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[overwhelmedinsomniac]

/cosigned

Today marks the first day of Pride 2020.

It also marks the seventh day of protests held in honor of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. It’s been 634 days since Botham Jean was murdered by a police officer, 233 days since Atatiana Jefferson was fatally shot by a police officer, 2,123 days since Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer, and 2,146 days since Eric Garner was choked to death by a police officer. 

It has been five days since Tony McDade, a Black trans man from Florida, was shot and killed by a police officer.  

At the time of this post, it has been almost 19 hours since David McAtee was shot and killed by the authorities. 

This week has served as a stark reminder that those who have power in this country wield it recklessly and violently against Black people, non-Black POC, and trans people. For some, the power is found in their badge. In others, it’s their skin tone, their socio-economic status, their cisgender privileges, or any other number of privileges one can have. In 2018, with at least 26 trans people who were murdered, all but one were trans women, and all but one were people of color. According to data collected by Human Rights Campaign, this pattern is all too common. It should also be noted that the number of trans people who are murdered is grossly underreported, with many families and newspapers often misgendering those who can no longer speak up for themselves. 

On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall riots began as a response to the constant police raids of nightlife establishments frequented by the LGBTQIA+ community. That night sparked a revolution, with many eye-witnesses crediting Black and Latinx trans women for being brave enough to ignite what would become one of the most pivotal nights in LGBTQIA+ history. Without Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, there would have been no uprising. Without them, there would be no Pride. 

At this moment, it would be tone-deaf and insensitive to commemorate Pride in the same celebratory fashion we usually do. Instead, we’re asking you to make the commitment to better the lives of the oppressed. Do the work to become actively anti-racist if you are not Black. Spread the word that Black lives matter. Spread the word that trans people deserve to feel safe wherever they go. Reblog this post, make your own, or find someone in your life who doesn’t understand and do your best to make them understand. Donate if you can. 

The first Pride was a riot. We stand with you.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

Lynne called. I didn't answer out of obligation borne of being her son. After the phone having only gone one direction and giving up on that for two years, I was genuinely concerned that someone died or was dying. Nope. She just wanted to say, "Hi," and small talk.

I hate small talk.

She called while I was on the road. I did lots of patient listening. When she asked what was going on in my life, I told her that I now live in a much better place and that I was divorced. I said enough to make her feel like she knew what was going on and then put the small talk ball back in her court. When I arrived at my destination, I ended the call by telling her we could talk more tomorrow. She was surprised that I answered.

Quite frankly, so was I.

What do I say to this woman? I won't talk about gaming. That's evil. I can't tell her about being pagan and everything that entails. That's evil. I can't talk about being a stoner. That's evil. One of the few holdovers I retain from the faith in which she raised me is that one does not cast his pearls before swine. Knowing that she disdains all I hold sacred, what is there to talk about??

I guess we'll see tomorrow.

I can't believe she actually called, and I can't believe it took this long or happened in Wesley's lifetime. I guess bell curves are what they are for a reason. I did note that she did it while he was away. It makes me wonder if that man forbade her from talking to me. I hate that she married a man who is equally as domineering as Robin was. Why spend so much time, effort, and strife to free oneself of one man simply to be bound by another? Of course, I think I've learned by now not to go looking for sense in unreasonable people or their actions.

Tomorrow. We'll understand better tomorrow.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

Every word. Every fucking word.

alright don’t be mad but. i never read the great gatsby. i know i was supposed to. yes, it was assigned to us. i even know, more or less, what happens in the book. technically, i wrote an essay about it, i think, once or twice. 

at the time, i hadn’t read any book assigned to me. ever. it wasn’t that i didn’t like to read. i loved reading. but homework took place in a function of my brain that i couldn’t access. i would sit in libraries or at my desk and just. not do my homework. i spent hours like this, days like this, years like this. just not doing what was assigned to me, no matter the consequences, no matter how badly i wanted to be doing it. i just wouldn’t. and i wouldn’t go to class because i didn’t want to deal with the fact i didn’t do the homework. and then i wouldn’t get the homework. so i didn’t do it.

i remember realizing while i was doing college applications that i had actually, real-life fucked up. that it was permanent, what i had done. that i had a C- of an average and no future to look rosy at. and i still couldn’t make myself do things. i tried to submit applications only to realize i’d shoved off the date to the very last moment. and i was fucked.

it takes me three years and two transfers and three new starts before i am actually real-life trained how to study, how to read, how to enjoy being assigned things. 

and i watch parents of my students yell at students for being the same person i was six years ago: screaming at an A-, confused at skipped classes, punishing missed homework. and these students don’t have an answer. they just don’t do things. even if they want to. and they look at me, confused and defeated and without an answer for their parents. “i just can’t,” i hear a lot, and i understand.

parents don’t like “executive dysfunction” as a reason. “anxiety” and “depression” are often misdiagnosed as “procrastinating” and “lazy”. kids just learn they’re like this. that they’re always going to be. that it’s their fault, permanently. they are surrounded by books they didn’t read. and it doesn’t feel good. it feels like suffocating.

today i started “the great gatsby.” i promise. one day, it’ll feel easy.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

I'm tired of being so very angry. I don't know how to be anything else. I'm done blaming it on the divorce. At this point, I know better. Yes, I'm angry about that, but I feel like it's just fuel on which this feeds. There are lots of things to fuel it.

I don't like how my blood relationships have deteriorated. I don't like that the reasons why they did boil down to abuse. I don't like not having a job. I don't like that I have to avoid weed in order to get the one that waits for me. I don't like that smoking weed was the last, most effective means of silencing this baseless, sourceless fury. I don't like not having a family to run home to in the wake of... all that happened with X. I don't like that X successfully picked the lock and removed the chains that were keeping it in check. I hate that extended, intimate interactions kindle it.

It feels like weakness. Even if it didn't sap me of my strength, it would still feel like weakness. I used to be able to channel anger into productive results, but with how I've lost control of it, I can't anymore. It doesn't quite control me (yet?), but I don't like that I no longer control it. Now that I'm faced with it so directly, I realize that it's the reason I spent so long suppressing my emotions in general. If none of my emotions got the time of day, it didn't get the time of day, and it didn't feel like an imbalance if I stifled all of them. Unfortunately, I spent so long celebrating and experiencing love and joy while silencing it that the bill has come due without them, and I have nothing to put me in a place to ignore it. Once again, something unacceptably irrational is hampering my capacity to function. Contending with it is exhausting.

I realize now also that it has put me in a place wherein I'm worried about, to borrow from clinical phrasing, being a harm to myself or others. All three times when I nearly lost my battle with being suicidal, it was because this rage had broken loose and gotten the better of me. Now, I'm truly beginning to panic that I might snap and murder people. This is not an exaggeration. I've had to talk myself out of it more than once in the last few months. I could never kill someone I know and want to love. That would weigh too heavily on my conscience, and I'd just end of killing myself. My victims would have to be strangers or people I could morally claim had it coming: child abusers, rapists, other murderers... people who were monsters. Given the opportunity, I'd manipulate my way back into the armed forces and have myself sent into some field wherein I could just kill by way of following orders. At this point, I could be sated by something so morally grey, and that worries me for myself.

There's a thought echoing in my mind that if I killed myself instead of others, I could at least justify the killing — self-sacrifice is noble when it preserves the lives of others. Unfortunately, I know now that I can't kill myself. If I try, my body will shut my brain off and take over in the name of self-preservation because I want to live. I just don't want to live at the cost of others' lives.

It makes me feel like a bad person.

I don't know how to keep this from destroying me, and I'm worried that it's going to do exactly that. Treatment is out of reach. Out-patient care costs too much, and I definitely can't afford the cost of the long-term care I'm almost certain this demands. I'm just... I'm so fucked in the head, and I don't feel like I can live like this. Obviously, I have to live somehow because I can neither make it go away nor die.

If someone killed me, it would be a huge favor, and yes, I really do feel that way.

I can't believe I'm writing any of this. I never thought I'd see a day in my life where these words would be true of me.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

Kinda want to die, kinda want to build a cabin and live peacefully in the woods

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

Apparently, when a post gets too old, one can no longer edit it in this environment. Merf. I guess I’ll just do a reblog chain of my own post every time I add a lesson I’ve learned from this. 12. I will neither make nor accept promises, not even for the sake of a life-long commitment. If one’s word is insufficient to maintain a healthy relationship, a promise that relies on the strength of that word isn’t going to make things any better. 13. The sex might be great, but that doesn’t mean that it’ll be great forever; it certainly doesn’t imply that the person with whom I’m having it is great.

What Have We Learned?

Some of you may giggle at the title, but humorously self-directed condescension aside, I think this experience is taxing enough that I want to remember the lessons and never need to repeat them.

1. I will never let my thoughts or behavior be dictated by the insecurities of another ever again for any reason, not even for a spouse. This creates mirrored insecurities in me. I’ve already worked to conquer my own and have met with some success. I can never again allow the unvanquished fear of the self that dwells in another to resurrect my own.

2. Meth in and of itself has always been a deal-breaker. Now, I’m considering saying that no one with a history of its use will be acceptable.

3. If a drug addiction has been conquered without professional assistance, that is a deal-breaker. Too many unrecognized and unresolved addictive thoughts will still be present to drive their behavior. I should add that any wounds that fueled the addiction will also still be present.

4. My insight is *my* gift to exercise with great discernment and discretion, and it is not available for another to readily help themselves and deplete me of it, not even a spouse.

5. I am valuable. I know my worth. It is not arrogance to demand that a man have value equal to and respect for my own.

6. I am attractive and it is requisite that I be with a man who is and knows he is as attractive as I think I am. This has less to do with appearance and more to do with the internal man and the ways he’s been nurtured and developed; however, as I feel more driven to put the same discipline into my body that I have my soul, I may come to feel the same way about the body. One who has not put the same level of care into his soul that I have will not be capable of recognizing or valuing it in me.

7. Cheating is an immediate deal-breaker for two reasons: first, no reasonable, self-respecting person would ever put up with it, and second, I am incapable of recovering from it. It is a form of ultimate betrayal, and I will neither tolerate it nor those who think I should.

8. My tact, smile, and diplomacy are so ingrained in me that they function on auto-pilot. A lover must take me seriously when I am angry but haven’t yet suspended the aforementioned three traits. I should be able to be kind and diplomatic with my lover and be successful in communication with him. I never again want to need to be ugly at a lover to be understood, not even a spouse.

9. I tend to over-express and use my vocabulary to its fullest. I need a lover to be capable of keeping up with at least 85% of what I say without me having to explain an already over-expressed thought.

10. As hard as I have to work to be reasonable, I need to be the craziest person in the relationship, and I need a lover who will not be negatively affected by that. I can’t have another’s rational inconsistencies building and adding to my own that I fight regularly.

11. If any of these things make me unsuitable for marriage, I’m okay with that. At bare minimum, it means that marriage isn’t suitable with the person saying so.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

Creating Peace and Joy

Growing up in the home I did, I was taught that the sacrifice of one's joys was nobility. I was conditioned to relinquish them willingly because, if I didn't, they would be taken from me... ripped away, belittled, and obliterated. If I sacrificed them, they at least took on the air of the sublime in the process. They became more beautiful, even if only for the fleeting moment that I watched them fade from view. In the process, I was taught that those joys did not bring peace. I could have them and the strife that came with them and trying to futilely cling to them, or I could have complacent compliance.

It left me feeling hollow and quite distrustful of peace. In this way, what came before now bred in me a contempt for tranquility. In the habits of my adult life, if I was not struggling for happiness, I felt intrinsically unhappy and would create strife for myself. Here, in a single sentence, I feel I've unpacked the true reasoning behind the habits of my self-sabotage. I couldn't have goals because, in the moment that I did, I was working against them in the relationships I would establish personally and the alliances I maintained professionally. It was a sonorous echo of what was beat into me from a very young age — whoever I am and whatever I choose to be, I thought I did not deserve joy. All that was left to be felt was anger, and in this, I think I also see how my self-sabotage and fury have worked hand-in-hand to undo me.

Recently, as I have learned that I can seize happiness and peace together in conquering my own misgivings about either, I am finding that the only detractors left to sabotage it are those who aren't me. I'm finding myself to be quite volatile when I feel that the pursuit of my joy, my effort at taking it for myself, is threatened. Certainly, I should not tolerate it, but I don't feel that this lashing out is necessary. At the same time, I don't know how to keep it from being a genuine reaction. I think this baseless aggression at others may actually be indicative that an emotional habit I do not require may be dissipating. I have been a knee-jerk rage-monkey for so long now that I am having difficulty conceiving of how to be any other way.

I think I really do feel my anger dying, but if it goes, what is left to keep me motivated? Anger has always been my most effective means at generating change. Like physical pain, it lets me know there's something wrong that requires remedy. Unfortunately, the only time it is sufficiently piqued to the point of efficacy is when I have found that someone has already begun unraveling my attempts at peace and happiness. What remains afterward is a trust that becomes more injured with each betrayal.

How do I protect my efforts at peace and joy while figuring out how to trust? Perhaps I am yet putting the cart before the horse. Maybe it is best that I simply establish a peace and joy worth protecting first and then decide how to trust others with it second. As I dwell on and contemplate that idea, I think it establishes a good priority. Yes, I believe that before I can share my life, myself, with others, I must first have something to share. It's possible that this is the mistake I've been making throughout my adult life. Since I have had no foundation on which to build, I have built nothing, and when I invite others into this... nothing... they find nothing to respect and no reason to stay. If I cherish my efforts so little as to constantly be tearing them apart, why should anyone else be expected to behave any differently? That would be hypocrisy.

While I am building, I will not make trust a part of the equation either in its healthiest form or in its counterpart, destructive mistrust. Those I choose to value will either reciprocate the care I give them and hold that value, or they won't. Acceptance of that will be enough, and I have already found since leaving X that this has been productive in preserving my success and my heart. The method may not be the textbook "right" or “healthy” answer, but it is working better than anything else thus far and will be kept. So then, I’ll keep others out of how I build and simply build. No artist who paints a canvas asks others for their involvement in the endeavor. He simply reaches into himself and pulls out something he finds beautiful, and in this way, his art fulfills him. Accordingly, I will make something beautiful of my life, and when I have created it, those who see it may either add to the tapestry or fade into obscurity because no longer will I allow my senses of peace and joy fade in their stead.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

It's a good reminder.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

More to Learn

I have a couple edits to make to my "What Have We Learned?" entry. Two things have come to the forefront of my mind, and they are as follows: first, I'd already learned not to make or accept promises, and second, I am susceptible to sexual need and chemistry in ways of which I'd been previously unaware.

On the first point, I thought marriage was a worthy exception to my rule of promises, but here, I've found myself in a position both to have a promise to me broken and break one I'd made out of necessary, emotional self-preservation. The thought pains me. I don't take promises lightly; I never have. I suppose a therapist might suggest that this has much to do with Robin frequently promising never to hurt me again only to have him raise yet another violent hand to me in a day or less, a pattern I encountered from a time that predates even my earliest memory. The same could be said of his usage of the word, "love;" though, I find that to be less direct in that his application always left me wondering in the thought that if he loved me, he had quite the way of showing it. Here, I remind myself that he was mentally ill and incapable of being aware of his emotions and intentions from one moment to the next, much less controlling how he acted upon them. Regardless, the impact of those events on me can't be ignored. Have they left me in a state wherein I am reduced to a frightened seven year old by intimate contact whether emotional or physical? Do I just immediately distrust anyone who reaches out to me on either level because an old fear of harm generates a self-fulfilling prophesy? Is this an unvanquished from of self-sabotage? How much of a part did it play in my experience with X? He remains accountable for his violations; I do not seem to detract from that, but I'm left considering in light of how I react to love and promises how much this wound drive my behavior. Here, I consider my most recent encounter with First -- I abhorred the vulnerability of the experience, and the exposure unnerved me so much that I was genuinely afraid of First. The shame and fear were so overwhelming that I had to resist the urge to flee back to Fishtown on the spot. The Viking's flashbacks render his scars as fresh wounds in psychosomatic response to reliving the trauma. As most of my scarring resides in my psyche, is my mind merely doing the same on a psychological level? How do I free myself of it if so? As I ruminate on this, I find myself chasing it in circles and arriving at no conclusion. I will continue on to the next lesson for now. In the meantime, I will neither make nor accept promises because I am incapable of valuing them.

I have been pondering whether I was behaving emotionally or sexually desperate when I walked a path toward marrying X. I do not believe I was. Desperation was not the motivating factor. Being entirely caught up in the connection we had established was. There was something sacred I found there, and it invigorated me. The sex and emotion were so much greater than their sum at the time. Perhaps I inferred something from them that was actually not there, and in being the empath I am, perhaps I created an endless hall of mirrors. Have you ever faced two mirrors toward each other and observed the seemingly interminable corridor their joined reflections form? In retrospect, I feel like that's what we were feeding each other: something endlessly illusory. I charged face-first into the glass, and it is no wonder that I am wounded by the result. So... what do I learn from this? Perhaps I learn simply that I need to prevent myself from being caught up in momentum and feedback loops.

As I am still refining and distilling these two lessons, I will not add them -- I have yet to learn them.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

What Do I Need?

I'm tired of talking about it. It isn't that I'm tired of others asking about it; though, I suppose that is also true to a far lesser degree. I just don't like that it is one more way I can see that I'm still upset about the divorce.

"Nate, it's divorce. Anyone is going to be upset about it."

Bah. I know that. I, however, keep what I'm sure anyone else might say are unreasonably high standards for myself. For example, I got to see the Vampirate and Seeress this weekend. I should have been over the moon about it with my ears in their business. I wanted to know more about his lawsuit. I wanted to hear more about her cancer. What we talked about was X.

Being in the presence of people who've known me longer than anyone in Fishtown made me painfully aware of how much this has changed me, and honestly, I felt... wrong. I'm not me. I like being Elijah with my justifiable cruelty and my Red Door with all this rage bubbling just under my well-groomed exterior, but let's face it -- this is just me game-facing my way through this, trying to be strong just to get by from one day to the next. It worried them. First didn't poke at that too hard; he just wanted me to have a good time (and I did). Vampirate and Seeress, on the other hand, just wanted me to be me... and I'm not.

Am I really upset about the divorce, though? Yeah, I guess? I'm more bothered by what it signifies. I'm distraught over losing what I thought I had. I keep thinking that I took all the time I needed in grief while X was gone on his business trip, but the truth is that I was just steeling myself for what was to come. I've done no real grieving, and I think that's why intimacy with First went as it did this weekend.

I'm tired of wearing this mask, but at the same time, I don't want to mope. If I mope, I feel like X gets some kind of victory. I feel like it's one more way he hurts me. I know he's done all the harm I will allow him to do, but all the same, I don't like feeling weak. He was weak enough for the both of us, and that's what led us to this. I don't want to let his weakness create anymore ripples.

I feel compelled to run. Where? I want extended solitude, and I have none here. I need time alone, to fall apart and be fragile without anyone rushing to put me back together but me. I need time to analyze each piece before it's put in its place. I don't have that. I'm so dizzy with the day-to-day of living that the requisite silence for that is simply out of the question. Hell, I can't even sleep without being woken ahead of my alarm by this day-to-day.

Now that I know what I need, I better find a way to get it. I sense a drastic break coming if I don't.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

Re-Learning Myself

As always, I've jumped in face first with a boy in some capacity before I was ready. While I'm certainly not in love with David, he lingers in my heart and mind like too much bad cologne lingers in the nostrils, and I can't move on with him there any more than one can properly smell things with that odor still present. I don't know how to make him go away yet, but I know I need to figure that out.

I intended to be intimate with First, and that led to a learning experience. Primarily, a guy wins me with a kiss. If the making out isn't good or is skipped in the name of sexual eagerness, I'm just not going to be into it. I can't fuck for the sake of fucking. That had always presented a challenge, but now, it's just gone. That might change after I address the David issue, but for now, if I do stumble across someone who takes my fancy beyond desperation and horniness, there needs to be at least a little effort at romance and seduction. Secondarily, as much as I'd like to think otherwise, I don't actually want sex. It's weird to type those words, re-read them, and then decide to leave them there, but they're true. I don't know if that's a by-product of David or not, but I'm not into it on any level. Maybe someone will shock me out of that somewhere down the line. For now, guys are nice to look at from time to time, and that's about the end of it. Tertiarily, when I do get back into things, I need a guy to be the aggressor. Passivity simply doesn't do it for me. Finally, first loves should remain first loves and a part of one's history. I should not resurrect an old memory like that. There's a reason I don't date exes, even the one, apparently, that I thought I’d let get away.

I just want to have good friends right now, and I don't want anything else. There is a guy with whom I created some level of casual connection, and I’m going to call him Mack here. I'm going to see how that goes. Mack's been moving so slowly that we haven't yet moved past texting in small bits. He has a heart and mind with which to interact, and I've been appreciating that. I'm going to see him today on my way back up to Fishtown. Perhaps something will happen with him in the long run, but for now, I like that it's casual, relaxed, and non-sexual. I like that he's a new friend and nothing more. I like getting to know him.

I've deleted profiles and uninstalled the hook-up apps. They aren't going to serve their purpose in Fishtown, and I'm just not into it in the first place. It actually felt good to do that, and behaving in ways that align with my being are essential to my healing. This has been an eye-opening vacation, and I'm glad to have had it.

On the flip-side of all of this, it was nice to share a bed with someone. It felt good to have a companion for a bit. It was a blast to be gay and nerdy with other gay nerds. Let's see what happens with my sex life when I just let things happen in their own time instead of trying to force things.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

Drowning

Tonight, I can't keep up with the tide of my fury. I feel lost in it, and while I'm not so far in the depths that I can't still see the sun piercing through them, not being able to come up for air scares the shit out of me.

Nearing Christmas this year, my mind keeps coming back to when I was sixteen and ran from home to Best Bud's house on Christmas Eve. I still remember the chilling fear every time I heard a car pull up in his neighborhood, the way my heart sank at each closing vehicle door. I remember Best Bud telling me to go hide in the closet, that it'd be okay -- he'd make Robin go away.

Having run from David to this place only to have him "follow" me here... I know he didn't follow me. I beat him by a week, and he thinks I showed up after him; this indicates to me that he didn't have it in his head to actually follow me... doesn't it? I won't pretend at knowing his thoughts anymore. How can I claim to know a man who worked so hard to deceive both himself and me that I was fooled by the effort? I'm too close to objectively review any of this. I can only explore and know my own heart, and that is its own challenge.

Viking reiterated to me tonight that "The mind replays what the heart cannot forget."

That notwithstanding, I feel that very same Christmas Eve fear every time I hear a car door close in the neighborhood. Is X here to steal the car? Did he send someone to do it for him? Does he have spies or leg-breakers working for him? Have I subjected Viking and Valkyrie's babies to some naively unforeseen harm? And for fuck's sakes, why does he make me feel that distinct, unique fear? He never laid a hand on me; he's not that kind of coward. Why, then, does he illicit such a reaction from me?

I saw him the other day at his work. It was something of a victory to hear the judge declare that I can go to X's work, but he can't be in mine. Fucker. He sat there with his crocodile tears in the courtroom about how *he* needed to be protected from me when I hadn't yet harmed him. The irony there is that in retrospect, I know that had I stayed with him even another month, I *would* have hit him, and that creates another cascade of fears and rage.

Women get to hit men. If I had been a woman and X had done all of this to me, I could have slapped the shit out of him with each cheat and lie, rolled his empty fucking head right off his shoulders, and the law would have thought nothing of it. The world would have struck up a Cellblock Tango and danced merrily because he had it comin'. As I am not a woman and am bigger than him, if I'd finally gotten so out-of-my-gourd as to punch him in the face like I wanted, I'd have gone to jail because we can't have same-gendered domestic violence, and we don't need married gay men thinking they can beat the shit out of each other just because they're gay. That would be an affront to all the social progress we've made for the sake of marriage equality, and I'd have been made an example. What a fucking sham of justice... He tried to push that button as it is, and I'm grateful for the creativity and quick thinking I exhibited in disempowering that the way I did. I had to lie to do it, but I needed to protect myself.

In one fucking 9-1-1 call, he successfully made fools of us both. What a twat...

If I'd actually made it to the point of hitting him, however, I *would* have felt exactly like Robin, and I don't think I'd have survived that. It would have made me feel like I became him, like I somehow managed to earn everything they both did to me. Why does all of this keep dragging me back to Robin in the first place?

In ruminating on it with Viking and Valkyrie's loving, patient ears, I did finally realize that it was X's routine of doing things to make me feel worthless and then telling me how sorry he was and that he loved me. The fuck he did. No one who loves me makes me feel worthless like that. In that very precise way, his behavior directly mirrored Robin's patterns. X has no clue of the conflicted, abused darkness at which he was poking. None. Instead of recognizing, respecting, and soothing it, he only fed and stirred it, and now, just like Robin, I want to see him dead because I'm such an angry person in general that I am incapable of splitting the difference between my rage for him and that I carry for Robin.

I think that's what keeps pulling me back to Robin in all of this. While X never dared to hit me, I feel again like I lived with abuse. Is that an exaggeration, a magnification borne of a turbulent past? After Robin, I swore that no one would ever be allowed to make me feel like scum that way again, and here I sit, feeling like scum while both of them rob me of sleep.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

Progress on My Birthday

I am again forwardly mobile. Fishtown, as it turns out, is exactly the safe space I suspected it would be, and that is in no small thanks to the great efforts of Viking, Valkyrie, and their entire clan. I have never before had an experience wherein nepotism actually worked in my favor. I am employed at a local diner. I was perplexed by how fulfilling I find the work until I remembered one of my favorite momemts in A:tLA wherein Iroh responds to Zuko's complaints about working in a tea shop by saying, "There is nothing wrong with a life of peace and prosperity." In my time here, while the prosperity has been sparse, the peace has been great, and I have wanted for neither. In my last entry, I considered the idea of being a flight attendant, and the idea grows on me. It's new, and I would get to enjoy service to others while flying. I find the prospect unexpectedly exciting. The divorce makes slow progress and looms over me, casting a shadow over what should otherwise be a bright disposition. Work, children, and family keep that at bay, and in my quiet moments, I can indulge it long enough to process healthily without dwelling on and wallowing in it. For the first time since I married him, I have the beginnings of hope again. He fades into my past, and my despair goes with him.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

Writing the Next Chapter

I look forward to the thought that these are the beginning of the last words I'll ever write about him at length. He is now just the man to whom I was once married, the man for whom it was more important to stand by a lie and engage in passive-aggressive sabotage than to be a teammate, partner, and friend.

I honestly can't make heads or tails of my own life right now. I'm probably just going to bounce back to Fishtown. I don't want to leave this place, but to be honest, I don't think I want to live here after everything that's happened; though, I'm not keen on being in Fishtown or Potato Capitol eighter. Those places will always be saturated with memories of him. Wherever I decide to be, I need to be there with the goal in mind of moving elsewhere.

I'm strongly considering joining an airline and being a flight attendant. It would give me the opportunity to make real money I don't have to scrape out of the road, and I wouldn't need the car for it.

The Viking and the Valkyrie have told me that I am welcome with them. It would mean going back to Fishtown, but I think it is the safest, most secure option I have. Anything I do here can be sabotaged with ease because it is directly tied to him. I think I need it go along with him. It's just a dream I once had when he was a part of the dream. Without him, the dream is meaningless, and I need to construct one without him. I can't build on a tattered foundation, so I will start fresh.

So, the new plan:

1) Go back to Fishtown. 2) Be somewhere truly safe with people who are truly safe. 3) Complete the divorce. 4) Do something I've never done before.

[overwhelmedinsomniac]

[overwhelmedinsomniac]