Sometimes, often, when things go wrong I get an urge to light everything on fire.
Wait, that is not entirely true.
I’ve stayed and fought to preserve things that were not worth preserving. (gestures broadly at 7 years of farm life)
Let’s talk about that for a minute shall we.
Examine my stubbornness and folly.
He used to call me his sexy chocolate alarm clock.
At the beginning of our relationship, I would drop my son off at school and had 2 hours between then and when I had to be at work. So I would stop at the Starbucks on the corner, grab us coffees (he liked mochaccinos) and jump on the streetcar in the opposite direction I needed to go, back to his house and wake him up with a coffee and a blow job. It was a $15 venture 3 or 4 times a week now that I think about it with the coffee and the extra trips.
This is who I am as a girlfriend. I figure out nice things to do for my partner and I do them.
If I am awake before you, you are getting coffee and a blowjob.
So, a month or two in, I went into his room, he was sleeping, I did my thing and started to gag, not in a funny sexy way, he wasn’t very big at all. No no dear reader, I pulled a long auburn hair out of my mouth. My hair was black. It had been wrapped around his cock and ended up in my mouth. So gross.
Took me about 30 seconds to realize what was happening and I started crying and left.
He was obviously cheating. I obviously didn’t want that. So I left the key on the coffee table and bailed while he was still naked in bed, half asleep trying to figure out what happened.
That could have been the end of that story if the streetcar had come to take me away.
But it didn’t.
He caught up with me at the corner and gave me this bullshit story about how his brother’s girlfriend put her laundry in with his and it must be her hair and I was being silly and stop crying and did I want a ride to work.
I am not a stupid girl, but I wanted to believe him, even though logic and physics dictate a hair cannot get coiled around the head of a dick under the foreskin from laundry transference. Its scientifically impossible. But I was cold and tired and sad and the streetcar wasn’t coming and that moment changed my life for a long time to come.
He got a way with it once and kept pushing the envelope.
Had I known then even an inkling of what was to come, and maybe I did, my gut was doing somersaults and not from my chai latte, I would have said no and save myself the $60 bucks a week and 7 years of cheating, fighting, financial abuse and bullshit.
He is the one who extolled the wisdom upon me that ‘we train people how to treat us in the first 3 months of a relationship’ anything we start or let slide, becomes habit. The ex before him never grocery shopped, cooked, cleaned or did laundry, that was all on me for 5 years. Because I did those things for the first while we were together without question or hesitation. Again, I figure out nice things to do for my partner and I do them. Sometimes to my detremement.
I would love to tell you that I have found some balance, but if you ask any of my recent exes, they would all tell you I was generous and kind and nice. Final Boss got me out of bed repeatedly to go get him wherever he was after multi day benders and back out of bed making 5am sandwiches when his hangover would kick in.
I am too nice, and part of me is still holding out for the person that will appreciate me as is. I don’t want to become cold, I have had so many opportunities.
But what does that have to do with anything?
After I left him finally, I lit a match and set that whole part of my life on fire. Purged everything, including friends. It has been 9 years and 5 days since the Valentine’s Day hotel incident that was my last straw of a million that broke my back. I have maybe one thing left that I owned when I lived at the farm. So much of my shit is in storage that I can’t even be sure about that one thing anymore. I tossed all of it 3 moves ago. And I had some cool shit. I just don’t want to remember.
Wolf pointed out that I was having an abusive relationship with social media. He isn’t wrong wrong, but I did that thing wherein I complained about it more than I explained why I liked it.
I also left the blog as is for its entire existence and never allowed it to evolve or grow. I would write a post, post it to Facebook, people would read it and I would do it again on Thursday.
The Catfish Poet proposed years ago that I get rid of everything, and then backpedaled when he saw the numbers and potential and wanted to use me and my platforms to sell his shit. I have almost walked away 3 times now.
There is a post in there somewhere called “Before I Go”.
I left it up for continuity even though it was folly and turned out not to be true. Same with the couple of posts about the fake soldier, the year of Lumberjack wherein he had a secret girlfriend the whole time. I think she had his babies, good for them.
So, I finally got out of my abusive relationship with Facebook and I thought a full purge was the only way to go. Fuck the blog, fuck everything really. I was torn between filling a shopping cart with my belongings and going to live in a tent city and getting a mediocre job and a mediocre husband. Barring those things, just going back east and doing a do over. Reno another room in Brian’s house and wait to be rescued, but accept that I wouldn’t be.
I am not exaggerating for dramatic effect, those were my 3 choices for the better part of a month.
Except, I still want all the things I wanted 7 years ago. Little trailer down south, revenue streams from writing so I wasn’t tied to rent in one place or one job.
I have proven that I can write a novella from idea to published in 60 days if properly motivated.
Selling them/myself is the challenge now. But it always has been. I just keep being good and hoping someone notices.
It doesn’t matter that I am a really good writer, the market is saturated.
I have a month of bed rest post surgery looming. Instead of migrating the blog to Patreon, maybe keep both instead of setting my life on fire.
I don’t know what I am doing to be honest.
I had a very long talk with a very old friend last night and he kinda kicked my ass a bit and offered suggestions. Mind you he is ‘mister technical web guy’ and I am a luddite. But 7 years ago I didn’t know how to navigate wordpress either so there is that then. I still don’t use it to its full potential but the groundwork is there, so much groundwork. And he pointed out that women writers have to work 10 times harder than our male counterparts, he is not wrong.
The things I learned and the skills I honed over the 7 years of living at the farm have made me what I am today. Self sufficient, good in a crisis, I can fix a car, unflood a basement, live without power and even my polyamory is a direct result of what I lived through there. I also know I never want to have another farm in Ontario or Canada really, ever. Nor live through another winter here.
I must have learned something good from the blog over 7 years. I just have to figure out what.
“Its only after we have lost everything that we are free to do anything” Fight Club
There are parts of me that are fighting to remain. Including this blog.
Extras still available here
https://www.patreon.com/sarahthegoodwitch