A Returning

 Two years, approximately. A little less.

And it's... fitting. We come back to reread our last post, and nod respectfully at what our past wrote to us, and to anyone else who would happen to read it.

The long, slow winter was very real. We found not much hope, not much creative impetus to put toward anything that was not desperately urgent or a way to cope with difficult trauma, difficult circumstances, difficult emotions.

We have lost an old friendship, we have tasted the harsh kindness of sleeping in an overflow homeless shelter, we have entered and left two houses that both became socially awful places to be.

Now... at last, we have had stability of housing which has not become terrible and full of bad conflict, for... five months, which seems to have been about as long as it took for us to start to feel safe really unpacking into it and regarding it as a place we will probably be able to stay for the foreseeable future, until we choose to leave.

And we begin to turn our minds to proactively grieving some of the things we have lost. We begin to tentatively rekindle our exploration and classification of unfamiliar music. We go out and meet people.

It seems that warmth and sunlight has come at last to nurture some little shoots of hope from those long-buried seeds, after a winter that lasted well over a year.

 Hi. We're here. I'm here now.

And we will see, what we find to want next. 

Somebody Cares

(pieced together from accounts sent to various people on the 20th of December, 2022, when the events of this story took place)

Today was a crazy day.

I went to my doctor's appointment... And...

• I checked in about the psychiatrist’s assessment, and apparently I officially have a diagnosis now.
  

• I'm being prescribed an anti-anxiety medication to try for four weeks and see how it goes.
  

• My doctor is on board with making the best case he can for my ODSP application, to help me afford the counseling I'm trying to do and the medications we’re going to try.

I told my friends, while I was leaving the doctor's office:

I feel like I've just been handed a huge golden trophy inscribed with the words Somebody Cares. And a little like this can't be happening. This isn't the world I live in.

I.... Think I might be kind of in shock for the next few weeks. Or months. Or years.

The world isn't like this. Friends, scientists, anybody, run scans on the gold in this trophy. Tell me there aren't pockets of depleted uranium in it, because this does not happen.

How Things Have Been

I meant to come post a bloody story I wrote here. I'm not sure whether I thought better of it or whether I just forgot. For all that I post raw and intensely here, I don't typically post gruesome, and perhaps I should keep it that way.

The situation with another nasty roommate continues to deteriorate. I actually shouted at him last night, then cried and felt sick and tasted and smelled acrid for the rest of the night. There is a potential new tenant coming to see my room today. If she takes it, I will move downstairs and not be next to him anymore.

Friendly roommate continues to be friendly and supportive; friends have been accessible, and I have been doing better for the last couple of weeks at accessing them.

I've pushed some regularity into my medication schedule, taking my pills at 10 each morning. I think I might shift that to 8 now that I've been regularly sleeping nights for a few days. Waiting until 11 to eat in order not to interfere with their absorption is annoying. Waiting until 9 would not be so bad I think.

The new stability feels weird sometimes. Like the world is flatter. Not grey and dull and uninteresting, just more level and approachable. Less shaking around, less steep slopes to climb. It's like every footstep takes a little less effort and is a lot less scary. I didn't realize the schedule would make such a big difference, and regardless I don't think I was ready for it before.

I'm paused in the middle of reading documentation for a programming tool so I can try to rewrite parts of it better and clearer, and work on a portfolio to pursue technical writing work remotely online. In light of the pandemic it seems like a decent move, but actually... I took some time to reflect a short time ago and recognize that I don't want anything to tie me to Kitchener.

I want to go back to my friends in the states. I don't want a job that would keep me here any longer than a few months, and even temporary jobs may be... "sticky" that way, tempting to stay on longer. So it's more about that than COVID, really. It's more that once it's safe, I want to go and be with the family of people who support me, give cohabitation another chance. Give dealing with each other another, better chance, more carefully this time.

It's lonely staying alone inside, far from my intimate companions and uncertain of the future. But then, it always has been, really. Not much has changed for my day to day life personally in the light of pandemic except that I feel like I'm not supposed to go out for walks - and when I go to buy groceries and household essentials, there are long discouraging lines a lot of the time.

In a certain tongue in cheek way, I've been occasionally remembering a Daft Punk song which has never seemed more appropriate. I Remember Touch...

Grim November

It has been some time, and so I will explain.

Things began to be sour, I think, in August. Habits which were endurable in the short term so long as they were being worked on and would improve over time seemed to worsen, signs of improving grew sparse or there seemed to be subconscious resentment at the pressure.

Too much responsibility was placed on me.

There was cause, of course; there were extenuating circumstances. My Stars left their job, trusting to another to support us, and then he lost his job too. And there was much discouragement and despondency. None of us were in fit shape to carry the limp weight of the others while we were robbed of strength. And so I did my best at times, but neither was I - and I lashed out and growled and broke down often under the strain, so little rewarded, so little relieved.

I believe I am still blamed for my failure to hold up the heads of my companions during that time, as well as my own, but I plead that it was not within my power, and ought not have been expected of me. I had not enough participation. I had not enough support. I had not enough compensation to see me through it, not enough nor gentle enough reminders; reminders which are invitations, rather than chastisements.

Of course, it is an advanced difficulty to succeed, with me, to my standard, in giving invitation and not chastisement.

But this is how it went on. I carried far too much, seeking not to let others down, but I must in the end. My patience, my spirit, was overloaded for quite some time, and my vulnerabilities pricked when I was gathering enough air and lift to begin to get somewhere, such that that liveliness would easily and swiftly drain away, and I would lie again lifeless in a wasteland of bitterness.

I do not say that I held no responsibility nor blame for these cycles - O, I was part of them. My failure to speak my boundaries while I could still do so without cursing made things worse. I was at times negligent. I was at times evasive.

And so it went, and until I had a room of privacy to myself for a while (the gift of interim hosts in the city of Kitchener, and O my great gratitude to them for the privilege), for six months I had no place I could retreat to which was mine to be alone in, mine to rest in, and not need to share it, neither night nor day. Looking back it shocks me that I lived so long in these conditions, and I did not seem to realize that that was a problem.

Of course, I was caught up in wanting to be there, be present for Stars if they needed physical assistance to get up, and perhaps then, I ignored my own need for privacy, for a crook I could lay in on my own and be undisturbed. There are reasons for this, of course, reasons. But O it was surely a part of my growing twisted and impatient and bitter.

And so it went until a particularly bright-careless and manipulative episode, of some of my love's worst habits. And then I told them I would not marry them. Not now, not like this. And so I would need to return North and leave the country, for I had no other legal basis to stay. And it was sad and sour but felt necessary.

We moved several times, because as everything descended into a slough of despond, we would not organize cohesively enough to close a rental agreement and did not have a place to go by the ending of the old lease. And so there was a hotel one night, and an Airbnb for a half-week, and then another Airbnb for the rest of the month, with our things in a storage locker a long drive outside town, near to where we had hoped to rent a place, but it was a scam. A scam we would ordinarily have spotted, but we were desperate for a place by that time, of course.

Much of our things have been left behind. My friends I leave with less, materially, than they had before, and some bitter memories of my impatience and desperation and the guilt of having drawn it. But still though, my friends I leave in a pleasant place, a roomy apartment somewhat bare but well outfitted with such things as the kitchen that came with it. I leave them in a place with an extendable lease and the flexibility to adjust time there, so that they may be sure of their next leap's landing before arranging to leave. I leave them nearer to some people who have been friends of ours, that we wished to be close to... And still do now, but less so. Less, for there has been loss and grief and disappointment.

I leave my friends and I hope very dearly that I leave them better for having spent time with me rather than worse, for all that they have less materially now and our lessons from each other have been grim. November was a very slow, very sad and waiting and grieving month for me this year.

I hope to pick up my project again. I have not done so quite yet. I have a bit more of ensuring my next living-space to do first. I was in no condition then, really no condition for it.

And that is how it went.

Blood

If you're someone who's likely to be disturbed by blood, menstruation, sex or complicated questions about gender, it would probably be better not to read this one. Have a good day.

An aggravating feeling of helpless rage at the smugness of an authority that doesn't give a damn about anything I say and has power over me through the very nature of the systems of which our world is built, the only allies against it very far away and unable to intervene to help me in my present, and for all I know unable or too busy to intervene before I run out of time and die.

Seems familiar.

I have, for the last hour or so, been holding an internalized mental argument... with an anthropomorphic personification of human evolution. And feeling increasingly like a sulky, powerless teenager under its authority.

-----

I woke up this morning covered in blood, soaked through the sheet under me, into the mattress, all over my loins and thighs. Grumbled to my feet and wrapped in a towel and tried to get to the bathroom to clean off without leaving drops of blood on the hall carpet. I had made my regular preparations for my period, it's not like this came out of nowhere and I wasn't expecting anything. But what the hell? Usually those steps are enough.

Wash my legs, empty my cup, clean the little drops off the bathroom floor (at least that just wipes clean) and come back to my room to strip my bloody sheet off my bed in a cold room stinking richly of copper and rust. Laundry earlier than expected, then. I don't have any spares. Sad regret at not following through on my thought to buy another mattress protector when I started using the first one I bought as a blanket against the growing cold followed me to school. I can't expect the next unknown tenant to be willing to sleep on a bloodstained bed, so it's only fair after this to put some of my deposit towards replacing the mattress, which is a punch to my sensitive budget awareness. I know better than this, and the cost of buying the second mattress protector would be so much less. But I just hadn't gotten around to it. Too many other priorities too intensely felt. Too late now.

Well, at least I did put myself to bed early and got what should be a reasonable enough amount of sleep to function well at school. But in class, it took not only an energy drink but the engagement of an actual exercise to perform to keep me from repeatedly closing my eyes and realizing after a while that I hadn't opened them and was paying more attention to my desire for more sleep than the lecture. On the upside, I guess, it's familiar material that was covered by my Cost Accounting class at Fanshawe, and didn't require much mental presence to use as review rather than new learning.

And while I sat in class, warmth leaked into my underwear and jeans in little blossoms. I could feel it. What the hell, seriously? It's only a half hour walk, and only an hour of class. School bathroom, emptied my cup again and looked over the damage. Mhm. Stained the patches on my jeans. Well, that's fresh enough it might wash out if I deal with it before it dries. And if not, well, I was kind of planning on re-patching them anyway. Damn, though. I don't usually have heavy periods, and this is insanely fast. One of my old friends used to tell me about how heavy her periods usually are, and I was glad I didn't have to deal with it. This sounds like what she told me. I don't think it's a medical emergency, but it's really weird for me.

Feeling exhausted, scarcely better than on Monday when I hadn't slept at all, after a morning headache I attributed to dehydration from blood loss (and seemed to be validated, since drinking lots of water really helped). I felt and feel drained in a way that seems profoundly more literal than usual, and responded as I had on Monday by returning home to rest, frustrated intensely at the impact on my attendance in classes.

As I walked, I wondered why my body was investing so much into conception this month, such that it was leaving me deprived of strength for other things, like actually being restored by sleep and being awake in class. I reflected that all the masculinity and determination I pulled up yesterday and that wonderful feeling of swagger and confidence just couldn't seem to be supported on a body spending so much of its strength to wash out and replenish a womb, which was not made for battle. I felt I would like to be able to talk to the part of me that regulated that and ask it what the deal was, why the investment, and if I could have some kind of warning if this was going to happen again.

Well, I hadn't been expecting this to develop, but my imagination is vibrant and has a lot of material to draw from.

The personification looks back at me with patronizing eyes.

"You get all pumped up on passion and infatuation and don't expect to conceive. Just like you, Upstart Consciousness, thinking you run everything now, decide everything. I made those feelings, and getting you pregnant is what I made them for.

"You can co-opt the feelings, sure, like you've harnessed everything else. Do what you like, Upstart. I can't and won't stop you. But when you take the infrastructure I spent twenty years building into your very flesh, and millions in practicing, and you try to make something completely different out of it, don't come complaining to me that my lust, my affection and instincts of family-forming and the elation of compatibility that I gave you have side-effects that mess up pieces of whatever weird deviating program you're trying to build with them. De-bug your own mess.

"Silly Upstart. Always wanting the best of everything, without its costs.

"I specialized you to be a garden, rich and fertile. You don't want to plant anything there, fine. But this blood is not meant for you, Upstart Consciousness. It was meant for the children you refuse to have."

And I stare and sit and sulk, enraged at the determinism of my weave and my flesh to anything other than my will. An authority I have no greater established authority to appeal to for overturn. I wonder to myself whether this personification of the very manufacture of me gets its attitude of distant, smug and hateful authority from my mother (the flesh person from whom I directly descend, rather than the long process of descent which is no less my mother), or maybe the other way around. Was this always a part of it? Was this far more a part of my utter intolerance for her than I ever suspected, a hatred that I was built with a body made for childbearing when I wanted to fight and lead?

Confusion and despair and uncertainty. There are times, although as befits the bitter teenager feeling, I may resentfully resist admitting it at the moment, when that purpose flows through me red and alluring. I feel the heat of it and my body's response. Lust craves in me pointedly to be sewn and swollen with fertility, but I revolt and hold my ideals against the impulse, valuing quality of life over quantity and understanding them to be in conflict. I will side with quality, no matter what my biology has to say about it. But deep in my sex drive, I know it is there in all of my femaleness.

Do I hate that? Is that why all of sex seems like rape to me sometimes, in that vague and imprecise close-but-not-quite way? That the ways in which my body is designed to enjoy it seem like an imposition to me, a drug woven into my flesh, a manipulation I cannot escape and a tool to subvert me as an individual, as Upstart Consciousness which thinks that Consciousness ought to rule the world; like the systems of pleasure exist to demur me and not just me specifically, not just Serp, but "me", the concept of being an individual and having self-determination, demur "me" to submit my time and life energy to being part of the biological process, a cog in the machine of flesh and procreation. A stitch in the fabric of generations, to bond and spread its spoor and die and be eaten, digested by plants and returned to the newborns in their day as fruit.

I want more for myself, for all selves as my loves and inspirations remind me. Does this revolt then, this rebellion, seep in bitterness and conflict right down, down, through my muscles and organs and neurons, into a hatred of the very attraction of sex, the hunger and preoccupation and the pleasure it offers to reward me for doing obediently as my body says? Made disgusting by a rejection of blind obedience on principle, a hatred of all the flaws and all of the victims enabled by the processes of just taking your pay, or endorphins, or promotion, and not thinking about whether what you're being paid to do is good. Could that conviction, revulsion, really be at the core of my longstanding recoil against, shame about, not exactly sex, but the love of and desire for sex?

Maybe.

I hadn't considered it before, but at first appraisal, it seems to make a lot of sense. The distaste and shame are still there, after all, after every kind of mental exercise and argument I could think of against kink shaming and slut shaming, after rejecting and rejecting again repeatedly as not having any right to determine my feelings every mote I could find of religious shame, of mere fear-of-judgement, of anything else. But there was some root that none of it has shifted. Is this that root?

My plans for the day had more to do with study and less to do with uncovering dysphoria hidden deep in my psyche, but hey, I'll take it. I will almost never refuse an opportunity to understand myself better.

Dear Memory: Overlap

It's been a while since I wrote here... A lot has happened.

I mean, a LOT has happened now that I look back on it. Three short weeks later, and so much has happened after these long, stretching months of seemingly so little... I have finished my diploma. I was a bit worried about Tax, so I studied it purposefully and did well enough on the exam for a solid pass, although still not a great grade overall. I have moved out of the house with the loud and inconsiderate roommates I didn't feel I could talk to. Moved right next door, to another room managed by the same landlord, with different roommates. These ones don't bother me much. The walls are thicker and the room is further away from main flows of traffic. I've been sleeping full nights again, at long last. I even have access to quite a large downstairs den which I can reshape to my heart's contentment. I cleaned off and rearranged the furniture, populated some neglected shelves and a mantlepiece with books, knicknacks and an assortment of tasty snacks. I actually set up my round table, which has had no space to be useful in for over a year and was just in the way at my last house. It is so pretty now, a comfortable and happy place into which to invite my few local friends. Including a special new addition...

My asexual girlfriend finally moved to London! I had been forgetting this was even a thing, but a few days before I moved (which was a few days before the end of the month) she was landed and local. The night before the move, unable to sleep and stressed, I called her up to go walk the London night streets together and we hugged and kissed and chatted about all sorts of wonderful things. I've been showing her the markets on the weekends. It gives me an excellent excuse to go out to them myself, and there's a great budget stall at Gibraltar that sells non-perishable foodstuffs that are past their expiry date. I've found some pretty great things there (like sunflower seed butter and some delicious little cookies) and also some not great things there (like protein bars and Welch's fruit snacks which become very tough as they go stale), but the prices are certainly right for experimentation.

I got another three offers from Irish colleges, and am currently trying to decide between Sligo IT, Carlow IT and IT Tralee. I also got mail from Waterford, but to be honest their letter wasn't even a conditional letter of offer like the other three were and I was very unimpressed, so I'm not seriously considering it. I'm currently leaning towards Carlow because it's the closest by transit to Athlone.

I booked my plane ticket. Five hundred dollars or so, including baggage allowance. I'm bringing a real suitcase this time, bringing more with me; since I'm leaving nothing behind to wait for me.

And I broke the silence. I wrote you an email on the first of May. Brief and simple and somewhat formal, but contact has been made. I got a response the very next day, which was even shorter and simpler, but although little is said and although you did not take me up on the offer to talk more by starting a further conversation, there is enough confirmation there to make my heart sing. Misspelled and humble is a simple message that validates all the work I have done to get back across the sea. "Of coarse I'll meet with you".

Now my next big task is to choose between these three colleges and get access to enough money to pay my confirming deposit before May 30th. I'll probably need a student line of credit. And for that, I'll need a co-signer. Probably my father, if he'll agree to do it. Otherwise, I might reach out to Iris. Or Ashlynn. Or maybe even Brian, possibly. I'm willing to have some really awkward conversations about finances in order to make this happen. I will find a way.

As I was heading out to the bank today to discuss this, I paused and wanted to hear a specific Ani DiFranco song. This happens often enough, but this time... I didn't have the version I wanted to hear. I have the song, somewhere in my discograpy, but... it was too loose and whispery. I remembered a different rhythm. The search for the correct earworm involved a flustered overturning of YouTube to no avail and my purchasing a single track for 99c of the other non-live recording that was made of it... only to be sent the wrong song. They sent me "Shameless" instead, so I called the support line to have them fix it and ask questions about the song I was looking for.

It's been sorted. I have it now. The lighter and jazzier, more rhythm-tight 2007 recording, from the album 'Canon', of Ani DiFranco's song "Overlap":

...I know there is strength in the differences between us
and I know there is comfort, where we overlap;
Come here; stand in front of the light.
Stand still, so I can see your silhouette.
I hope... that you have got all night,
because I am not done looking at you yet.

I love this song. This version of this song. It prompted me to draw an analogy between communication and light that I built up so thoroughly I drew a colourful diagram of it years ago. And thinking those lyrics brings tears of intensity to my eyes. I feel this so much. I feel this about you. Not just you... So many of my friends. But also about you.

I have started taking firm steps in the process of job searching. There are postings on a student website. There are agencies in town that might be able to find me a temp position; maybe even one related to my accounting studies. I had an intake interview with one of the recruiters at one of those agencies on Tuesday (two days ago).

But I think I may be pushing myself a bit too hard. I came home feeling somewhat dizzied today, my mind full of blades and violence. I've had a particular propensity within the last week and a half or so to imagine stabbing myself through the left eye with my biggest, sharpest, favourite kitchen knife. It has been making me very twitchy, and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. It may be... I hope... just down to a high intensity of stress, which is natural as the school term is ending and one is looking for a summer job. And preparing to go back to school. And adapting to changes in romantic relationships. And a move into a new house. And finances... So all told, I mean, I don't think I have a reason to be all that worried, but it's still a particularly unpleasant symptom of stress and I hope it goes away soon.

I hope I will hear from my dad. I hope he will be willing to co-sign a line of credit for me. I hope I can find a summer job that pays enough that I can do some saving for Ireland. I hope so many things, really... And I look forward to seeing you, sometime in my first few days of being back on the isle. I want to get to know you again, Fish. I hope you want that too. I really do.

To Love Left Behind

My perspective, the shape of my life in the context of memory and priority, bends around you like a center of gravity.
The time before I met you takes on the aspect of a prologue, the content of the story a few short and treasured chapters I wish I could relive.
When I lay down in my bed, and am not thoroughly exhausted, I am disappointed by your inevitable absence, and accompanied by your memory.
However, the ghosts have grown more peaceful. I will not say they haunt me. In reflection...
My heart is sore, but it is a pain I can live with and appreciate, like the ache of muscles after exertion.
I am okay.

I remember your face, contorted in judgement and revulsion; not at me, but at the wounds in my mind which have hobbled me. Yes, that is one of the memories that stays with me. I cherish that understanding, seeing you sickened by that which stunted my growth; that you saw it as an awful thing is a tender and cherished measure of your respect for me.

I also remember your face smiling, as I so often saw it, and the context that gave this so much beautiful light. No, you told me, you were not someone who smiled a lot. But you often did when you were looking at me.

There was so very much that you did for me, and now...
You are a memory, to me, and a distant unknown actor. Somewhere, you are something, and it is not for me to know what.
Laying in bed, not quite exhausted, and keenly aware of the empty spaces under my blankets, the silence in my ears, the empty in my hand where I wish your hand would be... And I don't regret a thing.
Only perhaps, that it may take a lot of searching to find someone to fill those empty spaces now, after your legacy.

If by some chance you wind up reading this... Yes, it was probably the right thing to do. I have been recovering much more cleanly of late.
I am sad, and I miss you, and I can live with it.
You left me far healthier than you found me, old friend.

The Sun-in-Rags has its tribute for now. I am distant, I burn, I am not as I was.
I continue along my path, moving more slowly for a while.

Beyond the Emerald Isle

I've left Ireland behind me and moved on to Vienna. The grasses that fly by the train window are green, but dark and dull, not the exceptional brightness I often saw in Irish grass. Why? What is so special about it? Is it a different species of common grass?
I feel loss and already miss the island itself, not to mention the people that I grew so very fond of there. Vienna is interesting and huge, full of young punky people at first glance. It is the first city I have visited where signage is everywhere, but does not speak my language. I stare at public notices dumbly, instinctively trying to read them, wondering what they say.
I immediately feel great pity for those in North America who don't have much English and are at every moment at a disadvantage. I, at least, have a friend by me who grew up here and can help me navigate.

The first morning, after the first night, I wake up and I feel grief, low and soft and lapping like muscle ache. I wonder why, and try to imagine if there is any other reason but the obvious ones (I miss you, I miss you, I'm sorry...). But then, I am naturally and habitually prone to grief. Perhaps the habit and the stress of a long day travelling on little sleep is all the answer there is. Perhaps the answer is just as simple as it seems, and why am I trying to deny it?

Ah, of course. I am looking for something I can do besides waiting for the grief to eventually subside. I want to be good company to my host, rather than crying mournful for all the time I planned to spend here.

I miss you. I miss you. I'm sorry.

Somehow, writing those words presses on the grief more directly than anything else I had tried thinking about or looking at, and pushes tears out of my eyes. This may be some kind of progress. It may be... Important to express it.
My host asks me if I need some tissues. He can see me crying. He might not know what they are called in English, but he holds them out to me with his question, so it is clear what he means.

I miss you, Ashlynn.  I miss you. I'm sorry that my travelling and polyamory was too much for your heart.

I miss you, Coda. I'm sorry I had to go so soon.

I miss you, Ireland...

Distant memories of every love I ever mourned for march solemnly through my head. I feel tired. I feel tired of walking away from people I care about.

I miss you, Alex... I'm sorry, Jack... I miss you, Kitten... I miss you, Damon... I'm sorry, Jason... I'm sorry, Pieter... I miss you, Di... and Zi... I miss you, Robby. I'm so sorry things went that way. I miss you, Zephon. I'm sorry I hurt you... I'm sorry, Fancy... I'm sorry, Wolf...

and now, the latest in a long line joins the list of bright links, fragments of time when someone else shines through the veil of life's general impersonal darkness and pierces my outer skin to reach my heart and shake it... one of those bright as primacy, and sweet, and seeming to promise endurance.

I miss you Eoin. I'm sorry I left. I will try to come back to you. I want to come back to you. I'm... so sorry. I miss you so much.

No doubt, I will miss Sen too, by the time this journey is over.

At every juncture, turning back to the long, long road again.

You may remember me saying this, Eoin; perhaps someday my path will lead me to a place I can really see as home.

On The Plane from Iceland to Ireland

Written in the air on 6th of January, 2017

My breath hitches a little. I am on the last leg of my current journey, by air at least. There is an hour or so of bus yet. Irish security, whatever that turns out to be. Some waiting, of course.
After I arrive at my lodgings I plan on going out to local thrift stores to buy some of the things I elected not to bring from home; sheets, a towel, perhaps a pair of shoes or who knows what else might catch my eye.
For now, I am in the softly shaking belly of the great metal bird. Flight attendants dressed in brand purple have been showing everyone about, packing up the plentiful luggage wherever they will fit in the overhead luggage. The surge of speed when we take off scares me, reminding me of my old roller coaster nightmares, but I recover well, and now I am relatively comfortable. Crowded, and feeling the occasional aching and popping of my ears, but relatively comfortable despite that.
My first mp3 player runs out of battery and I switch to music on the second. Sarah McLachlan, her haunting I-miss-you winter songs. It occurs to me that long journeys have always been emotional to me; I have a habit of taking them for romantic reasons. This time is an arguable exception. At least, I see it that way, although I do look forward to meeting my dear friends in Europe. No primary romantic obsession this time though, just good and valued friends with possible benefits to be negotiated.
On the other hand, McLachlan's love songs have often caught at my heart. Ashlynn's recent musing about long-distance travel as a group only encourages me further to pine somewhat for her company beside me in my journeys.
Someday, my love, will we go together, side by side like the seeming partners who share my row with me? I look forward to that day, when you prove against all the world's biases that I don't have to leave love behind when I move on for adventure, for challenge, for fulfilment of potential or whatever else I may seek.
"This is how I see you, in the snow on Christmas morning; love and happiness surround you..." Sarah sings in a whisper, and my breath hitches a little again.
I try not to think about the delays of my RESP cheque, the one thing I am still very worried about in preparing for my term here. There is not much I can do about it now. Instead I think about Dublin and Athlone; the train I will take; whether I will be able to find a payphone to call my new landlord, since my phone will likely not have service in Ireland; whether I will be able to get a temporary phone or plan or something.
My ears crinkle, and the roar of the engines seems much louder all of a sudden. My mind wanders, wondering about astronauts and how riding a rocket bound for space compares to riding an aeroplane bound for the other side of an ocean. I think of the fair where I deliberately challenged my fear of fast rides, and the tree planting camp where I challenged my fear of failure in the face of hard work, and somewhat unintentionally, my claustrophobia. On the first flight into Iceland, I had a window seat, which meant the curving wall against my arm was close and closed-in, giving me an entrapping lack of space.
In the crowded and claustrophobic plane, I nevertheless managed to nap intermittently through much of the flight. For one moment, I think I suffered sleep paralysis again, that struggle to reclaim my body from dreams, to twitch, to so much as open my eyes. I was surprised I slept so easily.
In Toronto Pearson before we left, I dropped my boarding pass somewhere and panicked a bit about it, but the staff reassured me that it could be re-issued at my flight gate; all the data behind it was still there, and I still had my passport.
My sturdy work boots surprised me by setting off the metal detector. I hadn't thought of that. I thought the toes were composite, not real steel. Perhaps it was a protective shank. Anyway, taking off my boots before walking through again was not that much of a hassle. There was a place to buy power adapters at the airport as I suspected there might be.
Between the landing of the train from Union station and the terminal I needed to go to was a quite fast train suspended on high rails (on the subject of being reminded of my fear of roller coasters). Taking it was somewhat uncomfortable, and somewhat fascinating. It's not as though I had much choice.
To get through security, I had to let them throw away a Monster drink I had brought with me and my other water bottle, to buy another drink on the other side of security. I finished eating all the food I'd packed before leaving Iceland on the plane to Dublin. I packed well. The sandwiches were a little repetitive, not to mention deformed by the pressure of other things in my bag my then, but I had enough to eat and the fruit was a delicious side too. I can grab myself something to eat when we land, I suppose. It will be soon. The lights have already been dimmed for landing. It seemed short. It was a pleasure to pass the time by writing here. I look forward to sharing my little stories with my friends.

-----

It turns out, I was mistaken. The lights were being dimmed temporarily for turbulence or something. We still had some hours to go. Nevertheless, I present my record at the time here.

Term Hectic

Life has been a combination whirlwind and sinkhole for me recently.
I only just noticed I had not blogged in over a month. It's really no wonder that during the school months, I neglected it last year. I have my courses to handle, and right now assignments are getting on top of me. I have arrangements for my foreign exchange term to make, including lodging, furniture storage, finance and course selection. I have my primary and secondary relationships to juggle. A good problem to have, admittedly, but trying to stay sane while negotiating fights with one and jealousy with the other has been very draining.
In amongst all this, the biggest thing is trying to cope with my mood, my intense cravings for sleep, my utter not-willing-to-put-up-with-this feelings about the tumbling and crashing that keeps me from sleeping during any of the hours that the landlord and his family upstairs are awake (I'm so glad I'm moving at the beginning of December - oh, right, add that to the list of things I need to do and prepare for!). The schoolwork would not actually be much to get through if I could maintain my morale and just sit down and do 'em, but between exhaustion and exasperation, loneliness and pressure, it's a lot to manage and can easily leave me dazed and unproductive.
I'll get through it somehow or another. I have to, after all. I look forward to Ireland and the new term, after the arrangements and preparations and moving is all over. A new beginning, new lessons, a new setting. Europe! And when I come back, seeing Asha again in the summer months.
Well, why not dream far ahead, I suppose, right?

How I Spent My (Sex) Vacation

Hello dear diary blog.

I am back at home now after two several-day trips out of town. The first was to go visit a girlfriend and her girlfriend in St. Thomas not far away from the city. The second was a trip out to Scarborough to visit another old friend that I had had sex with before, and had for some time considered that it would be nice to go visit and do it again.

Both trips were wonderful.

I watched a movie. I played games, including Three Dragon Ante, Therapy, Gloom, Spelunky, Chess, Scrabble and Squarez. I faced my deep feelings of alienation, and cried aloud and wept. I slept on couches. I slept on an extremely comfortable bed. I cuddled. I kissed. I hugged. I had sex of various kinds. I had orgasms. I gave someone else orgasms. I watched and shared funny YouTube videos. I cooked and shared delicious meals. I dreamed up a game system. I went out walking and almost got lost. I came back home wishing I had more time to spend with the excellent people I was with. Twice.

Then I came back and I had an appointment with my counselor. I played some games at The Cardboard Cafe with my boyfriend and my roommate, drank expensive but good tea, and ate expensive but good snack food. Now we need to focus on getting together our rental application for an apartment we really want to move into, and submitting it with attached rent deposit. There is much to do...

Hey.

I thought since I've been thinking about trying to blow the cover way off of my unintended internet secrecy, maybe I should write a greeting to anyone who clicks in search of more information.

I grew up in poverty in rural Ontario to a narcissistic mother and a father who was, and remains, a resourceful practitioner of simple sciences (heating, plumbing, welding, building makeshift insulated chicken shelters for winter out of old freezers and other junk, you name it) and a natural hermit. They've been split up and lived in two different places since I was, I think, two years old.

For most of my childhood, I split my time between their two households: one an old house on a hill on the outskirts of a village of 700 people, at least according to the sign; and the other a farm of sorts in a swampy wood - or a wooded swamp, whichever you prefer to think of it as, 10 km outside of that town.

I was bullied horribly through elementary school and high school, and grew up longing to travel and tell stories, to inspire and to educate. As soon as I graduated high school, I left home on an airplane and went overseas in search of love.

Since then I've traveled around quite a lot. I've hitch-hiked, and I've also taken a week long bus trip that stretched a great big diagonal line across Canada including a two day layover in Winnipeg, where I spent the night on the roof of a multi-level car park with a drunken hobo sleeping on my clothes.

For the last few years, I've settled a little bit in London. I guess I'm trying to find some sanity and repair the broken parts of myself so that the next time I head out, I won't be running away so much as charging out into the fray. This time, I hope I'll be leaving behind a safe, happy home base that I'll feel comfortable coming back to.

I know what it means not to have an established place to go, and I can tell you that having no place is better than being trapped in a terrible place. I know how it is to scavenge and scrounge, to keep a supply of water bottled from public fountains and bathroom sinks, get food only where I can get it for free, and I can tell you that you might be surprised the good food and respect you can get for nothing more than a little humility and the willingness to ask for help.

I have never begged strangers for anything, except directions, change to use a payphone and a token to ride a bus or a train.

I have sat with an instrument on a sidewalk and played for tips, though.

As my day job, I work in a thrift store operated by Goodwill.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing with my life yet. Hopefully, whatever it ends up being, it will involve a lot of poetry.

Beauty in the Forest City

Walking home from work today, enjoying the feeling of clean clothes on my clean skin, I think I noticed for the first time just how many trees are in my neighborhood. It's a very green place, with lots of shade to walk through, and on this cool early June evening, it's cooler outside than in our basement apartment.

I find myself thinking that when we do move, I'd love to stay in the neighborhood. I love being close to work and an easy walk away from several different grocery stores. I like the pizza place around the block, now that we've gotten around to ordering there. I like the friendly neighbors and the earnest atmosphere. This doesn't feel like pretentious suburbia. There are a bunch of reasonably nice looking homes in varying states of maintenance of both the house and lawn, but though some lots have peeling paint and old-looking buildings, there is no sign of truly significant disrepair or destruction. Some lawns are manicured and well tended, some have quirky ornaments, and others are left mostly wild or patchy. There are many birds, and the distant noises of yardwork and dogs barking. There are so many trees both in peoples' yards and on the strip of greenery between the sidewalk and the road that if the cement and asphalt were replaced with grass it would simply be a carefully organized and spaced forest. One without underbracken.

And then I walked into my apartment and when I saw my roommate sitting on the couch watching Futurama, my spirits immediately fell and I felt defensive and disempowered again. Virtually the only significant reason I want to move is because I'm living with someone I don't want to live with. There are other annoying factors, like the child that sometimes runs loudly across the floor upstairs, and the propensity of people to knock on my bedroom window when they want to deal with someone in the house, but were it not for that one thing... I think ultimately, I could forgive the occasional annoyances and have very little to actually complain about. But I'm sharing my space with someone I could not share much of my perspective or lifestyle with, and that... feels limiting and entrapping. Yes, I do need to get out of here eventually, because our roommate has said he isn't going, but would be happy to look for new roommates when we leave.

I look forward to living in an apartment with just me and my boyfriend, with whom I can be myself in my skin, and relax, and co-operate. And, of course, any guests we choose to welcome into our house. But it would be our house, and not one full of awkward compromises with someone I... don't actively dislike... Or, at least, I wouldn't if I didn't have to live in the same house with him. Our roommate has often been helpful in his own way and though he is abrasive, I can see ways in which he's a reasonably decent guy. But be that as it may, I don't want to stay here living with him. I am still seeking my den.

Today's happiness, though, has been fairly regular. My job is increasingly easy for me to do and do well. I tend to enjoy the short walk to and from work, and I've been noticing the beauty of the area I live in more and more, as well as the beauty of simple pleasures like clean clothing that fits well. I feel rich. I have saved up a substantial amount of money over my last several months of working, and I do not have to put much effort into spending much less than I make. This morning, I went shopping at the Goodwill store where I work and spent $60 on everyday clothing for myself and my boyfriend, and it was a gentle pleasure knowing that I could easily afford the small luxury without having to worry. It made me glad to spend the money, for a good deal at a good place.

Regrettably, the fall of my spirits when I come home and see my roommate is almost as common. I have much to be thankful for, and I most definitely am. At the same time, I still have farther to go. I am not quite home yet, though I think I may be close. I hope so. I honestly think that perhaps the most ideal situation would be to move right next door if there were an available apartment there that I could afford with just my boyfriend and me.

A Shot of Proactivity

Hi, dear blahgh.

I did a lot yesterday. I've been doing a lot. I had my troublesome top tooth out, it was a premolar. I've been getting some nasty ache while it heals which sometimes reaches all the way up to just under my eye, probably due to the fact that the cavity in the root opened up an infection right against, or possibly in, some of the lowest part of my sinuses.

I got a referral and went for a psych evaluation. The psychiatrist said that my triggered mental images of being stabbed or otherwise hurt with almost any particularly scary object I see was OCD. It's what he said; not might be, was. I personally am not sure how much confidence to have in his apparent confidence, but I've just started taking the mind medicine he prescribed me. And holy hell is it ever bitter. For now I'm going to presume that means it would be dangerous to take too much of it, so they did their best to make sure no-one would want to. I'm being started on a quarter tablet, then half. I should be taking whole tablets daily within two weeks.

My roommate's Australian girlfriend is visiting and she is awesome. She cleans. She cleaned his room, she cleaned the kitchen. I helped her clean a box full of dishes from the place he and Robbit used to share. Then, because Robby was feeling tired and lazy and I would have been bored walking by myself, she went with me to the drugstore to pick up my prescription for mind meds, and we stopped in to get gardening supplies, which I've been meaning to pick up, and groceries.

Gardening is something I've been really wanting to try for a while, and I'm very excited about it! I planted seven trays of ten spots in those little pre-planting seedling trays made of decomposing cardboard, so you just tear them apart and replant them outside without having to take them out of their potlets. All cucumbers and lettuce, since those were the seed packets I had that suggested pre-planting in the instructions on the back. I'll be trying to follow the instructions as much as possible, because I'm very new to this and I know I don't really know what I'm doing, despite having helped my mom and dad in the garden sometimes while growing up. I'm sure what limited knowledge I do have will be useful, though. I really look forward to having home-grown vegetables during the summer. I hope I can keep a garden somewhat maintained. I imagine having the reason to be outside should be good for me, too.

So anyway, yesterday was awesome in many ways, I got a lot done - I even tidied up my room and went through my shirts to get rid of some by donating them to the Goodwill store I work at. I really do have more than enough clothes, so I got rid of anything that I probably wouldn't wear, either because it's not as comfortable as other options I have, or because it's too high-cut and shows my belly-button if I lift my arms - not that I have anything against that kind of shirt, but I can't wear them at work, and I rarely dress up to go other places, and I have no problem wearing longer shirts when I go out to other places anyway. I didn't toss all my high-cut shirts, but I did pass on a few. A lot of my clothes probably won't be good enough to go out on the sales floor, but I know that the "salvage" they get there (what isn't up to quality standards) goes to do some good too, so I'm sure they'll be able to do more with it than I was.

I was so energized last night due to my good mood that I stayed up late just because I wasn't tired. And then, unfortunately, I was woken up very early by my roommate packing his lunches into tupperwares. It sounded exactly like a kitten chasing the lid to a tupperware container around the kitchen floor, with a lot of scraping and sliding sounds. I'm going to ask him to try to do that in the evening, now that he's working morning shifts and is home earlier than 11:30 at night, so that I don't get woken up that way again.

Roommate's girlfriend is staying with us during weekdays for two weeks. I hope that I can continue to use her energy to spark my own. Maybe I can help my boyfriend out by stealing his bedding and insisting on washing it. He won't do it himself, but I really think that the mess he voluntarily lives in can't be good for him. Maybe I should be more like her, and clean his room like she cleaned our roommate's. I hadn't thought about it this way, but I may be neglecting Robby by allowing him to neglect himself when we both know he's in a rut.

For now, excitement abounds! Thanks for reading, and may you be inspired to make progress in your own lives as I am being inspired to do in mine.

A Season of Carols

Time is passing, passing along...

Work has become more and more habitual and easy. I go about my duties with unhurried calm most of the time, and feel competent and a little as though I am in a trance. The snow drifting outside the windows on snowy days, and serene or gently moody Christmas carols can be hypnotizing. It seems like we always have far more to do than we can realistically get done, but I am coming to understand that this is the way the store is meant to be run. Perfection is not expected, just a continuing effort to improve the worst problems, tidy the worst messes, and keep things running.

Customers ask me if I am working hard, and sometimes I am so relaxed I wonder if they are perhaps being sarcastic, but I am careful not to fall idle, and always be doing something useful to the store.

About a week ago, I decided to take up a piece of digital artwork I had promised a friend a year or so before, and ended up surprising myself by working for seven hours, and finishing it. I opened up artwork commissions on ChickenSmoothie again, which is basically an art trading site, but most of that art trading is in the form of official site collectable pets. It's not "professional", since it's not actually money, but it is reassuring to know that there are people who will trade me something that has value to them, and to the community we are participating in, in exchange for the quality of artwork I produce.

Doing art seems to make me happier, and the commissions help me focus and finish.

Unfortunately, my computer at home has encountered a somewhat serious problem, and is now not starting up Windows at all, not even in Safe Mode. It seems to be getting stuck on a file called SPTD.sys. I've had a lot of problems with corrupt files and cyclical reduncancy checks recently, and I knew my computer was deteriorating, so I'm not surprised. I've been wanting to replace it for a while now, but I have been spending my money on other things: repaying an old debt to a friend, housewares and winter garments, games, Christmas presents... I'll have to get a cheap replacement as soon as is reasonably convenient. Hopefully within the month. I'm not sure what I'll spend my time doing at home without one. For now, I'm staying with  my boyfriend again. Being alone without computer and internet access is lonely and boring. Being with my boyfriend is neither, and thus greatly preferable.

I still wonder where I'm going and how I will progress. I am feeling more and more confident in my present role. I even managed to get some resolution and a greater feeling of respect and appreciation after a mild confrontation with a co-worker with whom I was having some conflict.

I wonder sometimes if I am getting too comfortable, and a bit lax. Perhaps I should ask my co-workers and managers what they think. I wonder sometimes if I am becoming more sheltered and recluse, or complacent about the world and my ideals... I'm not sure who to talk to or what to do about that. It doesn't concern me all that much, though. I have time to bide and wait, and find something.

Oh. Also, I noticed something. Both at work and in my life surrounding it, I notice that I tend to get bored and despondent if things get too easy. The first big snowfall of the season, I walked to work and then to my boyfriend's house along the side of the road because the unshoveled sidewalks were knee-deep in snow... And I was elated by the challenge, the opportunity to get there anyway, do something -interesting-. I notice that I need a certain amount of adversity in my life, or I get bored and start to feel worthless and uninterested. My boyfriend thinks that is probably a sign of adaptation to a life that has been too hard. Perhaps. It is a useful revelation, though. Perhaps I can remember to make use of it, if I start to feel that boredom.

Left Forgotten

Wow. Yeah. I really did completely miss October of this year.

Well, there goes my streak of updating this thing at least once every calendar month, huh? Ah, well. I'll start again. Everyone makes mistakes.

You know, I had been meaning to come back and talk to you unseen eyes for a while now, but it always just seemed like I didn't have a good stopping point. Everything was up in the air, and reporting on my current status would give no closure, because I didn't have much. It's silly, in retrospect. I think some of my best writing on this blog has been from when I've been uncertain about the future.

So. October. I spent most of September desperately trying to find a place to move into for October. It didn't work. Me and Robby were turned down everywhere we applied, for various reasons. We suspected that the reasons were largely due to us being a couple, and therefore perceived as less financially stable than a single person with high earnings. So, he asked his current landlord for permission to stay where he was already, and continue to pay rent month by month for now, and I started looking for a place where I might be able to do the same thing. That way, once he was working again and had passed his three month probation, having been fired early September at the end of his last one (likely part of the reason for our rejections), we could look for a place to rent together with little to no time pressure, and wait to find a good place that would accept us, then move out of our flexible month to month situations only once we had found one.

I asked my roommate to let me stay at the apartment for the month of October even though my term on the lease was over, and offered to pay him the same amount in rent that I had been contributing when it was just us two... Despite the fact that his new girlfriend was now living there, too. He accepted, and I resumed the search for a place, but to move into for November. With the help of his girlfriend's mom, I found the place I am sitting in now. A bedroom in the fairly posh basement of a nice couple's house. I have my own bedroom across an open living room that the landlord sometimes walks through to use the laundry facilities down here. I share the upstairs kitchen. It's quite nice and very affordable, but I need to ask permission to have folks over. I've had Robby over to visit twice, under the restriction that he needs to leave by 11 PM.

My position at Goodwill continues to gradually accrue age and experience. I've been working there I think six months now, and I feel generally quite competent at almost every part of my job... The big exception being confrontation with difficult customers and thieves. While my social anxiety has not been crippling me nearly as badly now that I have the confidence of a job in which my work is appreciated and I've passed my probation, and a house that shows no sign, thank goodness, of being infested with blood-sucking bed bugs (I must have done a fairly good job of getting them out of all my things when I moved), but still, being faced with a particularly difficult or conflict-ridden social situation paralyzes me. Thankfully, my workmates are generally understanding, and can accept that it's not something I'm good at, so take the burden off me somewhat.

Though I am usually fairly happy at work, and my new place is safe, much more comfortable, and very convenient, I grow restless. I had feared, before finding employment, that if I was employed, I might become complacent with my passionate socialist ideals among other things... And to a degree, that's proven valid. My perspective is very different now that I'm making money and am not just on welfare. However, when I think about what I believe should be, much of it is still the same. I still think that welfare would work better, and people would be better off, if basic essentials were available without cost. Now, though, I look at a different set of advantages to the thought. It would be harder to defraud or take advantage of the welfare system, as well, if it offered you goods, shelter and services directly, rather than through money allowances. It's a lot harder and much more work to get simple food and goods and have to sell them somehow to get easily exchangeable money to spend on luxuries that the benefit wasn't intended for. Or, indeed, drugs or alcohol, for that matter. I imagine people who do have their own income stream would far less often bother to do that than to fraudulently claim money benefits they are not entitled to, as they might do now.

I've also been reading a little bit about becoming rich through real estate and stock market investments.

Yes, I know. Funny how much things can change, right? I'm seeing more of the picture now, because I'm seeing a lot more of a side I wasn't able to before. I'm trying not to lose sight of my old thoughts and the things that made them valid, too, though.

My half-brother emailed me yesterday asking how my life has been, and commented that he had been to check out this blog to find out, but there were no recent entries. So, if you've been missing my blog entries, you can thank him for reminding me to return and talk about how things have been.

I'm still getting used to working, and I'm trying to make up my mind whether or not it's okay for me to wait longer to become more secure and save up more money before I start doing interesting things. Probably not. It's just a matter of remembering that some of the interesting things I want to do don't take much money, and getting out and doing them.

We'll see how it goes.

Live on, bloggers.

To Share The Cup That Runneth Over

Someone on FetLife was asking for peoples' perspectives on the influence of our past parental abuse on those of us who have been abused and how it relates to our own desire to have, or to avoid having, children. Her voice was impassioned and full of a great deal of understandable internal conflict. It's clear she wants the good things that come with having children, and desperately wants to love and care for someone, but realizes that her scars may get in the way, and doesn't want to be a bad parent.

I would like to share my response with you all.

The best way I feel I can answer this is to tell my own stories related to it. 

I was inspired by the subtle, psychological abuses of my childhood to be vehemently vocal about bad parenting when I see it, especially when parents become frustrated with their childrens' natural curiosity and desire to learn, seeing virtually anything other than quiet obedience as disobedience, even when they only the actions of a young, inexperienced human engaged with the world and trying to gain the experience required to be a wise, functional adult.
And then later, I found VHEMT. 

I am not convinced that the human race has no chance of improving and willfully evolving socially and morally to progressively better states, and therefore don't think I actually want us to go extinct, but I definitely would prefer to see a smaller human race, with more quality, and less quantity, of life. The fewer people there are to share resources with, the bigger everyone's fair share can be. 

And this is why I've decided never to give birth, even though the thought is a fetish of mine.
However, it doesn't mean I don't want to be a mother.
I am still scarred and rendered dysfunctional by my own past abuses. In many ways the wisdom and sensitivity gained from my suffering has made me a generally very patient and level-headed person, but I am also prone to fits of anxiety and rage. Furthermore, I am young, and at the very beginning of my career. 

But someday, if I have greater financial stability, and if I have healed further and feel less controlled by my overpowering emotions, I will almost certainly want to participate in the growing and nurturing of children who were not born to me. I may foster-parent, or adopt. Or I may find my way into a nurturing role in my profession, or find my way into a household that accepts me in a role as a supportive carer and guardian to the children of someone else. 

Personally, I find it hard to believe that any child, even in the best and most well-adapted of families, could not benefit from one more loving, supportive adult in their life to encourage them to be the best that they could be; And equally hard to believe that any parent, even with the best luxuries and availability of resources and time, would not benefit from one more loving, supportive adult who could share the stresses of caring for a child when they become taxing, and thus prevent the build-up of frustration that can lead to that frustration being inappropriately taken out on the child. 

But to answer the question that stood out most to me in your post...
"If you feel, like you have love and tender loving care to give, who do you direct that energy to, if it is not kids?" 

Why... To everyone, of course. Neighbors going through hard times. Co-workers. Friends. And definitely lovers, whether they be short or long term. Absolutely everyone, not only children, and to be sure not only our own blood children, can use some Tender-Loving-Care. It is one of the greatest weaknesses of our Western society that we tend to forbid one another from taking responsibility for one another, and in turn, we forbid one another from asking for badly needed help. 

If you have love and Tender-Loving-Care to give, and you find no-one receiving it, if your cup runneth over with no-one to drink... Go to your best friends and congenial workmates, go to your lovers and partners and crushes, and if it is permissible within their circles, then go to theirs... go to those people with whom you can easily empathize, and encourage them to draw from your well of kindness whenever they are thirsty. 

All too frequently the only socially acceptable answer, to create a new life in to nurture and build up, because for some incredibly stupid reason we have been forbidden to nurture and build one another, is the only one that comes to mind. But especially for those of us who are damaged and who runneth over, but sometimes also run dry... We know in our doubts that creating a life for our love and care, and then becoming overwhelmed and filling it up also with our frustrations and tempers, becoming bad parents... Is all too real a possibility. 

Before you forge a new cup that you may not be able to fill all by yourself, then... I encourage you to seek out all of those cups near to your heart that are beginning to run low, and ask gently and patiently for permission to refill them. Break the stupid rules that forbid us from caring, mothering and looking out for one another. It is, of course, a delicate dance, and important not to be overbearing, but simply to be loving and available. But it's a well-known fact that parenting isn't easy. And this holds true whether the people you're parenting are children, or blood family, or not. 

I hope this helped.

Life Is Good

Good day, bloggers.

I really, really mean that.

Sorry I've not been in touch, life is pretty awesomely hectic. Let's see if I can fill you in with some brevity. Robby the rabbit boy is still around and still a source of great comfort and warm, easy, peaceful love that makes a lot of traditional notions much more attractive... Not that they weren't already, but it's more profound.

Perhaps more surprisingly, Pup's around again too. I didn't talk to him for a whole month... Then I broke the silence, and returned to find a puppy boy grateful and overwhelmed with good feelings to hear my voice and see my face again. For the two weeks previous, he'd been getting help changing some of his more difficult behaviors from a shockingly delightful lady who showed up on FetLife out of absolutely nowhere to flirt with me and ask about playing with me. I wasn't really interested, partly because of the recent chaos with Pup, so she found his page and asked me if she could play with him. I was only too glad to encourage her to do so with my highest blessings and deep gratitude. While I'd given up the Pup as a lost cause for me, I really wanted him to get through the grief I knew it would cause him breaking up with me and was incredibly grateful to have someone show up who seemed very much his type and who would probably do great things to soothe the pain, if only by being a very pleasant distraction who understood.

She surprised me. Not only did she enjoy him in ways I have no doubt he enjoyed quite a lot himself, she took on the task of training him according to his own desires to become a person who would be less trouble for me if I ever did come back. She's helped him, for his sake and mine, to be less argumentative, to stop and ask before going off on long tangents or trying to share all the neat things he wants to share with me... And, with an incredible cunning that blew me away when I heard of it, also came up with a way to give him some training in pitch recognition and at the same time, much more importantly, subject him to exposure therapy to force him to face and learn to deal with jealousy. In a way that he will accept, despite all its unpleasantness. She is a fucking genius, and I don't know what kind spirit sent her our way, but may it receive resounding thanks for her presence.

I'm not spending a lot of time with Pup. But we've spoken a few times. It has been congenial and pleasant. My lost cause, somehow... in only a month... has been found again, and retrieved safely and whole from the jaws of panic and hopelessness and fits of not knowing how to deal with his jealousy...

I don't know what to say, but thank you, thank you, thank you, and if I somehow deserve all this, I abso-fucking-lutely love who I am as a person on that count alone.

It doesn't stop there. For the past two weeks, I've been employed. I'm working part time, a minimum of 15-20 hours a week, with Goodwill retail here in London. And it's great. I'm primarily a stocker and unstocker, but I also clean the kitchens and staff bathrooms, since the new manager offered extra hours to someone willing to keep those areas clean, and housekeeping is my background. I had even been doing some independent work cleaning someone's bathrooms from time to time in the preceding few months. Serendipity to be sure.

My job has me on my feet walking a lot, up to 7 or 8 hours in a day, so my feet are often tired and sore at the end of a shift. My arms get sore too when I have to stock or pull from high racks, as apparently there are muscles that my arms has never had much need to use before that I use a lot when I'm holding them above my head. That pain only lasts as long as I'm doing it, though, and I'm sure it will fade with time and exposure. I need new shoes I can put cushioned insoles in. I've been told those will certainly help with my feet.

I want to give deep thanks to Goodwill (the job help branch) for helping me get here, and to Goodwill (retail) for hiring me, and to Robby for helping me get through the higher powered job search with my head high and confidence showing, despite being in grief over Pup, and for many, many other wonderful things that make me very happy, very often. And of course I would like to thank our mysterious friend from FetLife for helping Puppy grow and change and become not a pain in the ass.

And to all my friends and readers who have helped, or who have only witnessed the drama of my life, and elected to care about it... Thank you as well. I love you all.

Loss, Growth, Change

The Pup has left.

He threatened to block me, and I held him to it. One does not make such threats against me and then not follow through. We are partners no more, although if I said he was not still someone I love, I would be lying. May his path shine, always, even though he cannot see it. Glory, victory, to the Sunchild. Away from me, where his parasitic claws can bite and sting no more.

I called upon a bunny boy who catalyzed his departure to walk with me while I dealt, coldly, silently, with my anger, guilt, rage and conflictedness. The bunny boy supplants him after all, it seems, just as he had feared, and indeed, because he had feared, and let the fear turn him into a lashing, biting beast.

Who is the rabbit? Another fur, of course. Local, clever... He tells me my brain is very sexy and challenges him to think constantly. I'm pretty happy about that. I won't say a great deal about him, as I wouldn't want to out him to anyone. That's his own job. It seems that perhaps, though, he may be my gateway into the community properly, as it were.

I have been scattered, as you might expect, but doing job search stuff. Today, as I write this, I am procrastinating on approaching some people in person for information. It will be difficult and stressful, fraught with my anxieties. I can do it... And I intend to do it today. We'll see what happens.

Stay tuned. Life continues to get progressively more interesting.

Happiness

You know...

Over the last month or more... I've been... noticing how happy I am. I've been appreciating the love and support of my friends. I've been trusting that things will turn out okay and I'll get where I need to be eventually without rushing. I've been enjoying my humble home with my freecycled furniture.

I finally have a computer now that functions well enough to be well worth having. No substantial lag unless it's actually trying to do something difficult like stream. It cost me $20 from a fellow at an organization apparently called VPCC. I haven't been to that link, as I'm not on Facebook, but the man who sold me the computer linked me there. This computer was an upgrade after he gave me an older one for free, but it was so laggy that I could feel my blood pressure rising every time it took more than a second to register I'd moused over or clicked something or tried to open a window.

This one works smoothly and is well worth the $20 I paid for it. After so long using the hacked-up laptop and two days with the archaic tower, it feels so liberating and gleeful just using my scroll wheel to go down webpages and having it respond in realtime. I giggled to myself like a maniac to Pup about how I could scroll now, and felt slightly unhinged, while I was running D&D on Maptools for him, using a random map from Myth-Weavers, and needed to find the relevant part of the map key for a new room.

Speaking of Pup... It's been half a year now.
It... seems like so long, and yet so short.
Lots of progress has been made, and we are being better at interacting in ways that are healthy and happy for both of us. He still occasionally falls into fits I find utterly unbearable and I still sometimes take his weird and unreliable tone as a signifier of emotion and end up offended and upset about something he didn't mean and argues I know better than to take to heart. But... it's less frequent and less serious, less shattering. We're both getting better at being easy on each other.

My birthday yielded happy support from my patron, who gave me a gift card for Shopper's Drugmart and a warm brown vest. My mother also sent me a scratchy archaic tunic and a pair of wrap-around pants. I've never worn wrap-around pants before, and the design seems rather bizarre to me... but clever and playful.

I was able to enthuse happily to my counsellor the last time we spoke, and had many good things to say. That I've been talking to my mother again, that I find moments where I'm ruminating or running away and I stop... That the Pup I nearly broke up with two months ago is with me still and while it's far from perfect, there is love and happiness and sweetness there.

My request for funding for steel-toed work boots and a hard hat went through and was fulfilled in full, but I haven't actually gone out to get them yet. For the moment, I'm being lazy. But I will get around to it in time.

Taking advantage of a sale at Shoppers, and the gift card I was given, I now have a small supply of chocolate ice cream, and it's a real treat to have available from time to time.

I've been asked to dinner on Friday and have a date in about an hour... When did I become so popular, I wonder? Heheh... Strange and wonderful things.

I got a phone call from my dad today. He had a habit of cutting me off while I was talking, but nevertheless, we had a good and amiable chat. It's nice to hear from him again. The Daddy Dude seems to be doing well. Hippy dippy philosopher of sorts, as always. "May your path always shine." You too, dad. You too.
So much love. So much happiness. Has the elusive dream been reached?

Find out on the next exciting episode...