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This post has been a long time coming. Maybe not long long, but an inventory of the things in my head is overdue. Perfect timing.

The eclipse is imminent and today just felt like the day.

Full moons are for letting go of what we don’t want and a full moon eclipse is super ultra major purging and cleansing.

We have to know what to get rid of. And for that we need to go into the shadows and parts of ourselves that don’t often see the light and dig deep.

To exhume is to unearth something that was previously buried.

Get your shovels kids.

5 more sleeps.

I watched Warm Bodies the other night with Attica. She had never seen it and it was one of a handful (out of hundreds) of DVD’s I took to, then brought back, from the island. Dave burned 12 of them to his Plex server and now I have a tiny collection of my obscure favorites.

It’s the little things.

I am not going to go into a deep synopsis of the movie. It follows a typical teen romance trope. The end of the world can be undone by 2 plucky kids in love. One of them happens to be a zombie. I added a link at the end to a rather good analysis of the book by another blogger. Or you could just watch the movie. I’ll link the trailer too so you know what you are looking for.

There is a scene where the main character is healing for lack of a better word and asks another group of zombies for help.

R: Heeeeeeeelp exhuuuuuuuuume?

(Mumbling slightly less dead zombies)

Marcus: they said ‘fuck ya’

Its adorable.

And it got me thinking about my current dilemma.

I have had a reoccurring conversation about paranoia versus PTSD.

Paranoia, in small doses, is actually healthy. It’s a safety measure built into our brains. Assessing potential threats is a good thing. Thinking everything is a threat is exhausting at best.
Aaaaaand, just hear me out, PTSD can be useful.
Both things serve a purpose, you just can’t let them dictate your life.
But you can access old files and data to help make educated decisions moving forward.

Paranoia exists in the imagination, creating scenarios out of fear of the unknown. Our brain’s way of filling in gaps and trying to predict the future, but not in a fun crystal ball, tarot card kinda way.
It activates the fight, flight or freeze reptilian instinctual part of our brain and can be paralyzing.

PTSD is memory and recognition.

“Yes, this actually happened to me and I am scared it will happen again, because it fucking happened.”

This is why we only have to touch hot stoves once, or in my case a few times, I worked in kitchens, it happens.

As someone who has lived through some funky fucked up frightening shit, I really should have massive PTSD.

But I don’t.

What I do have is an intricate filing system for a brain that cross analyzes current situations with a pretty deep understanding of human behavior and patterns using all of the information I have ever collected on other people’s actions and reactions to similar events. Along with movie quotes, Jeopardy trivia, cross analysis of quantum physics and how it relates to the human experience, recipes and so many song lyrics.

Most of the time it serves me well. I think I am lucky.

If I am conversing with you, I am learning you. I can’t help it. I am listening to your stories to see how you reacted to different scenarios. If I know you well enough, I can fairly accurately predict your behavior. Not always, just mostly.

Sometimes people throw me a curveball and I end up questioning my entire existence, or I blatantly ignore what is actually happening because it doesn’t fit my narrative and then hindsight smacks me upside the head, but that is not what this is about. There are plenty of blog posts about that.

I also adamantly refuse to let people who have hurt or wronged me live rent free in my head and dictate my behavior and what I do with my life. They aren’t here, they can’t hurt me. But that is a choice I made a long time ago.
Living well is the best revenge, not that I am vengeful, I just stopped caring about those who do not care about me.

Same goes for people that I hurt who are no longer a part of my life. Of course I feel bad about it, but at the very least I learned a lesson about what not to do moving forward. Data analysis all the same. Changed behavior is the best apology. Dwelling helps no one once the lesson is learned.

The problem with PTSD and why it isn’t always a useful tool is that the connections in the brain will automatically see how certain people and situations are the same as a past traumatic event, as opposed to seeing how they were different.

PTSD equates all similarities as red flags and no white or green or chartreuse.

Red flags exist for a reason, I have long been colorblind, but I am getting better.

No situation is all or nothing. In actuality maybe, but not in the safe distance that is the contemplation of it.

Everything done can be undone. I am walking proof.

I have made some bizarre decisions on a whim and landed in some weird situations. I have been 3000 miles from home flying by the seat of my pants often in the last few years.

But I am still here, and those events, traumatic, euphoric or anything in between, are just stories I tell now.

We do also have to factor in Albert Einstein’s motto ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.’

I will admit there have been times in my life where I was absolutely insane by this definition. 2005 to 2011 as an example. By rights I should be bitter and scared and vehemently monogamous or a full blown lesbian instead of bi.

Instead I came out of a very unfaithful marriage, constantly fighting to be the ‘only one’ and instead of being staunchly against polyamory, I embraced it. I can only assume this pisses him off. But he went about it all wrong. It wasn’t an agreement, there was no honesty, just force.
My conclusion, once all the data had been analyzed, was that I no longer expect monogamy from partners, nor will I ever be with him again.
Healthy reaction to PTSD and trauma. I learned something valuable, kept the lesson and threw the whole man out.

Like Sarah at the end of Labyrinth. “You have no power over me.”

No one does.

Don’t get me wrong. I still worry. I still hesitate and edit the words coming out of my mouth sometimes…lie detector determines that is a lie, I have no filter…but I will wait for better moments to bring things up. I read the room. And actually plan things by the moon and stars too. No point having a big emotional talk when I am 2 days from bleeding during a retrograde. I do have an inkling of self-preservation left and a blog I can vent on instead.

Do I think everyone should be like me and just do random shit while hoping for the best? No, of course not. Some people are only happy when they are safe, and that’s okay too. But to squander a chance at adventure because of what some dipshit did a decade ago doesn’t sound right to me either.

When does the art of self-preservation equate a lack of living?

When paranoia and PTSD take over would be the easy answer. But it isn’t that easy. How do you tell someone who has lived through unimaginable pain that it won’t happen again just because you said so. You can’t, to do so is dismissive. Time heals, patience, learning that person and what hurt them and definitely trying really hard not to do those things to them. That’s a start.

Or you could be me, running willy nilly into the next thing just in case it’s good.

And every time it rains
You’re here in my head
Like the sun coming out
Ooh, I just know that something good is going to happen
And I don’t know when
But just saying it could even make it happen
Kate Bush, Cloudbusting

Of all the times I wanted off this mortal coil, and there have been plenty, what kept me going was the idea that I haven’t seen everything there is to see yet. I haven’t lived, loved or been loved fully enough yet. And no matter how bad things got, I could remember the other bad times and I knew they ended eventually. And I am getting better at leaving.

I think I have always known something good was going to happen and staying somewhere safe and hidden was not the way to find it. But that is just me.

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time, and always one more time.” — Maya Angelou.

Yes Maya, I agree, Kate too.

But there is still a scared girl who sat on a bus with an army surplus rucksack full of half my worldly possessions and a baby in my belly escaping a ‘leap of faith’ move gone wrong. The 2 dozen times I fled the farm and rebuilt my life from an air mattress on the floor to a nice apartment, just to get sucked back in again. Until I left for good and rebuilt one more time. Then the island debacle, where I was almost free but did an 18 day turn around and stayed 18 more months in perdition.

And for that, we must exhume.

Not just to find the cause of death, but to see what worked and what can be thrown away.

Once it’s all out of the ground you are gonna find a lot of the baggage buried with your past was never yours to begin with.

http://empiresandmangers.blogspot.com/2013/03/warm-bodies-exhuming-humanity.html

cool blog book review of warm bodies.
I now need to buy the book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07s-cNFffDM

This was in the top 3 bedrooms of all time, probably tied for number one really if I think about it, such a good space, a beautiful bed, albeit a little broken…and I had no problem walking away from all of it.

I still have my lion and the blue wall hanging and apparently I have a thing for Beatle’s lyrics. I still have that too, stashed in the corner of my attic. It comforts me in a way I cannot articulate.

Here comes the sun
And I say
It’s alright
The Beatles

It poked through the clouds just now for a fleeting moment, promise for later maybe. The clouds are different today, low and dark, cutting quick paths across the sky.

There are workmen up a ladder banging 4 feet away from my balcony. I leave the door open when I can, I have always preferred fresh air to canned. Fresh everything compared to canned really, I wouldn’t make it on a submarine, not even a yellow one.

I feel like I am being pulled out of and simultaneously driven from my space, but I want to be in it.
I am stubborn, I’ll just endure; it is what I do. This is reminiscent of a 3 year old pilgrimage to Florida wherein they were repairing mild hurricane damage to the outside of the building and the unit upstairs. 10 to 4 the condo was uninhabitable. That was the trip where Panda could no longer hide her hatred of me either.
Fun times all around. I made it through that I can make it through this.
Spotify playlist is co-operating, and I found incense that smells like brownies baking. I am not used to burning candles and incense without any magical intent, but I haven’t made it to the magic shop yet. Maybe today if the construction continues.

Had I gotten up with my alarm this morning, maybe things would be different.

But I didn’t. I was dreaming and whatever was happening in my subconscious psyche was more important than coffee or waking life. I was trying to sort through something in dreamland, I don’t know if I did or not, the banging started and here we are.

The siren’s call of my bed was too much to resist.

Ah yes, not the prettiest of my segues but there it is.

You know, I can only remember a smattering of what I wanted to talk about yesterday.

I ought to learn to scribble stuff down even if I don’t have time to sit down and compose things. Even then, sometimes I still forget.

I behind left my notebook with all of my book notes, but I have an authentic kimono hanging in the closet. My priorities are skewed sometimes.

 Where were we, ah yes…you made your bed, go fuck in it.

I just tried to find the scene on the Youtubes and got the motivational speech by the Naval Admiral instead. If you want to change the world start by making your bed.

I should probably watch that, and also make my bed. There are a few dishes in the sink that need doing too and my hair needs a post wash brushing so it doesn’t dread, but it is a lazy day with no sun (ain’t no sunshine when he’s gone) and I don’t really have a plan beyond talking to you fine folks and potentially working on my tan.

If I had my way, I would be fucking in my bed right now. I always want to be fucking lately, but alas, it isn’t in the cards this week.

Instead I am cocooned alone trying to speed up time while still using it wisely. It’s not working.

My mind wanders.

See yesterday’s post that took a rambling path of its own and left me here trying to remember what I wanted to talk about.

I was recalling an argument yesterday, as I was pouring my morning coffee. No idea what triggered it.

Not an argument so much as series of unfortunate events and a missed opportunity for a wicked closing statement.

As far as break ups go, it was fairly screen worthy. The slow dawning of comprehension on my face that went from demure and smiling to sparks and rage. I power up when I am angry, and the entire bar stopped what they were doing and took notice.

I don’t ever try to be dramatic, but sometimes it just happens. I had a couple whiskeys before I walked down the street from one bar to the other.

It felt like some season ending scene from a tv show, except at the end; there was no rain and he didn’t chase me. I wouldn’t have chased me either. The last thing I said was “I don’t like the way my name sounds coming out of your mouth.” Not so much said, as roared.

Can’t really argue with that.

It would have been good to just leave it there, but if you have read any of this blog, nothing ever ends so much as it morphs into something that it probably should have always been. Flirtatious friendship, emotional support and unwavering loyalty.

I do regret not using that line from Weeds, that stood out to me 15 years after it was said. A show I never watched more than 3 episodes of. I do love Mary-Louise Parker, I have since Fried Green Tomatoes. I just like her face when she says certain things, the tone of her voice when she said it wryly with a smirk and a cocked eyebrow always tickled me.

And I have had so many opportunities to use it.

I coulda, shoulda, woulda used it then but I was flustered and admittedly angry.
I did my best. My best was pretty good.

Anger is just grief wearing a different mask.

Difficult not to feel a little bit disappointed and passed over.
A Perfect Circle, 3 Libras

That happens to me a lot.

I gravitate to men who have some thing that is their priority in life and I always come in second. Which in itself is fine really, I am too much my self to be anyone’s everything. Or they leave me for some watered down girl.

Or both.

He did both.

More important to be a gangster than be happy, I guess. So be it.
Not my fault she sucked in bed.

It didn’t end there, in the bar, with me looking like gorgeous raging Valkyrie in a grey dress spinning on my heel, doing a quick shot handed to me at the bar by one of the onlookers and striding out the door before climbing into a cab with what was left of my self-preservation and crying bitter tears all the way home. I refused to hit my patented self-destruct button which would have had me walking another half a block up the cobblestone street, past the cab stand to the basement bar that sold 2 for $5 Wisers on Thursdays. It was a Thursday and I think I was just done with all of it.

I leveled up in that moment when I went home to my perfect sanctuary of a room, washed my face, changed into pajamas, popped a movie on a fell asleep by midnight.

I think I spent so much time fighting against break ups during my marriage, I have no fight left in me. You want to leave, there’s the door. Or in this case I was in his space so I walked out the door without looking back.

You made your bed, go fuck in it. I am going home to sleep in mine.

I tried to sleep, he called me that night, a lot. He said he was sorry quite sincerely, but it didn’t change anything.

I told him I understood, and I did. That is also a thing I do quite well.

What he couldn’t wrap his head around is why I was still angry.

“Hun-nee” I said, my voice metered, my words clipped, “just because I understand why you are doing what you are doing doesn’t mean I can’t be mad about it.”

And that my friends, is the gospel truth.

I have the ability to understand the ‘why’ about most things, even if it is something I would never do or haven’t ever done, I still get it enough to wrap my head around it.

Grasping the reasoning behind your folly doesn’t mean I have to participate.

Understanding doesn’t necessarily denote approval. Nor do I argue against things I don’t fully grasp. Not my place.

And that is how it was left. I left.

Life doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. People make decisions every day, and I get to decide if I participate in the consequences of decisions they make and make my own accordingly.

I react, or I don’t. That is entirely up to me.

Lately I don’t react. Full system fail safe shut down instead of full blown dangerous melt down.

Grudges and tantrums are pointless, and anything I was mourning the loss of was just a future I had invented in my head. Gave me the freedom to invent a new one. And this one is pretty good.

There is no such thing as a mistake. There are things you do and things you don’t do.
Oliver Martinez

Here it be cloudy.

Cloudy and peaceful and quiet.

I really needed this. I also really need a shower. I’ll get there. There is no rush. My legs are stubbly and my hair needs washing.

If the sun was out, I might feel more compelled to run around and do things. But this grey cocoon of mediocre weather suits me just fine today.

I have a few things I check on Facebook that set the tone for my day. Haven’t read my tarot scope and Rob Breszney was a little vague and unremarkable last week, they can’t all be diamonds.
Tomorrow is a new day with a new riddle wrapped in a horoscope to solve.

This is one of my morning tings, I shall abide.

I remember mornings like this in Milton when my kidlet was finishing high school in Toronto and we had to get him on the 8:08 train. I then had a couple hours to myself to put the house right and get to work myself.

Up at 6 in the dark of winter mornings. Stove light on, enough illumination to navigate the kitchen but not too bright. Coffee maker hissing, the clink of his spoon against a cereal bowl. Neither one of us like to talk in the mornings. Music on to break the quiet, but no conversations. Tiny dog sleeping on the couch of the library with one eye open, waiting for us to get bundled up and head towards the door. She always wanted to come with us, no matter how cold it was.

I miss her on quiet, chilly mornings like today, silent (yet insistent) snuggles keeping me in bed for a few more minutes. Her miniscule harumph of irritation when she had to go from sleeping in the bed tucked into me, to sleeping on the settee in front of the fireplace. She would watch me rebuild the fire every morning after I had tucked her into an afghan, and she’d wait while we went about our morning routine. Never in a rush to go outside that one. Preferred snuggles and naps, me too Alice, me too.

I miss that house and that life. I miss my dog too. She isn’t gone gone, she lives with her Auntie Mikah and they love each other beyond measure. It was an incredibly hard decision to let her go to a more stable life than I could currently provide, but I stand by it.

Sometimes we have to let the things we love go so they can be happy.
That is the definition of love after all.

7 years ago in July I moved into that house in the middle of nowhere with my little family. Sight unseen, I was functioning on trust and instinct.
It remains one of the best things I had ever done.

It was the jumping off point in my life where I truly started living and doing things for myself.

We are encroaching on my 7^th year of being pretty much single. January something 2014 I said ‘get out’ and out he got. I am sure Facebook will let me know in my memories and I can have a small celebration. I have a feeling it is the 9^th. The same day next year that I will be leaving Mexico to regroup one more time.

No regrets.

A year ago today, at this very moment I was getting in Dave’s jeep at the beginning of our 2 day journey to Florida. Another place I loved, a roof and 4 walls that represent so much change and inner peace for me. Another place that is no longer.

Jumping off points galore.

Today I mourn small losses of safe houses I no longer hold the keys to.

This is not what I intended to write when I sat down at my laptop.

I was pouring a cup of coffee half an hour ago and thought “you made your bed, go fuck in it.”

It’s a line from an episode of Weeds I watched a million years ago.
Before the car wreck punched holes in my memory, before ex-husband and the life I’d rather forget maybe. I honestly don’t remember.
Yesterday I was having a conversation with a girl I should have met a million times (but never did) about old clubs and where was I in 1999, 2004, etc. etc., ad nauseum. And reaching that far back splintered off tiny shards of memories, which popped into my head as the coffee maker hissed and spit an “I’m ready, come get me.”
Which then became clouded by the nostalgia of the clouds.

If nothing else comes of this blog, at least everyone can have a small glimpse into my strange thought processes. Maybe they aren’t strange, I have only ever thought as myself. Nothing to compare it to really. But on mornings such as this one, where I decide to write a thing and something else entirely spills out effortlessly, it becomes notable.

So what do I do now?

That is the million dollar question even though I know exactly what I would be doing if I had a million dollars.

But in this moment do I…

Keep waxing nostalgic with no point in sight? Do I let my fingers do as they please and see what happens or do I redirect my own course?

Let’s do that. The Weeds quote can wait.

I can just talk without having a point. I forget this sometimes. I do not always have to have a purpose, sometimes I can just be.

I am 4 days into a 7 day shark week. The pain has subsided, mostly (they come at night, mostly*). But I find myself fluctuating between weepy and emotionally disconnected. Like a tap I can’t adjust. Too hot, too cold, never just right. This too shall pass and the cosmic timing kinda worked out.
This was a good week to bleed.

The less I plan lately, the better things seem to work out.

“I’m not really a planner, more of a fly by the seat of my pants kinda girl.” Pretty Woman

Me too hooker Julia, me too. (Vivian, her name was Vivian)

I didn’t really get to indulge in many free falls or deliberate lack of planning when I was younger, I was someone’s mother, I had to be somewhat responsible, and being ‘homeless’ and wandering wasn’t really an option. So I am doing it now as he is poised to finally have an apartment of his very own, with no help from me and no roommates. I have experienced this, and I am living in something like it now and it is a bliss everyone should experience.

That isn’t to say I didn’t make leaps of faith, see above where I moved to the Milton house sight unseen and made a home there, found myself there, my son graduated there. Make a decision, make it work. The decision was a good one and making it work was pretty effortless after I cut the deadweight of the last ‘real’ boyfriend I’ve had. 7 years, now that is something.

Some previous leaps left me flat on my face with the wind knocked out of me, gasping for breath and thinking I might die, drowning on dry land. But eventually I catch my breath, get my bearings and get up. I don’t regret the jump, I survived the landing, but sometimes ‘making it work’ grated against my soul so hard I lost myself clinging onto things that were not meant for me. When all I really had to do was let go and fall into the next thing. It’s a human thing, we do this.

My son is actually the result of one of those leaps I took as a teenager. Packed a bag and ran far, far away. It didn’t work, but I became a mother and forever altered the course of my existence.

Farm life too. Fuckboy Island. They don’t always work out, but every decision alters my path in indelible ways, and that is okay. Everything is a gift or a lesson.

Sometimes the lesson is just give up when things stop working.

Shouldn’t need to be so fucking hard, this is life on earth**

I have eluded to another one of those life altering crossroads coming up soon, and it is. I am not 20 anymore, and this is definitely not my 84th rodeo. I can see them coming now at least.
I can go left, or right or continue on my present course. I won’t go back. Sarah in the Labyrinth.

(Author’s sidenote, I clicked out of MSWord to find the caterpillar quote from Labyrinth and somehow got sucked into a 90 minute internet surfing vortex, 3 conversations, checked my horoscope, played a few rounds of solitaire and now I am back… without the quote. Fuck my life.)

“If she’d have kept on going that way, she’d have gone straight to that castle.”

There it is.

Things I am keeping in mind as I ponder which way to go. Unless I am clear about my goal, any advice I get might be skewed to keep me safe, but ultimately get me no further ahead.

Do I want to go straight to the castle, or do I want to wander this unfamiliar labyrinth and have more adventures along the way? Do I even really have a choice in any of it?

Do I even have to solve the labyrinth?

So many questions and I am in no rush to find any of the answers. Today I can just enjoy the comforts of a cloudy day the respite the weather has given me.

The way home, this is always the way home, so you can rip that map to shreds my dear. **

*Newt, from Aliens
** Snow Patrol, Life on Earth.

And I forgot how cute that caterpillar really was.

I was overdue for one of my death periods.

Not a period of death death, but cramps so bad I can barely move. This makes the chronic pain in my hip feel like a tickle, it is not a tickle.
I feel like one of those magician’s assistants in the box, but the saw is not a trick saw and I really am being sheared in half by a rusty blade. And here I am faking a smile for the audience.

If I had my way it wouldn’t be here and now, but I am here now, and it is happening.

So I will deal.
Chew a couple Aleve with my coffee and write about something completely different with tears streaming down my face because it hurts, and I have never been one to hold things in. If something wants out, tears, laughter, truth or blood, I will hold the door open. I am forever the key master, never the gatekeeper.

According to my memories on Facebook, the experience I digest every morning with my coffee, tripping down memory lane while I power up for the day, today is a day of death, the beginning of the end of my current cycle. Pretty apropos that my body is on board.

So shed your skin and let’s get started (Hunters and Collectors)

3 years ago today.

Motherfucker this is gonna be rough.

Cosmic timing is hilarious.

Why not start 6 years ago (or is it 7 now, no 6) where I had just survived pneumonia, alone in the woods with 3 dogs. And I made it. No one came to save me, and I made it. I saved myself and I came out of that experience with a ferocious sense of independence and zero fucks to give, I think they burned away in the fever.

Because that was just phase one.

We have been over that phase, analyzed it 500 ways from Sunday. I started the blog there and then, started traveling. I went to California and Arizona. I lost people who were important to me in the sloppiness and overwhelm that was my shiny new enlightenment. But I found me. And here I is.
Trying not to bleed on someone else’s kitchen chair, as fetal as I can be while still being upright, looking through the memories of the last few years and seeing a very clear path between there and here.

Here is good, I could see myself staying here.

And that is exactly what happened 3 years ago.

I went to visit somewhere, I met someone, had an otherworldly experience and it was akin to just taking a random exit on a dark highway at night with no rhyme or reason, just functioning on pure instinct and finding what (in the moment) felt like home.

At the time, it was this euphoric bout of sustained contentment that lasted 24 hours.

And it was enough to pack up my entire life and move.

I can pad this with the fact that a lot of other things were going wrong back home, things were changing rapidly and for the first time since I gave birth to my son, I had no real obligations outside of my own happiness.

And while all of those things are true, I had survived worse than that before, much worse and none of them nor the culmination thereof were enough to catapult me out of the life I had built for myself in the Hammer.

I had good friends, jobs plural, we had just gotten a beautiful new apartment with the prettiest living room I have ever conjured, and I have conjured and created some stunning spaces. Giant was there and emotionally available in a way he never had been before. Yes, there was some bad, but there was enough good to be worth saving, and I knew I could. I could have kept the apartment; I just chose not to.

I came back from that fateful trip and immediately started prepping and packing to go on my annual pilgrimage to ride the Hulk in Florida.

I had bought a new suitcase. I had to, I packed so badly for the trip to the fucky cold island I ended up coming home with half a new winter wardrobe and some wolf pants. The suitcase was bigger than what I was used to traveling with and I began to wonder if, I packed just right, how long could I stay away from home and be content. And what if instead of flying, I drove to where I wanted to go and retained that bit of independence that had always been missing from other adventures where I was beholden to someone else who held the car keys. And what if I could pack the car as well as a suitcase or two and potentially bring my magic and the comforts of home with me?

I am still not great at packing by the way.

I had the same thought 7 years prior, came home from Florida, immediately dumped my boyfriend and bought a trailer. Circumstances and a lil Gift of the Magi dictated, not there and not then, but the dream never really died.

It’s not the entirety of the truth, but those trips to Florida were always sooooooo cathartic and amazing, in part, because of the 2 days in the car, watching the foliage and weather change, 60 miles an hour down familiar highways, through tunnels under mountains until we finally saw the ocean. There was beauty in the repetition of it. My mind could wander far and wide. I had nothing else to do but think my thoughts, aside from taking over driving a few hours through Georgia, and I really loved it.

Sidenote, this year also marks the end of that era. The condo is gone. There is no more Mecca in New Smyrna Beach. No big wooden pelican and floor to ceiling mirror in the dining room. No seashell themed sheets and decor on a twin bed, no dolphins to watch for as I watch the sunrise from the balcony. No long walks on the beach coming back with my pockets filled with shells and soft, twisted bits of wood. No 4 mile walks to lobster rolls and cute shops full of everything I ever wanted to wear, and the crotchety old crystal shop owner who makes my favorite perfume oil.

It’s over, and somehow, as sad as that is, I feel like that is part of this, whatever this turns out to be.

And 3 years ago, my thoughts were a very distinct loop of ‘could I really run away from home’. In a grown up way of course. But could I?

Turns out I could.

So I did.

And man, it got weird.

The peace and contentment I had felt that one night, that was enough to make me abandon every comfort I had, evaded me. I drank myself sick and stupid and hurt over and over, I cried so often it became a topic of conversation if I didn’t. And yet I stayed. I blocked that particular ‘him’ before this last Mercury retrograde. His purpose was served, he got me where I needed to be and for that I am grateful, the rest of it doesn’t matter.

2 years ago today, I left the island for a few days and remembered what life was like in the real world. I started getting the itch and the urge to run again, but I stayed. Squandered a trip to Florida even, had I known that was going to end I might have done things differently, but hindsight is always very crystal clear, and if one boy got me there, the one I met when I was supposed to be in Florida that year made me stay past when I thought I couldn’t tolerate another second. I am grateful to him too.

Then last year, of course exactly a year ago today I was packed and ready to get on a plane to go to Florida one last time, and of course on the drive and during the time spent on mama ocean I had the clarity and inspiration that landed me where I am now, a couple weeks away from making yet another big life altering decision.

What good is a life if we can’t alter it at will.

I came to my adventurous spirit later in life, I had a child to raise and I regret very little.
I still struggle sometimes. Worrying about what people think and knowing I am flying without a real net. But I also know I float and the only person I really have to answer to is me, in the mirror at the end of the day.
But these last 3 years filled with plane rides and navigating new places have truly been blissful as a whole, even with the harsh winters, the drinking and the crying.
Trying new locations on like pairs of pants to see if they fit and then trying something else, even though I did get stuck in that one pair for a long minute. Ultimately, I know I am here now because of strange trails I wandered down then, in proverbial pants that no longer fit. The path behind me is exceptionally clear and it makes perfect sense now.
No grudges, no hard feelings, just gratitude and lessons upon mother fucking lessons.

And as I sit and type all of this out, I am beyond sure that in 3 years I will once again be talking to you fine folks about how today and the week before and after this one changed my path in some remarkable way.

Maybe the take-away is nothing more than the transition between Scorpio season and the rule of Sagittarius is just as an astrologically tumultuous time for me as my favorite, the Lion’s gate of August.
It seems to be the time the universe takes me by the hand and gives me a taste of what could be if I am just brave enough to do something rash.

Scorpions shed their exoskeletons when they become too restrictive. Sagittariuses (not a word) are the archers, pulling the arrow back before letting loose. And that is exactly how I am feeling right now, wiggling around in my newfound freedom of my freshly shed skin and getting ready to launch.

I had an affair with a married man when I was 18. He was 28, I think?

Memory does not serve here.

In my defense, I have no defense. He doesn’t either. Ad I am typing this out and forcing myself to remember, it was all pretty yucky.

He was new in town, we played pool after my kitchen shifts at the restaurant I worked at.

He was older, obvs, interesting, charming, he had traveled and I got really good at pool that winter.

He didn’t wear a ring, the flirtation and courtship went on for 4 months at least and it wasn’t until our relationship escalated to physical that he told me he was married. He had always referred to his wife in a past tense, I assumed divorce as would have anyone, in fact most of the people who worked with me where we met assumed the same, so it wasn’t just me he had fooled.

Still not a defense. I am not looking for absolution here, just story-telling, it’s what I do. And there is a point to this, there always is, and I almost always take the long way around.

I remember being angry when he finally told me the truth, I felt tricked and betrayed. Never a nice feeling.

But god gave us all free will and 18 year old me really liked him, I didn’t really know better and I was already emotionally invested. Part of me was kind of excited by the whole thing.

I pouted for a few days and then said okay.

It lasted maybe another 2 months. He bought me red cowboy boots and orchids. And then he left his wife.

He wanted me to move in with him, take over being a housewife.

I immediately came to my senses and I broke up with him.

I had no idea what I wanted, but I knew it wasn’t that.

This is such ancient history that I can barely recall much but his first name and his glasses.

So why am I bringing it up?

Kamala’s vagina.

I love these women on their soapboxes deciding on some moral pretense that someone the new Vice President of the United States of America is somehow less worthy because of her vagina, and its activities over 30 years ago.

The job I had where I met the married dude I got through nepotism, plain and simple. Most jobs I have gotten because I knew someone. It doesn’t matter how you get a job; it matters if you can do well enough at it to keep it. I kept that job for 3 years and then I fucked up badly and was promptly fired.

Shit happens.

She was 22, I was 18.

Yes, there is some difference between the emotional maturity of an 18 year old me and a 22 year old her, but not a lot.

And honestly… Why the fuck does it matter how she got into her field 3+ decades ago?

I don’t like a lot of things she has done since, career-wise. She wouldn’t have been my first choice. I loved Warren personally and my heart broke a bit when she dropped out.

The difference between myself and the internalized misogyny crew ripping her to shreds on the internet is I don’t conveniently forget the mistakes I have made.

I have fucked some questionable creatures. See above. See the whole blog really.

Damn your wife, I’d be your mistress just to have you around.
Cleopatra, The Lumineers

And this is coming from someone who was cheated on within an inch of my life. I went crazy, was on antidepressants, opiates and lost 30+ pounds while being cheated on for 7 years. I don’t recognize the me I was back then. I was jealous, weak, stubborn and ultimately stupid.

While I don’t exactly blame myself, I know I did things wrong too, like not getting out at the first sign and ignoring so many red flags.

And like all these women blaming Kamala, I blamed the mistress too.

In retrospect, in my situation, they really loved each other, and I should have just gotten out of the way. I know that now and will carry that lesson to the end of my days.

If you are the least loved person in the house, you are in the wrong house. Michael Xavier

I was in the wrong house.

There is some serious internalized misogyny in this world. Men don’t need to hold us down and tear us apart, we do it to each other.

#metoo should have been the end of it, we should have all realized we are in this together, we should have rallied with the good men and stopped all this nonsense, but that was 3 years ago, and we seem to have completely forgotten. 55% of (white) women voted for a rapist instead of a woman, twice now.

I really hate this “ideal” that women are supposed to be non-sexual (but still sexualized) creatures who get married at 18-25 and just stay home and cook and clean. Anything else is a scandal and opens us up to ridicule and persecution, like we never made it out of Salem.
Need I remind you, it’s 2020, body autonomy is a thing, and we have our first woman vice president.

I for one, choose to celebrate this. It’s a big deal. What she did 30 years ago is not.

I invite every woman trying to tear her down to revisit her teens and 20’s and air out your own closet and skeletons contained therein.

Even Jesus defended Mary Magdalene by saying let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Don’t y’all pretend to love Jesus?

Just take your pocket of rocks and go home. Have missionary vanilla sex with your boring husband every other Tuesday after book club and let the rest of us fight the good fight so maybe your daughters can live in a world without the oppression of the patriarchy pitting them against each other.

I don’t know why I never published this.

The phone probably rang or I saw something shiny and walked away from my laptop.

The past week has been a whole lotta exactly that. Finding reasons to be fussing about, nesting…and the big bad…scrolling.

I quit drinking before I left the island but that was not the only bad habit I had there. Face in phone constantly to avoid people and boredom at work. I have to stop.

I think another thing is I am always very insecure about selling myself. Because I am insecure. Not a lot to sort through there. So I procrastinate, because that way I can’t fail. Which makes zero sense as I type it out, that is failing really.

Nothing is ever good enough. Cue the thing about project paralysis and gifted kids. I has that.

I had a notebook when I was little (and 500 notebooks since then) that I refused to sully with bad penmanship or bad writing so I never used them. I am ridiculous, I know this. I am laughing at myself right now.

I am getting better at just letting things go out into the world and not worrying about what other people think. It is enough because I say it is, and honestly after years of sifting through other people’s opinions on my page, I just don’t care.

Plus, failing isn’t the end of the world. Took me forever to figure that out.

The foreword to this long lost post is being written in WordPress so there’s that then.

(And I think I figured it out. I don’t want Wolf reading about the folly that was me thinking I had feelings for other people, before him. I don’t want to read about it either, makes me feel ashamed of what I settle for, the crumbs of attention I existed on before I was allowed to feast on real love.)

Come dear readers, let’s take a journey into where I was at mentally on February 20th of this year, so many lifetimes ago really. Pre Covid, still watching the Witcher, mid retrograde likely because we had 487 of those this year…

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Nothing ever escapes, even when I want it to and sometimes it crushes me and leaves teeth marks on my psyche.

I can drive along a road ten years later and I can feel exactly what the sun and air felt like a decade ago, what trees were in bloom, the tang of cigarette smoke and sweat, flowers recently picked covering the back seat, what creatures revealed themselves on the side of the road and sometimes what was playing on the radio.
A song comes on and I am transported back in time.
I scroll back through Instagram or Facebook, see what I was wearing/saying/thinking/feeling and that day/date come rushing back to me. The boy I was with or flashbacks of mini adventures with my girls. The conversations had, drinks imbibed, how I felt when I finally poured myself back into my own bed that night. Or someone else’s.

Every muscle holds memories, my skin too. If the light, temperature and breeze hit me a certain way I can travel backwards in time. Climbing into my car on the first warm day of the year feeling completely warmed through for the first time since winter closed it’s icy fist around my bones.

The longer I am with Wolf the bigger the divide becomes between Before Him and After Him.

I know I existed.

I have photographs, Facebook memories and this blog as proof.

I know there were men and relationships before him, but I don’t care.

We had this conversation last night, I just don’t remember anymore.

I spent 3 hours putting 5 years-worth of unsorted documents into different folders. A surprising number went into published (yay me), followed closely by ‘trash’. A few unfinished, a bunch of letters to whomever. I gotta say, if I sit down to write someone a letter when I am feeling any kind of way, I am eloquent as fuck. Landlords and Panda and Exes, oh my.

Wolf now has his own folder. He wasn’t wrong about me writing more. I went from publishing maybe 24 articles in 2 years, to 24+ since we met. And a smol book. I have so much more to write, and I will. I just don’t remember how right now.

I played Cyrano again the other day for a boy I used to know. He is having a hard time letting his ex go. We talked for a bit and I admitted that I used to spy on Sisterwife a dozen times a day if not more, every day. At some point I must have decided to stop. And I wasn’t perfect at stopping, but it went from 20 times a day, to twice, to never. Told him to try not driving by her house for a day at first, then a few, then a week. It’s like quitting anything really.

I wrote what I thought he should send, and he sent it.

In doing so I was forced back into my old mindset. And I didn’t recognize the girl I was. That was all over 9 years ago.

I have had this laptop for 7 years now. I was not always this version of myself.

Just like this computer, my hard drive gave out and was replaced, apps updated. I used a sketchy mp3 downloading site in Newfoundland and crashed terribly. We’ve been through some shit.

I got this huge computer for processing photos. I didn’t travel back when I bought it. Now I am scraping pennies together for a smaller laptop and a bigger phone and I don’t own a camera anymore. I don’t want one. A go pro yes, but not a bulky DSLR.

To properly sort the massive list of documents, I had to read some of them.

I gotta forgive myself for how dumb I was.

Like Jesus sis.

What were you thinking?

I put myself through some very unnecessary shit.

I am better, faster, stronger for it I suppose.

I signed a very rare copy of the other book I wrote 2 weeks ago.

I remember being sequestered in my room, in a house I decorated but never belonged in. Neck and shoulders aching, just trying to get it done and out before midnight December 31^st  2017. I didn’t want to enter another year with it hanging over my head. 80 000 words of yucky smut and revenge porn. My stomach rolled reading it. So disgusted with the girl I was when I started it, settling for scraps from a catfish.

I have reread passages here and there. And I gotta admit, although the subject matter is abhorrent, the muse a jerk…the writing itself is  pretty good.

I have to stop beating myself up for not knowing what I didn’t know before I knew it.

I need to look at it for what it is. Money waiting to be collected. One notch in a key that I have been carving for years, it will open a door to a new life if I let it.

I am the key to the lock in your house
I am the pick and the axe
Climbing up the Walls, Radiohead

Half Wild Thing aka the fucking book

(an excerpt)

She had been the one to back down, bare her throat. She had been timid at first, but quickly growing accustomed to the climate, the city and him. She always acquiesced when he would rage while somehow maintaining strength and poise, and he loved her for it. And in the way of felines remaining on the brink of feral but almost tamed, she brought him strange gifts.

He had watched her walk to the planter, read the discontent on her face and watched it melt away when she saw him. Her eyes gave her away every time. The whole world knew she was irrevocably his. He knew she had just saved some tiny lost soul. He smiled at the thought, she was always saving something. She had rescued him once too.

She was 10 feet away now, he stubbed out his cigarette, the humid air was punctuated by a slight puff of wind and it filled his nostrils with the smell of her. His eyes fixed on her…his cock couldn’t help but to start to rise. A low growl escaped his lips and he saw her smile, he smirked a half grin back and it was an invitation that she gladly took. As she stepped into the space between his legs and rested her hands lightly on his shoulders, the world fell away from both of them.

He sat up to greet her and she gently ran her fingers through his hair, pulling him close and caressing his neck. His arms formed a protective circle around her waist, he drew her to him. She leaned in, pressing the softness of her belly against his cheek and they both sighed, content and relieved. He inhaled deeply, coveting the moment. She always smelled of summertime, oceans and sex. He could imagine her pussy, pink petal lips, dew kissed and open like dripping lilies. He melted into her and she molded herself around him.

How many had it been? He struggled to remember. She had told him the night before, curled up in his bed, his fingers tracing calligraphy on her body. Conversations punctuated by soft moans and his hands wandered to her most sensitive places. 3 maybe 4 boys that night? All of their adventures were starting to become a maze in his mind, he got lost in them and didn’t worry about finding his way out or marking certain passages. He had found himself happy to be lost in her. She led and he followed willingly. It didn’t matter, she was here now, with him. And she would tell him again as he asked, as many times as he needed.

Available on Amazon

I lost my muse somewhere.

I have lost count of the days wherein I said ‘okay, I am going to write today’, and then I don’t.

Feels like a missing limb.

Used to be there, feels like it should be there, itches like it’s there, but it ain’t.

I have set alarms to wake me mid dreaming, drank extra coffee, fasted. The words just aren’t coming.

I haven’t even really posted here.

This is my warmup exercise.

I am also reading Henry and June by Anais Nin, which isn’t helping to inspire. It’s just a diary really.

That I have down, I don’t need inspiration nor instruction.

After the election and the great internet debate about Kamala Harris’ affair 22 years ago, I really wanted to climb up on my soapbox and scream, HER VAGINA IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.  And I still might.

I just feel like angels could descend from heaven bearing gifts of golden pomegranates and there would be a rousing chorus from the anti-fruit people and the pro silver people.

It is exhausting.

I am writing a new book about witches after the end of the world, and honestly, as someone who can never admit when I do something good, it’s really fucking good. I remember the rush when it came, I wrote for hours on end, for a week or so solid. I wanted to see what was going to happen next.

But now the two main characters have finally met, and I have to rip them apart again and I don’t want to.

I am frustrated. All these magical days happening in rapid succession. Feels like the Lion’s Gate portal all over again, but I am standing on the sidelines.

Just a cosmic observation.

Let’s wander back to March for a second.

We had a Friday the 13th in conjunction with a Mercury retrograde and some moon moon madness.

And the global madness kicked into high gear.

Mars is stationing direct on this Friday the 13^th after spending months spinning backwards and fucking shit up. Plus, we just had a blue moon on the thinnest day for the veils between worlds and Mercury is heading out of shadow phase.

Whatever tangled itself so badly in March is now in the process of coming undone. The cogs in the universe that have been grinding and stuck are about to start moving fluidly again.

I feel massive change coming.

And the prophecy from Dark Crystal keeps repeating in my head.

What was sundered and undone, shall be whole, the two made one.

I’m feeling optimistic. Like overly so, palpably so. Enthusiastically so.

But.

(why does there have to be a but?)

I am jealous, all of my witchy bitches are experiencing necromancy, channeling and inspirations galore. Powering up and coming into their own. And I feel like I am stagnating. Like I am late to the party, but I don’t even have the address.
I want my magic back, and if not my magic, my muse.

I know it is partially me. My fault. I went back to perdition, knowing full well it is a void. I have been spending way too much time on my phone. The complicated solitaire game I downloaded to kill the dead time at the bar, then deleted, has been reinstalled and I have conquered 60 more levels, which is good for tiny rushes of serotonin, but at what cost? So much time wasted and although it might be helping me stave off Alzheimer’s, it is doing nothing for my creativity.

Maybe it’s my mindset.

I do have a lot of gratitude, but maybe I am not showing it.

I mean I have chicory coffee in my cup and a fridge full of my most favorite things. I found this yogurt that is like a happy orgasm in my mouth with every bite. I have money in the bank and the roof I am under is lovely. I can walk outside, and the air doesn’t hurt my face. These are all good things.

Technically, geographically I am in a very good place right now. I adore the little apartment I am currently staying in. It did take a lot of magic, luck and planning to get where I am now. The thing is, I think I want to stay which would be so much easier if I could get this new book out of my head, out of the ether and into the world. Relocating will also take a lot of luck, magic and planning. And I think this is the trip that decides ‘should I stay or should I go’.

I posted a pic, and a status of ‘want’, to which my Kittenface Kayla girl replied,
“Manifest it my love. You know you can. Not everyone can. But YOU can. ”

I can, I know this, so why is all my power eluding me? Or is it?

I mean I am here.

And in the 11^th hour…

I finally I have some answers about my health.

That was kinda the big, bad distraction of this season of my life. Reoccurring, debilitating pain that couldn’t be massaged, medicated or stretched away. Led me to a walk-in clinic, 17 separate appointments for x-rays, ultrasounds, urine tests, and ECG, a retinal exam and the extraction and examination of about a pint of my blood.
I did a full STI screening again, for peace of mind.
Good news is, I am rather healthy. Everything that was supposed to be negative, was. My white blood cells are doing what they are supposed to be doing. I am a little low in iron and B12, but as the keeper of a vagina, this is not news.
There was some bad news.
On October 26^th I was diagnosed with Lyme disease.

Today I take the last of the antibiotics they use to treat it.
I am going to finish them regardless.

Ya, ya, I took the blue pills.

 You see dear readers, a week ago I was ‘undiagnosed’, for lack of a better term.
Cliff’s notes, there are 2 tests for Lyme. One is reactionary, they add my blood to some liquid and if it turns a color, I have it. Like a pregnancy test in a way, you are or you aren’t. The other test is a blot test so some person in a lab coat looks at my blood under a microscope and physically searches for the antibodies to the Lyme bacteria. I don’t have those. It takes substantially longer to process, hence the delay and the confusion. I had another blot test last week, I am quite confident it too will be negative.

(it was)

At the beginning of this I did not quite make the mental leap that what is ACTUALLY happening in my body could trigger a real false positive. I just thought the symptoms were so similar that they were easily mistaken for each other.

Not so.

Silicone migration triggers the same inflammation as Lyme’s and Lupus among other things.

I got kinda lost in my diagnosis, as anyone would, I felt dirty and unclean. I was terrified of the ramifications of such a delayed diagnosis. I tried to stay positive and decided once my body was clear of the bacteria, I could start healing. I went for the tests to make sure it hadn’t damaged my heart, eyes and spine.

But I forgot one really important thing along the way.

I walked into that clinic 5 weeks ago stating, ‘I think something is wrong with my implants, but we have to eliminate all of these things first.’ I have a vague recollection of writing about it here.

The last appointment I had was an ultrasound, I had to jump through all the other hoops to get to that one. And voila, the sweet technician listened to me, took her time and found the rupture.

These tits I have are 9 years old. The last bastion of trying to keep my husband from cheating on me. I became addicted to and abused the pain medication for months afterwards.
Physically, the implants themselves settled badly.
Emotionally, I healed incredibly well after I left him. My eating disorder has been conquered to the point wherein I am carrying an extra 20+ pounds over what I weighed when I was married and depressed, resulting in a cup size discrepancy on either side. Also I have a booty now, a good juicy booty.

Maybe I am manifesting. Things that have long bothered me subconsciously coming into the spotlight and both facilitating and downright demanding amendment.

Maybe my magic is so big I can’t see the edges of it.

The witches I am jealous of, are a decade younger than I, and I remember the exhilaration of realizing what I was. But it was also scary and overwhelming. Maybe my cogs are turning exactly how they are supposed to be, nice and smooth.

Regardless of what my tiny human brain can rationalize, I am exactly where I am supposed to be, or I would be somewhere else.

This is what is, and honestly, it is what I want.

Maybe I am just not used to contentment this complete.

Now to open that other tab and start working on something with substance and a future.

Inspiration exists, it just has to find you working ~ Picasso

I think about the girl who is in love with that broken rollercoaster sometimes.

How one sided that must feel for her some days.

How good her imagination must be to keep that going with the opposition and perceived silence from her heavy, metal lover.

I think I was her once, or close to it.

T’was the last day of retrograde and all through the house, the cats were asleepin’ and the rooms were clean and life was pretty okay.

I watched the mini documentary about the girl who was sexually attracted to and romantically in love with a broken-down rollercoaster at an abandoned theme park ages ago.

Story hit closer to home than I would have preferred.

I went through a phase where I said the Hulk ride at Universal Studios in Florida was bae. And it’s true. I still love him. But that isn’t what this is about.

I don’t want to taint what I have to say by re-watching the doc, so I am going from memory, I will attempt to post a link at the end in case you haven’t seen it and now want to.

It would be easy to say this girl is mentally ill, delusional, and sad. But she looked happy to me.

And maybe that’s the difference.

I was happy until I wasn’t.

And eventually I cured my broken heart by lying to myself.

I have waxed nostalgic a million times over about how I consciously decided I was making something out of nothing in my relationships. The only problem with making something out of nothing is when the nothing starts to show through. They loved me by halves, I know this, if they loved me at all. And then they all ended, I mourned, I healed, and onto the next. They were gone and compartmentalized, archived, but not forgotten. After some time went by I’d stumble on an old message and I have to grieve all over again because my coping mechanism was to decide that they were a broken down rollercoaster and I was just hearing voices and creating imagined scenarios. The loss of futures that only existed in my head. But then to be slapped in the face with written proof that I didn’t make it all up. Or they message me once in a blue moon, never on the blue moons, but still on some timeline that doesn’t line up with mine.

Or worse

“Died in an amusement park accident, I came back for you, so you wouldn’t be alone, and if I go away again, you can have my stereo.” Matthew Good Band, Indestructible

I was always getting really good at being alone right before they came back. I rarely answered their queries with “I’m with someone else now.” Because I wasn’t. I went long periods in between, enjoying  my own company alone.

I am indestructible really.

Until it came to those old messages, then I’d crumble and rust under the weight of what was.

I don’t do that anymore. I can barely remember what it felt like to be with anyone else. I don’t really want to. It’s all like flashes of B movies you’d watch late at night when you’re exhausted from a double shift but you’re too physically tired to go to bed and there is something comforting about the glow of the tv screen and the background noise as you adjust to finally being home. Could just as easily be mistaken for a dream I had a long time ago, or a little bit of déjà vu.

I have also gone on at great length about how I am the archivist. I have Star Wars cocktail napkins and a tiny, empty bottle of mediocre scotch that I spilled on a plane. I have screenshots and memes aplenty, hotel keys galore and, funnily enough a picture of bae riding the Hulk.

I am in a position now where I spent the bulk of yesterday cleaning out my Gmail account, my Hotmail is beyond redemption. I found things I couldn’t hit delete and send to trash fast enough, but there are 5000 + emails in there I don’t want to lose. 7492 to be exact There is a panic driven part of my brain that is screaming “What if he goes away and they are all I have left?”  

Long distance is a strange beast. So is love.

I think for the first time in my life I am in something that I never want to sully by pretending it wasn’t real, because it is.

I want to remember this as it really is. Because it’s good. Its transformational. I am not who I was before we met, not even close. And part of that is letting go of old rituals and habits and thought patterns.

There is also a part of me that has a lot of pride in how we speak to each other. I think (with some heavy editing for protection purposes) our conversations would make a beautiful book, even if we were the only 2 who ever read it. The story of us (if that wasn’t already a movie title).

I will figure this out. I always do. My luddite brain gets sluggish and grunts a lot, but I can do this.

And I had a realization yesterday that if I can’t, for the first time in my life I might be able to let this go and just back in what is instead of holding onto how we got here.

I am the girl who is in love with a rollercoaster, and so what if it’s all in my head and my memories. My perceptions are all that there is. Everyone around her questioned everything about how she was feeling, and she held fast. “This is what is because I say it is.”

I think she is my unlikely heroine here as I try to navigate a new way of being.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I was the girl who monkey barred her way through relationships, never letting go of one without a firm grip on another. Then I learned how to let go and enjoy the space between.
I don’t have a back up plan, there is no longer the idea that ‘if this doesn’t work, I can talk to so and so’.
No safety net really, not outside of what resided in my inbox.

I am scared to delete our history. And rightly so. Its beautiful, dirty, sweet poetry and should be saved. But we can always make more.

And if he goes away, I know I will never be allotted the luxury of forgetting or thinking this was something it wasn’t.

It just is.

My name means both princess in Aramaic and discontent in Greek.

I am currently both of these things.

I feel restless, but with a smack of body tired and no real direction.

Last night was a new moon, a new super moon. I did not realize there were such things, but if Unbreakable taught us anything, it is that for any phenomenon or anomaly there is an equal and opposite phenomenon or anomaly. Basically all a super moon is, is when the moon is currently closer to earth in a full or new phase. So, if you believe like I do, that the moon influences us, which is absolutely plausible, look at the oceans and the tides and remember we are almost ¾ water, then we will all feel it on some level or another.

And just because we can’t see the moon, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Those of us who are more conscious of such things, feel it more.

I am free from the island of opposites, wherein the new moon was always more tangly than the full, but I must admit, I feel twitchy. And the cats are acting foolish.

There are things I do on lunar cycles. Full moon night is always a letting go. Banishing things I do not want. New moon is the time to make wishes and as the moon appears more vividly every night after, those things come to fruition more often than not.

I also like to burn certain things and make sure my space and mirrors are clean.

I sit outside with a candle and I talk to the moon.

Sometimes she listens.

I have reiterated to death the idea of ‘hold the vision, trust the process’ and more recently, ‘let go and let god’.

But today I needed reminding.

I also mentioned Mercury retrograde came in with a bang. But it was more like those fireworks that get lit during Chinese New years while men dressed as dragons walk the streets and everything is gold and red. Rapid fire with puffs of smoke and pagentry.

I went to the movies on Tuesday, something I have missed terribly and realized I took for granted before the end of the world. Sat down, far far away from others and as I took my phone out to make it quiet, I got a slew of messages in rapid succession. The old boss has been dethroned, my son finally found an apartment after wandering like his mama for the bulk of the summer, my PIC bought a new house and my Facebook ban started.

I know this is how life is. Nothing nothing nothing, is this a fucking haboob? Nothing, then everything all at once.

The universe is always in flux.

I decided a long time ago that a wish was nothing but a prayer, a prayer was nothing but a mantra, a mantra was nothing but a spell. They are all the same thing whether you are in a church, a mosque or naked in the woods. Our tiny human brains trying to exert some control over this random series of events we call life.

And while I will absolutely testify that I have manifested some amazing things in my life, a lot of my peace and Zen came from accepting what is in the moment and holding on hope for something better, while actively working towards it and making decisions that were in tune with said want. And accepting that I don’t always have the capacity to separate what I want from what is good for me or serves my higher purpose. I am not even sure what my higher purpose is. I just do what feels good and try to take care of as many people as I can in the process. I forget to look after me sometimes and I am working on that.

I kept that in mind as I made my wishes last night. So mote it motherfucking be, but only if it is for the best and does no harm.

I do that a lot. Want something but have to look at all the angles and possible outcomes to make sure no one gets hurt. And going back to the idea that the universe is always in flux, it truly is an exhausting juggling act. I am much better at being selfless than selfish. I just never really was. I mean I covet, to covet is human. I scroll through social media and se a woman with flat abs or dewy skin or awesome hair, and yes, I want that. but I am also grateful for what I have.

Maybe it is time to dream bigger.

I want to write books, but I want to get paid for doing so as well.

I want to have a steady stream of income no matter where I am on the planet, and I want to explore more of this planet too. I spent decades trapped in places I didn’t want to be by my ideas of what I ‘should’ be doing and in relationships with people who wanted to keep me caged.

No more.

The moon starts to get full again today. And in my way of loving the winter solstice just as much as the summer one, because that is the day it stops getting worse and starts getting better, so it is today.

I have made my wishes and spoken them aloud, I have my goals and I will spend the time between now and the blue moon on Halloween focused and working towards what I want.

Link to one of my books, it is pure pornography, you have been warned

It’s been 3 years, or a millennia depending on how you look at it.

#metoo started gaining momentum in October 2017.

I don’t think the world suddenly turned into a better safer place, but at least it isn’t some dirty secret we are forced to keep anymore. It was never my dirt. I don’t want it.

There’s been charges laid. And there is a dialog.

I think its all of us. Or close to all.

Statistics say 1 in 4 before the age of 18.

But I was 15, 16, 26, 40, 42. Just the bad ones. Not counting the little pressures or the friends that got drunk and took it too far. Or the boyfriends who didn’t listen when I said not now.

Its overwhelming.

Facebook says I posted this 3 years ago today.

I remember the sting from the proverbial slap in the face when I saw my mother post ‘me too’. And I think I know who, but maybe I am wrong. Doesn’t matter if I know, she does. We all know the names of our harassers and rapists. Maybe not all, but a good portion of us do.

That is because, if 98% of women have been harassed or assaulted, there are men doing this to us.
Not all men, see what I did there?

There is an antiquated belief that men who hurt and rape women fit a certain stereotype; scruffy, trench coat, lurking in the bushes or in the shadows. Stranger danger.

I have been assaulted a dozen times and they were never wearing trench coats.
They weren’t strangers either.

Yes, there are the scrubs who can’t get no love, hanging out the passenger side of his best friend’s ride trying to holler at me…the unwanted attention, the feigned ‘accidental’ grab at a bar in the dark. I am not talking about those, although those really suck too.

I do not understand why tolerating harassment is the price I have to pay to exist as a woman.

I lost a person about a week ago. We were very close. Loved each other even. Never dated exactly, like most of the men from the last 7 years of my life, we had dates nights, but we weren’t dating. We fooled around too. Never quite got to the sex part, he loved cocaine more than me and sex was a physical impossibility.

That’s neither here nor there.

He posted a meme that I won’t bother reposting, regarding Baby it’s Cold Outside versus WAP.

This rings the same as republicans defending Donald Trump ‘grab em by the pussy’ by saying well, y’all read 50 Shades of Grey.

Let me make it abundantly clear. Consensual BDSM is not the same as assault and battery. Never has been, never will be. There is even a sub category of BDSM which is called ‘consensual non-consent’, but there is a safe word that still means no.

Just because I want to have sex, doesn’t mean I want to have sex with you. Just because we have had sex before, doesn’t mean I want to right now.
There is no Golden Ticket, all access pass to enter a woman’s body whenever you want. If that’s your thing, get a sex doll.

A dude not taking no for an answer is not in the same conversation as a woman needing a bucket and a mop for her wet ass pussy. In fact, that whiny cajoling tone makes me drier than the Sahara.

I jumped on the thread of the BICO versus WAP and said plainly, while I don’t think BICO is the worst thing ever, it does insinuate pressure sex. Personally, I have acquiesced to sexual acts for reasons other than a resounding yes, because it was safer to do so, because I felt obligated or pressured.

Yes, all women in this instance.

And it happened with him too.

I was drunk, I said no. I said no more than once, and things went further that I wanted.

Am I mad about it?

No.

We were both drunk and things got carried away.

Had I been sober would I have consented, also no. But all in all it was not some terrible traumatic experience. We talked the next morning and I said plainly, that was not what I wanted nor expected from you and he apologized. It’s water under the bridge and I valued his friendship more than one irritating night of drunken stupidity. I never went home with him after that incident either.

Cut to last week.

So I jump on this thread, tell the truth about other experiences I had, not even hinting at what happened with him and instead of being the supportive male friend I knew and loved, he threw me under the bus, and let a bunch of rednecks mock me.

So I left.

Unfriended him unceremoniously and sat on this for about a week.

Then I get banned from Facebook for the men are trash statement and everything came bubbling back up.

If you are not trash, you won’t mind me pointing out that a lot of your gender are. Once again, someone is doing the raping.

If you aren’t guilty of pressure sex, you won’t mind me bringing it up.

The onus is placed on women way too often. The language has to change. From ‘she was raped’ to ‘he raped her’. We carry all of the responsibility for an act we obviously do not choose to participate in, that is why it’s rape.

Madonna once said that “a woman could be naked, drunk, passed out in an alley in a bad neighborhood and still not deserve to get raped”.

Its true.

Why is this about our life choices as women and not about their choice to hurt us as men?

They make a decision to do harm.

We don’t choose to be harmed.

I really loathe this rhetoric wherein if a woman owns her sexuality, enjoys sex or shows even the slightest hint of using men for pleasure the puritanical collective loses its fucking mind.

When is this going to stop?

How do we stop it?

I raised my son to know that consent is mandatory and can also be revoked at any time. He knows this. This is gospel.

I also saw this last week, and it made me cry bitter tears of relief.

In a world full of mansplainers and men who are guilty of some level of assault who refuse to own the things they have done, there is this guy.

Men who assault women, don’t listen to women, hence the assaulting.

Every single man has either done something or knows someone who has. Just like every single woman has had something done to her or knows a woman who has.

Make the world into one giant airport. IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING.

Sit in your dark truth gentlemen. Realize it’s you or someone you know, do better, be better.

The world isn’t going to end if you realize and internalize that one of the girls you banged didn’t really want to participate. Learn from it.

Stop this.

And at the very least, don’t try and talk over the women who are finally feeling safe enough to talk about this. From personal experience, I know it’s a heavy burden to carry and it’s not even my burden.