’m a horrible person.  Telling me I am “awful at relationships” because I didn’t apologize the right way.  Telling me I am “unworthy of love”.  The moment those words were uttered, I had no reason what so ever to stay.  It was the systematic breakdown of someone trying to make me into someone I am not and punishing me because I wasn’t that imagined person.

I literally feel sick to my stomach when I recall these things.  

About a week ago I was driving to work and I was just in a great mood.  (As of late, it’s pretty damn rare to catch me not feeling pleasant…) My brain went about thinking about how I was getting back to who I was before I met him.  Happy.  Independent. Confident. Secure. Things are back on my terms now instead of being a slave to someone else’s schedule and demands.  No more dripping with anxiety about what mood he would be in or what I would do wrong next. It dawned on me that I was so grateful that I can get back to that woman, except now, I am much happier than I was even then.

And I cried. 

I don’t cry.  If I cry, it’s because I am extremely angry and frustrated.  But welling up with happiness and crying was a new thing for me.  Confusing…

I wanted to take that girl that dumb, naive, girl, and hold her tight.  Hold her right on my heart as tight as I could so she could be safe and loved.  Tight, until she felt human again.  Like someone who had worth to another.

Herself.

It’s been a journey.  It has been one of the most challenging times in my life, and not just the last year.  Ever since I read that letter telling me how shitty he thought I was, (three pages worth!) I developed a wall of anger.  The wall has changed over time with what it is built with, but that wall, will always be there.  It grew ever higher with the more he continued to try to exert control and issue ultimatums.  I would find myself recalling his insults to me and I became very aware that every single god damn thing he accused me of being, I was not and he was.  He is.  Dripping with insecurity and a desperate need to have accolades.  The self-righteous of the self-righteous.  The complete opposite of me. 

I reflect back on my time at Dhamma Sukkah and I know now I really did come back different.  My whole outlook is different.  I look back at who I was and I don’t recognize her.  I will never be thankful for this ‘lesson’ I have learned.  This is not a congratulatory situation where I thank someone for treating me like shit so I could become awakened. I’m here and I am successful because of me.  I took the steps to recognize.  To push back.  To break a chain.  Some would rather slide right on into a new relationship…. Or two… three? Much like a snake. I chose to own my shit and call a bully a bully.  I’m not the first to call him that.  Not by a longshot.

So I am now at a point where I am working two jobs, school full time, getting settled into my new home and taking care of my kids. (They are going to be a whole other post. Abuse affects everyone.)  My work is really picking up and I’m setting up goals I want to work towards. There is so much that is going ‘right’ in my life right now, seamlessly, that it’s almost scary.  I practice letting go of ego bit by bit and it’s all ok. 

On the flipside of things, and I only bring it up because it has weighed heavily on my mind lately, there are things I want in my life as I crave them but I try to justify it with ‘human nature’.  I have been floating along the situation of my feelings about this because there is nothing I can do about it but maybe it’s one of those I-only-want-it-cause-I-don’t-have-it kind of deal.  But then one morning, it happened...

I’m gonna get personal for a minute.  

Probably about 8 or 9 years ago, I was experiencing a weird phenomenon where after practicing some self-love, I would be overwhelmed by this sadness.  It would make me weepy and desolate.  I had no control.  It was some weird hormone thing I supposed.  At the time I wasn’t dating anyone (few of those times in my life) and I was feeling alone.  So after some research I found why. Oxytocin is released in orgasm.  (For us breast feeders, those are the ‘feel good’ hormones that come with let-down.)  It is a chemical that is responsible for the communication component of love, not the romantic but not to say they don’t share mutuality.  So for most women this is an emotional aspect of life.  It’s what bonds us to our children,  bonds us to our lovers, to our partners.  It’s called the “love hormone” for a reason.  So when we experience something that is strong with this endorphin, you instinctively want to share it.  You want to reach out to that other soul and send out that vibration.

So what happens if there is no one there?  What if you are left there, alone, with these love hormones racing through you and you know deep down this is something that is meant to be bonding but your brain says… “hey, wait a minute…. Something’s wrong here….”  All because as we are having this human experience  that is ingrained in us, anciently, to be a part of something.  A community, a family, a partnership etc.  Social creatures by way of needing companionship for survival. We need touch and compassion.  Vulnerability and peace.  We want to share happiness with others and if others aren’t happy, we want to make them happy. 

When you’re masturbating, it’s just you.  There is no soft touch.  No deep kisses.  No inhalation of that sneaky pheromone that says “be mine”.  It wasn’t a team effort by any means.  No one is desiring you.  You aren’t appealing to anyone. You provided no pleasure to anyone.  It can turn into a real ugly scene real quick.  It can make one cry after reaching climax; on her own.  

Finding myself thinking about the land of make believe law of attraction, I have been conflicted as I’m pretty more than certain my life theme is ‘lone’.  I had a dream I was trying to seduce someone because, let’s just say I am hugely sexually attracted to them, and the person was like ‘eh, no thanks.’  So after blabbing the jist of my dream on Facebook, I was greeted with a remark “guess he’s just not that into you.”  I know for certain this was not a personal attack or meant to be taken as ridicule but the only thing I could reply with was “story of my life” and it hurt. It hurt that I felt that way and that it was the truth.  So since I have been getting these frequent signs that say, “don’t bother”, I won’t.  The lack of having control over the situation is aggravating to say the least.  History has shown me that I have been the aggressive one in showing interest or bedding down with someone and I’ll be damned if every time it just turns out to be another asshole.  But I have felt the need to do so because men don’t approach me.  Men don’t flirt with me.  I don’t get asked out.  I don’t get taken on dates.  Sometimes I get a deer in the head lights look from them when I attempt to be friendly and other times, it’s completely dismissed.  

I make a really cool hang out friend I have been told.

Yesterday I had a flash of what I represented to others and it really took me down.  Like a dart gun.  I didn’t even need to verbalize what I saw, I just felt it.  I just ‘knew’.  And then I was just humbled and embarrassed.  A bit ashamed and selfishly petty. 

The fact is, I have been through the ringer.  I have had my life turned upside down and inside out and have come out the other end thinking I can conquer the world, because I am. Yet  I AM scarred.  I do feel damaged.  While I am getting rid of baggage left and right, I still have this carry on that just might not fit in the overhead bin.  The last thing I want to do is to impose my insecurities on someone who doesn’t deserve it. 

I know for a fact that right now, I do not want a relationship.  I am not seeking one, I am not wanting to be attached to someone, I don’t want to feel guilty for not being able to give as much of my time and attention as I would normally.  I don’t want the distraction from my need to make money or compulsion to have a minimum 3.5 GPA. 

This, unfortunately, has not taken away the desire to be with someone.  To admire and be admired.  Someone to chat with every now and then or go out and do something with.  Sex.  I need want sex and while they say it’s much easier for a girl to get laid than a man, uh…. As an educated, self respecting woman, I can’t do that.  Gross. It’s way more about a connection with physical pleasure than just the physical at this point.  It is absolutely a sort of validation I want.  The past couple partners I had, with an eye to a FWB situation, left a sour feeling in me.  Being rejected so many times in a row is a little defeating.

Well, a lot defeating. But when I look at me, from an outside perspective, I’m toxic.  I may as well hang a sign around my neck that says CRAZY! STAY AWAY!!  Everyone knows you don’t just get involved with someone after such a thing as a horrible break up and if you do, you’re just asking for a nightmare.  

I absolutely want to walk into the bakery, buy a slice of the decadent cake and eat it.  I don’t want the whole cake and I don’t want to take it home to stay with me.  I want to savor it as I have it and know it is solidly ok to have cake just for the delight of cake.  What other reason is there for cake? I’m fully capable of handling a slice of cake with out becoming emotionally attached or have expectations out of the cake.  Cake isn’t magic.  It isn’t going to fix things.  Its just a pleasure.  It makes one feel good and it hurts no one.

Except the bakery I visit, they don’t have cake.  No cake at all.  There are cookies and Danish. Dinner rolls and coffee.  But when I approach the cake case, there is none. 

Cherry pit

I get my hair from my dad, my freckles from God knows where, my analytical nature from nature,  my sarcasm from the Muppets. My over-burdening sense of loyalty, passive aggressiveness, smarts and lack-of-personal-boundaries come from my mother. Damn she was a piece of work....

Lately I have been feeling very negative, hostile, judgemental and defeated.  I guess it's what we do, when we feel down, we bring the world around us down in an attempt to feel like we have power over something in our lives.  So mentally this is going on and a CONSTANT redirection to something 'present' or 'peace'.  I managed to keep my patience through some very difficult times this past week, with a smile, managed to accept the fact that the money I JUST deposited the day before from working a new second job, was taken the very next day plus some, for car repairs. I am still trying to focus that positivity towards finding a place to live and in the process I am just on the verge of desperation because I just want to get back to MY life again in the worst way. I'm not using it as a reason to re-gain some sort of happiness, but because I want to put a lid on this constant reminder of failure to stand up for myself.

I've been doing some attempting to figure out why the hell I have this absurd sense of loyalty and why the hell I allow people to walk all over me and then I feel bad about it.  It's pretty disgusting.  Then I remembered who I was. 
     My mother. 
          Christ on a cracker. 
Not that I wasn't ever aware of our similarities, but to fine tune the mental processing I have is rather interesting.  In no way am I trying to say that the choices I make today or tomorrow or yesterday were in any way, shape or form 'cause' by her, I own my shit, but instead, trying to figure out the 'why' I think the way I do when in certain scenarios.
How's that for overthinking overthinking?

~The first thought you have about something is what you have been conditioned to think.  The very next thought you have is what you know is the truth. ~

So I began to think back to childhood and my role models.  My mother. She had a best friend I adored, and an aunt who was close to my mother.  There was a long term boyfriend that was ultimately a seriously dysfunctional relationship but I do remember trying to glean all the good I possibly could out if those people.  I knew they did 'bad' things and they weren't like other adults I interacted with, but I learned very early on how to ignore certain things.  How certain things weren't discussed in public. 

I had a young mother.  Her and my father knew each other briefly before getting married.  Like 6 months kind of time frame.  She had severe psoriatic arthritis and an addiction to Darvon by age 25.  History of drug abuse of the recreational kind using "uppers" and speed. She was a "functioning" drug addict.  She also had a son two years older than me with mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness and retinitis pigmentosa. (He would eventually be blind).  She left my father when I was about two and as far back as I can remember, there was the long term boyfriend, pseudo step-dad, until I was about 12 I think.

Because she was able to get disability, she was a stay at home mom when we were little.  The bf was a union plumber, but I swear to God, he was unemployed more than employed.  It seems weird to me looking back that in the 80's in the California Bay Area, there wasn't that much development going on to keep a plumber employed....?  Really? At any rate, it was a clean house, someone always there, three squares a day, she was an incredible baker, she had patience with us, I was allotted so much freedom with my time and range.
There was the weird guy who was always zoned out on the couch (later I found he was a heroin addict), long haired Lou, you know that guy.... super long hair, mustache, wore the cut off jeans with striped tube socks all summer, like the fun uncle that smelled funny..? Just me? ok...
A few other supporting characters were my aunt and her husband at the time who beat her, my mom's best friend who was basically a bar fly, my grandmother who, for some unknown reason to me, always showed a disgust for my brother and I.  All of these people fueled by some sort of alcohol or drug. Always.

But my mom, she's the main character this morning. 
She stumps me. 
Her whole family is mental except my one aunt. She grew up with 3 sisters and a mom jealous of them all. She was pretty, popular, smart as hell and even played a little basketball and softball in school. She was going to go to Stanford on a partial scholarship.  She wanted to be a lawyer.  She decided instead she'd rather have her babies first.  I witnessed her decline from June Cleaver to hot mess by the time I was 13. There were evictions, car repossessions, turned off utilities... always some stressful life situation that needed addressing. It was always left on the back burner until it became a fucking fire no one could put out.  She lived day to day.  Paycheck to paycheck.  The end of the month on disability is rough.  And at the same time, she was crazy in that she was addicted to thrift stores.  Jesus Christ she had to touch everything in that store, it was misery. She bought things, not because she needed them but because "it was on sale".  She stocked up on random shit because "you never know when someone might need this".  Enter hoarding mom. 
Years of having to leave everything behind because of irresponsible behavior leading to squirreling away whatever you can.  Food included.

There was a stint of her being a severe alcoholic.  Literal jugs of wine, that Carols Rossi shit? Yeah, I still remember the smell, makes me ill.  Mom crawling into bed with you at night and pissing the bed isn't the kind of memory every kid gets to have.  The boyfriend was a Michelob man, Doral cigarettes and all the pot in the world.  I was exposed to marijuana my whole life like it was no big deal and the god's honest truth?
Those were the only normal people in my life.

She quit.  She could do that.  If she wanted to do something, she did it.  She was stubborn as hell.  Just like a good lawyer but with out the dramatics and yelling.  Always seeming cool, calm and collected. She never got emotional.  We were NOT affectionate as a family.  I literally remember one hug in my life from her, when I was about 24 and the very last time I spoke to her, she said 'I love you' which really, really, really scarred me.

She didn't care to what expense it cost her, she just wanted to be liked.  She would do anything for anyone and even so on a level of annoyance.  I think she felt if she couldn't do anything about her own shitty situations she could at least try to make everyone else's easier.  She set NO boundaries for herself.  I was scolded for anything considered to be selfish.  Hell, I grew up helping to raise a mentally retarded brother, my whole life was just sacrificing what I wanted for the greater good.  I got my first summer job at age 14.  My checks went to help pay bills because at this time, my mom's best friend of over 20 years ran off with her then fiance.  Enter nervous breakdown mom.

I'm 16, work full time, I am on Independent Study because I can't deal with regular high school of which I will be graduating soon so I can go into "the real world", I break up with my first boyfriend of over two years and lose everything in an eviction I was unaware of. I had a backpack I stuffed with clothes I grabbed on my way of being ushered out, and my dog.

The next few years are where I eventually get married two months before I turn 19 to someone I knew for 9 months, lose out on thousands of dollars trying to help my mom establish a place to live and eventually move to St. Louis briefly.  Enter meth addict mom.

The thing with watching really smart people ruin their lives and you are doing all you can to try to make them see where they can do better, is eventually you have to detach from them emotionally or they ruin you too.  I full well understand the struggle with the whole truth to 'you can't help those who don't want to help themselves.' It's amazing the stupid things bright people will do. 

She would try to rent rooms out to make ends meet when I was moved out and these people would rip her off.  Literally one woman started beating her up.  She was such a doormat.  She NEVER stood up for herself.  Made excuses for everything.  If she did own a mistake, it was to play the victim.  Holy hell, the sap stories you can be witness to hearing from a mom on disability with a disabled son.... Interestingly, she never lied.  She was just a master bull shitter.

I was victim to males trying to say they could 'collect' with me and I was stolen from so I had to make a name for myself to NOT FUCK WITH ME.
I was woken up at 3 am to bear witness to the freaky thing that was the Bronco supposedly, very slowly, rolling down the driveway backwards. On the flat, gravel driveway.  That there was a man hiding in the bushes outside, she called the cops a couple times on this one...  Going through every box in the house at 2 am to try to find the title to the car so "I can get it smogged!" (??) Cleaning the carpets with the steam cleaner BLEACH ADDED in the middle of the night was always a fun one too...
She stopped having eye contact with people.  She started hoarding more, she moved away, I guess thinking she could try escaping again.  She didn't. 

I remember very vividly one afternoon when I was very young.  Like under 8. I was riding in the back of the bf's light blue Cougar he had.  Everything blue. interior, carpet dash... lol He lit up a cigarette and there is that certain smell that comes from the first smoke of a cigarette that is more burnt paper than tobacco and that is one of those smells that takes me back to happy feelings. Interestingly, on that particular afternoon I was just thinking about whatever kids think about when passing through a town and your too small to see out the window, and I very clearly had this knowing that I was going to lose my mom sooner than I should think.  Like I knew I was going to be younger and it just broke my heart.  I started crying and I wanted to sob but I remember keeping it in as hard as I could because I didn't want anyone to ask me what was wrong.  That's a solid memory.  It's one of my first.

So when I got the call Christmas morning, 2005, and I heard my grandmother's awful voice, saying "Melissa, it's Grandma." In exactly the same nasally, shitty way she said it every time, and I knew instantly she committed suicide.
Damn.
Christmas? Really?
Fuck.

"Unintentional overdose"
Oxycodone.

Being that I have been aware of becoming her age now, I have always been accepting of things that happened.  I have remained un-accepting of things that I don't understand, like her being beaten, raped? (details were kept private but I saw pictures of the aftermath of her face) to near death. No one deserves that.
 She did what she thought she had to do at the time.  I get that.  I realized not too long ago I was living for the day and not preparing my future and I was going to have the same headaches to face if I didn't get out of that mentality. Now at this point I am trying to piece together the parts of me that are passive aggressive and this insanely debilitating sense of loyalty to those that aren't' me. This clearly is a learned behavior and it's a damn shame it had to take me half my life to realize it but it was a matter of realizing value and worth.  Something she could never do.  Something I always tried to establish in a weird mimicry way because that's all I knew.

Now that I am in a position where I have no choice but to love and respect myself because I won't find that in anyone else for what it should be worth to me, I am aware of what my first thought is on something and what my second thought NEEDS to be.

Mentally I'm playing the blame game and I'm trying to make others seem smaller so my ego can be bigger.  It's the self conditioning to change for the better that is important though.  I spent the past 6 years playing the role of partner to someone who didn't deserve me nor gave me half as much in return.  Repeating the pattern my mother did with others, the thing that always made me so angry at her. 
It's true. 
What we hate about others, we really hate about ourselves. 
We just have to recognize where it is within ourselves first.

and cherry pit that mother fucker out of our lives.

GJB-E 1954-2005

I'm not ready to forgive and I'm ok with that

The topic of forgiveness has been heavy in my head for a few weeks now.  This means it's solid, not letting go.  This "action" needs resolution as it is literally making me feel increasingly hostile.  It's not the forgiveness that is making me feel hostile, it's the anger I feel.  I keep retaliating against myself on the subject.  Making reason after reason after reason after reason as to why he doesn't deserve to be forgiven.  Building up this incredible wall of garbage and filth and stink and rot just begging for it to topple over and dissolve.  Every week there is at least one thing that is brought to my attention with a memory of some fit he threw over nothing or some critique of me.  How so many red flags I just completely missed. So then my anger transfers to me.  And I bury myself in the same pile of hate and revenge and fury.  I stew and melt and conspire against myself.  Taking the blame. If only... Then if... 

Reminded that it's not my fault, because normal people don't go around telling their partners they are horrible people for not bending to their vision of potential.

I don't exactly know where in this cycle there is going to be a solution.  Obviously it will come between shared blame but at what thought?  It's almost like I am asking myself, like a lawyer cross examining, "On what grounds will my arguments be based on?" Which cliche am I supposed to be paying attention to here for my epiphany?

I'm not a fan of forgiveness.  I never really believed in it.  I called it a bullshit cop out.  I've had some pretty shitty things happen to me at the hands of other people I came across in my life and I have no real recollection of sitting down, thinking about, releasing or making an effort towards forgiving the person for whatever heinous behavior I was subjected to. It's just a matter of no contact.  That's it.  Done, over, walk away, be mad but feel lesson learned. I suppose I have forgiven my mother for certain things but all together? No.  I think some of the things I went through growing up is most definitely NOT a part of your every day average American teenager. 

So it's in the past and clearly there is nothing that can be done to ever change the past, and I should feel like I learned a lesson and the whole drinking poison waiting for it to affect the other person, not to forget I should do it for me.  It's a pointless argument and it's based on petty, immature thoughts.  It is what it is.
Right?
I think a huge part of this is him still being around.  I can't stand it.  I feel like I could jump out of my skin for all of the awful sensations he is. How even though there is no contact and no communication, he still manages to find ways to be a bully.  Granted he's gone again more now, (even heard his child complaining about having to be involved in all the various relationships he is having.), which gives me that sense of relaxation can be had but then it will come to the day he is likely expected back and I get stomach cramps, I have nausea.  And it's not because I am so angry or moody, it's because of the vibration he brings with him.  I constantly feel on defense because I absolutely refuse to be treated as I was ever again and obviously he is enemy number 1.I will never feel invalidated or less than or inadequate around him, ever again. No matter how, I have to present myself.  I feel like I have to be angry to protect myself.... I was thinking this morning...

After reading an article from a Buddhist perspective on letting go of resentment, it spoke of how it can be traced to not being able to ever communicate your feelings.  To have them acknowledged or to just deal with them.  I was ignored a lot when I was younger.  I had to live through some pretty sordid situations with drug abuse, prescription abuse, heroin users, meth addicts, crack heads, alcoholics, witness to physical abuse.... The only time I was able to get out how I was was feeling about my  frustrating situations, was to not.  To confront if I had to and walk away forever. No one told me I had a right to feel angry or sad or really to have any emotion at all.  I didn't have an opinion or a voice in any matter.  I was used, taken advantage of and neglected at times.  Self-harm sets in at a young age in these situations and while I had no knowledge of self-harm at the time, it was something I did. 
Instinctively.
I was horrified and confused but it meant no additional drama and I could be left alone with my "feelings" and "emotions" as they presented with deep, etched and at times bloody, fingernail scratches up the thighs.
So insert me into a marriage where I just want to be out of my current surroundings to a man who was brought up with a representation of a father and mother family, a dominating father at that, where also emotion and affection are not factors.  I was well into my 30's before fully understanding anything that had to do with my feelings or emotions, what I was doing with them, why etc...

So I think I am coming to realize the source of my anger might just be tied in with giving one person in my life, my complete trust, love and devotion and being abruptly rejected after years of easing into being able to be open with someone.
A big chunk of it anyway.

Forgiveness in Buddhism is a big thing.  You literally have to embrace it to achieve enlightenment. I can't say I forgive if I don't. I can't tell myself to "just fucking let it go", and have it be over with.  I feel like once I can be in an environment I can call home; once I am in a place I feel safe and out of judgement or sense of servitude or racked with anxiety, I can forgive.  When I don't have to look around and see a strangers stuff all over my house.  When the end of my weekend puts me in a medical position of having hives because of how stressed I am? It's just not going to happen while I am still being reminded of pain lived. 

In the meantime I keep flopping the word over in my mind.  Like some kind of blob, I just can't figure out what to do with.  I can't file this and categorize away.  I need to make a place for it.  Clear out some space, and try to empty at least this one piece of heavy baggage. Pretty sure it's a smelly old steamer trunk...

I'm getting a second job.  I don't have the obligation of cleaning and cooking and playing worship to a man so I have the time.  I need the money and with school and the lack of a social life, there really isn't a reason why not. Physically, I'm upset.  My elbows have severe pain and numbness in my fingers with arm usage. Fun.
I certainly don't feel the need to fake a relationship just to have a place to live.  I have a history of living on my own and taking care of myself.  The fact that he EVER thought that I was with him because I needed to be? Coming from the man who slips from one relationship to the next almost seamlessly. Jesus Christ.....
I'm still getting over trying not to second guess myself.  To not feel inadequate.  To try to feel attractive.  To feel like I might be good for someone and vice versa. To reassure myself I AM a decent person.  That I need to have patience with myself and I need to take care of myself for once. 

I really wish I was taught how to set boundaries.

Sound familiar?

"This is love bombing and it is why things are moving so fast.
You've never met anyone before who is so much like you! It must be fate?

Here are the common line sociopaths use in the first few weeks or month of meeting you:

"No one has ever made me this happy before".
"I can see myself spending the rest of my life with you".
 "We are so much alike, you are my soul mate".
 "It didn't work out with anyone else because I haven't found the right person".
"You are the kind of person I have been searching for my whole life".
 "You're more wonderful, more giving, more (insert blank) than all my exes/family/friends".
"You are my future. I would be honored to call you my future wife/husband".
"I've never before felt such a connection with someone, we compliment each other perfectly."

They will try to move into your life and talk about living together within a matter of weeks. Some talk marriage almost immediately to lock in the deal."

Too good to be a good kind of love.