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At some point, while I wasn’t paying attention, I hit half a million views on ye olde blog.

Yay me. I know half of those are Good Karen. She’s confessed to reading everything, several times.

She has been amazing lately. Her medical background has allayed a lot of my fears and she is just cool beans in general.

7 years ago in December I started talking to myself, and people read it.

So weird.

I did a thing.

I am actually part of a private group on Facebook called ‘I did a thing’, people like me who have anxiety and executive function disorder. I haven’t posted there, and now I can’t, but it’s nice to see people doing things and be part of a community that cheers each other on about accomplishments that seem mundane to others.

I sewed a skirt that I bought at Disney 4 years ago and ripped the first time I wore it 3 years ago. It has been sitting in the ‘mend me’ bag forever. Now I can wear it on my next adventure. I feel satisfied.

Mercury retrograde is the best time ever for clearing out psychic and actual garbage, tying loose ends, fixing old things and letting go of what no longer serves us. And eventually I will get to the point of this article which is exactly that.

Papa Mercury spinning backwards is also notorious for having exes waltz out of the woodwork with a ‘sup’.

But we will get to that too. Probably in another article.

Right now I am looking at the sewing kit on my chaise, the pile of clean laundry that needs putting away, the bracelets I wore yesterday that are sitting next to me and an unmade bed. I have enough time before my next doctor’s appointment to fix all of that and do yoga, but I am not doing it.

I have been back for 2.5 weeks and I really thought I would have been writing for 2 of them by now. I have 27 000 words started on a novel that I seem to have channeled from the ether, it is the most euphoric experience for a writer, to see what is happening, to be tapped into another time and place and just be the scribe. I want that feeling back. But first I have to put that last load of laundry away, finish sewing that last skirt, organize my insane amount of bathroom stuff. I really don’t need to buy shampoo or lotion for a year, deodorant for another 6 months.

I was going away, not packing much in the way of toiletries and just buying new wherever I landed, then traveled back in time to the island where I had a full cupboard of more stuff, and some more stuff. And some more stuff and more stuff and so on and so on. I gotta chill out and use what I have.

I think part of me remembers being dirt poor. Kinda compounded and renewed by the plague. I can’t work right now, there is no work. I didn’t panic buy anything, so much as kept everything I had, just in case. Hotel soaps, deodorant that I don’t love but I might need. I am also not used to having this much downtime. Parts of me love it and parts of me remember that feeling of leaving perdition and having all of these adventures waiting for me. Some of them happened and they were amazing. I have a drawer full of ticket stubs from places I have been. To go from hyperactivity and never staying in one place more than 11 days, to 92 days in the same room in the same house with the same routine was a shock to my system.

I think I am better equipped for extended periods alone than most. The Milton house I would go weeks without seeing anyone but the lady ringing up my groceries. Solitude is peaceful for me.

And, as I cited in my last article, I have emotionally matured a significant amount since February. I can see very clearly where I was and where I am.

At this moment I am attempting to conquer this.

I always thought it was how I was raised. My mother takes great pride in her home and in this regard, I am my mother’s daughter. It has morphed into a source of pride for me. I have a skill, whether innate or learned (or both) of creating these beautiful, Zen yet cozy spaces wherever I live. When I got back to the island, I cleaned the house for the better part of 2 weeks. Room by room, finding lost treasures and putting things back to ‘right’. But right for whom?

Brian walked into my room on the third day, my old room, my first room and said, ‘it’s like you never left’. Kinda felt that way.

I also didn’t write when I was there.

Nor did I write at the farm. I was too busy with busy work.

I am noticing a trend here. And if this meme speaks true, I am not alone.

I remember having massive amounts of guilt about all my ‘crafting’ stuff. I never had time to sit down and make things. I think the truth was I did have time to sit down and make things, but I made everything else more important than me and how I actually wanted to spend my time.

I still drool over those huge armoires retrofitted to be a crafters paradise. I dream of making things and I derived and immense amount of satisfaction from mending a skirt yesterday, it’s a really beautiful skirt. When I play fantasy in my head about my dream house and my dream life, there is a room where I can make rugs and wall hangings and jewelry and head dresses. But I never budget for time in my fantasy land.

And during quarantine, I just didn’t have room or use for the things I imagined making. This room is gonna explode if I bring home one more shiny thing. But still…

When did making art have to have practicality attached? I just like making stuff. I loved playing dress up as a kid and would love to make fairy princess crowns for exactly that, and for women like me who still want to play fairy princess and dress up.

And writing. Why is this a guilty pleasure for me, or something I have to schedule after everything else is done.

And more importantly, how do I unlearn this?

My partner is incredibly supportive of me writing. And it almost makes me squirm. I am not used to this.

I think I made a good first step today.

I wrote this before I tackled the ‘practical’ things I have to do today.

And tomorrow is a new day.

Hopefully I can go back to channeling the story of 4 witches in the woods, I want to see what happens next.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Revelation 22:13

See also

It’s happening again – the giant from Twin Peaks, not my Giant.

Wow.

You know…I kinda knew.

I posted this meme and one of the first comments was ‘I caught a ban for this.’

And I let it ride.

I stand by it. If my son doesn’t have an issue with something regarding the male collective, neither do I.
A guy who reported me for hate speech after plastering my page and other posted memes with essay after essay about how ‘rapists don’t mind if you call them rapists’, are you speaking from experience sir?

Personally, I think most rapists are in denial, even the court system backs them up, and society as a whole. Was she asking for it? I can give you the definitive answer on this, from experience, none of us were ever asking for it.

But weirdly, this is not what this is about.

I’ll get to it. I have had yet another post about pressure sex, cajoling, and the huge difference between Baby, its Cold Outside versus WAP a brewin’. But not right now.

I should also touch on an update regarding my last couple posts regarding do I have breast implant illness or silicone sickness or Lyme disease or what.

I don’t know yet.

I took 2 naproxene last week when the pain got bad. Found a Yin yoga guy on Youtube that I will include the link for at the end, and have booked 5 different appointments for blood work, x-rays, consultations et al. Had my x-rays today and it was this archaic looking machine that apparently had been retrofitted and modernized but it was fairly creepy and I had some childhood hospital flashbacks laying on the cold table, holding uncomfortable poses and my breath in a paper shirt.

Long story short, I don’t know anything more than I did last week but I am feeling better and doing something about it, which has put me in a better headspace.

When sisterwife got her tits done at the beginning of the whole mistress mess, her plastic surgeon told her “you need never wear a bra again.” We giggled at the wording, seemed so proper, but it became goals, first hers and then mine 6 years later. But that lil goatling Layla made it not so and I have had a size and shape discrepancy since 3 days after surgery and have been wearing a bra daily, for the last 9 years. So maybe this is the end of that. So mote it be.

Beginnings and endings. Oh look 407 words and I got back around to it.

Not my best nor my worst.

2020 has been about the same, not my best, not my worst. Actually, the year I got these boobs was my worst year, the 6 prior to weren’t so shit hot either. Basically from when sisterwife got hers done to when I got mine done, sucked. But it just kept sucking, and then I left.

It amazes me how much misery and angst I tolerated when all I had to do was leave.

It was scary yes, no doubt about that, but it was also worth it.

The last half of last year and the beginning of this one was my best.
I had some good ones before that. Milton comes to mind.
God, I loved that place and that time. I think of it often.

That was a beginning, and a good one.

I am a funny creature, I love change and new things, but I get scared. I suppose overcoming the fear is part of the delight, and if I didn’t get scared, I would be reckless. Bravery and stupidity are kissing cousins after all.

It was stupid to leave that meme up.

Thing is, I don’t care.

February 16^th 2020 I woke up to a Facebook jail sentence of 30 days over a Bindi Irwin meme wherein the author stated ‘smh, white people are stupid’.

We kinda are.

We are reckless with our bodies because we don’t live in constant danger from everyday activities.
We swim with sharks, ride alligators, sky dive, and climb killer mountains. Because a routine traffic stop isn’t going to kill us, nor is going to the corner store. This is a luxury we have that others do not.

T’was a white person who reported me for hate speech then and a white boy who reported me this time. I said he was butthurt and needed therapy. He is butthurt and does need therapy.

He is not a monster, I love monsters, and danger is relative. But, like I said, I don’t really care.

But the timing is what is tickling me.

I have held this one golden thought close to my heart since the mess of 2020 began.

We had a Friday the 13^th on a full moon in March at the end of the first retrograde and it happened to be daylight savings as well. I firmly believe that is when the hellmouth opened.

I have watched enough Buffy the Vampire Slayer to know, if a hellmouth can be opened, it can also be closed.

And, as if to drive home this lil personal truth nugget, the first day of the last retrograde, leading up to a full moon on Halloween which also happens to be a time change, I catch another Facebook ban.

I believe our life journey is not a straight line nor a graph of ups and downs in linear fashion. It’s a little rollercoaster-esque with the uppy downy, but its also a spiral. We get far from center and then circle back in for a closer look at where we have been to see if we have learned anything.
And I am the girl who got off the Hulk at Universal Studios and got right back in line to ride it again. Both truthful metaphor and literal truth.

I’ve been to the outer limits of my psyche. Most notably during a trip during the last retrograde in June/July. And the answers I found there, are serving me well this time around.

I feel like I am acing a test because I did the work and I studied really hard and I am quite giddy about it.

I panicked in February when I went to fb jail. I admit it. I opened a Twitter account that I rarely use.
I huffed and I puffed and I called in favor after favor. Nothing helped and eventually I just got used to it. And I will again.

This time, I truly don’t care.

As it is retrograde, and I was already mentally prepared, I had a list of old projects that needed working on and have been busting my ass trying to get to a place where I could sit down and just work on them.
Here I am.
With one less distraction.

Thanks Universe.

The turmoil that started this mess, is winding down, cosmically speaking. At least one planet has been retrograde since February 16^th 2020, sometimes several at once. It was a bumpy year astrologically. This is the end, almost, Mars stations direct November 13^th, the same day I get out of Facebook jail.

I do love that I have grown, I also love that I have this very concrete, tangible ‘a-ha’ moment, wherein I can see where I was, where I went and how far I have come.

I also love that we are nearing the end.

In the immortal words of the Weeknd “I feel it comin’, I feel it comin’ baby.”

Amazing the difference that comes from February to October.

October last year I quit my job, among other amazing things and started on this grand adventure, that, with a few hiccups and a plague, has actually been really fucking awesome.

I cannot wait to see what comes next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0UsdewWXLA

I remember sitting in the backseat of my bestie’s parent’s car in 9^th grade. We were going to Paris Ontario for some reason and her and I were going fabric shopping. Sinead O’Connor had just come out with the I Do Not Want What I haven’t Got album. And her dad let us play the cassette on the road trip.

It’s actually a really good album. I quite like her.

But the lyric that is pervasive in my head right now is ‘this is the last day of our acquaintance.’

I went through a phase about a month into lockdown wherein I visited old albums and artists I once loved. Her ‘best of’ and another obscure album called Gospel Oak were on the list.

Petit poulet tout ca c’est okay.

(Little chicken, everything is okay)

It’s really not okay, but hopefully it will be.

A few times I have posted upon ye olde blog while I am in my feelings.

Historically speaking, it hasn’t gone all that great.

I did it again yesterday. But it wasn’t about anyone else, it was just about me.

I think that’s the difference. I can have internal dialogue/free association writing when it come to my own thoughts about my own body, but when it comes to dealing with my thoughts and feels about others, I am better writing in retrospect.

My mind is a whirling dervish on occasion. Like now, now is one of those occasions.

I have had to take a long hard look at my health over the last 48 hours. A little longer really.

I had originally contacted the doctor to get ‘just in case’ meds for when I go away. Oh and by the way, I have a pain in my hip that wakes me up at night and my shoulders fell dislocated more often than not.

I try and treat everything I can holistically, but BV, Strep and bladder infections aren’t anything to fuck with, especially in another country. I learned this the hard was with a pervasive 104 degree fever coming close to kidney failure after an untreated bladder infection 20 years ago.

As always, I am learning.

And, in the immortal words of Wolf, “Turmeric isn’t doing shit.”

It’s really not.

I am also on yet another huge self-improvement kick.

I read something about long haul plague fatigue and how after six months of this new world order we are all bound to hit a wall. So I decided if I was going to hit it, I was going to be aware and twist it to my benefit. But as I struggled through 8 yoga poses for 8 minutes this morning, and for the last 3 mornings, it kinda hit me.

How much of my inactivity has been my choice and how much has it been my body demanding to rest?

I could always come up with some excuse.

Well I am not used to sitting so long, I wrote in an Airbnb stateside for most of the month of January after being cramped in a car full of my stuff for 3 days and having wild amazing pretzel sex. Of course I hurt. That’s normal right?

Then March came along and we all went into lockdown. I had never really rested and sat for prolonged periods of time, my life before was very physically active, so of course this hurts right? But it lasted 4 months. Then 2 weeks of quarantine out east moving furniture, then back to work. Of course that hurts. 3 days drive home, of course. Drinking heavily for 2 years of course.

I am sober, I’m reasonably active and I am out of excuses.

I don’t want to feel like this anymore, I have realized that while I may have made this my normal, it isn’t normal.

I did this to myself during my marriage too. Filled my days with watching Jerry Springer and Maury and Sisterwives and any other reality show that portrayed people who had it worse than me. I did busy work constantly, tried to put on a brave face for the internet. Spent Monday to Friday cleaning and taking pictures from just the right angle so the dirt and rot wouldn’t show through. Then weekends friends would come and I would get some reprieve because ex hubby would join in the façade.

I think my depression wasn’t so much me being sad so much as part of me knowing this wasn’t right, it wasn’t where I belonged.

I’d watch True Blood and see Sookie being loved and adored and it would physically pain me. Every once in a while, the blinders would come off and I would see the junked out cars, the failed projects the dirty (but healthy) livestock, the weeds where the garden should be and it would hit me like a train.

It wasn’t right.

And I think it’s happening again.

I do want to do yoga for more than 8 minutes without shaking, poses that used to feel good are incredibly difficult and painful now. I do want to learn how to do new things. I want my body back. But whatever survival mechanism I have hard wired in says ‘well this is what is, and we’re used to it.’

I am, after all, Princess suckitup Buttercup.

Today marks the 9^th anniversary of my emancipation from my farm life.

I did not leave that relationship gracefully. I cheated with a 20 something at my job, got caught and thrown out with a laundry basket of clothes, my purse and my jeep in the middle of the night.
It was violent and messy, and I am so fucking grateful that happened.

I moved in with the 20 something because I honestly had no choice. The people at the gas station where I worked had become my temporary family and with their help, I was able to get my stuff out and into storage. And I slowly but surely started to rebuild a life from absolute scratch.

I never went back after that and apart from a couple years here and there, where I was being stubborn about stupid shit, I became who I am now and I am happy.

Well, I will be happy after my doctor’s appointment. I need some answers. And I need this anti-inflammatory pill to kick in so I can see if that’s part of this.

I have Tibetan singing bowls on in the background. I am looking around my room at all the things that need doing before I head out and although I am terribly afraid of the future, I am hopeful too.

If I survived the tumultuous catastrophic events of October 2011 and the 7 years of hell that preceded that day, I can do anything.

Looks like retrograde is coming early for me.

Once upon a time, after my sexual liberation from my mediocre relationship after my failed sexless marriage I talked about my vagina at work a lot.

To the point where one of the girls at work made a snide comment, verbatim, “here comes Sarah to talk about her vagina again.”

Hush sis, just because yours is lonely, don’t be getting mad at mine.

I have also spent a lot of time explaining and exploring Poland’s Syndrome.

I have that.

I talk about my boobs a lot too.

In the immortal words of the Teletubbies, “again, again.”

Cliff’s notes, I was born without my pectoral muscles on my right side and since fat will not grow on bone, I never grew a tit where a tit oughta be.

Earned me the nickname jellyboob in high school and is probably predominantly responsible for my rock bottom self esteem and crushing body dysmorphia. I had to wear a chicken cutlet prosthesis until I could go for surgery, so like 2 years.

And yet, I strip. I date. I do things.

That’s kinda my existence in a nutshell. Missing something really normal and important, do things anyways.

I am the girl who worked at the strip club right after physio so I could rent an apartment and get out of my marriage even though I was in insane amounts of pain and could barely walk right. If it needs doing, I do it.

I have had implants since I was 16. Several over the years, the last ones being 2011.

The last few years I have been feeling not so great.

I was in a car wreck in 2009, my knees hurt all the time, my neck too, I function at a 3 or 4 on the pain scale every day and it spikes bad a few times a month.

I figured this was just life now.

But lately it has been so much worse. And I can’t begin to tell you when it started.

I did notice this last trip to Newfoundland that drinking a drink or 3 knocked my pain down to a very manageable 1 or 2, then I would get drunk and then hungover and regret it. Drinking truly is borrowing tomorrow’s happiness.

I had previously chalked my health problems up to the amount of drinking I did for the 2+ years I lived there. I was technically chronically hungover. But I stopped last November, I should feel kinda better by now. I also quit smoking a year ago in June.

I now have this sneaking suspicion that a fairly large part of my drinking problem was pain management.

I cannot enumerate the amount of times I have woken up over the last year with horrible pain in my hips and lower back. But it must be the car wreck right? I damaged my pelvis, I am getting older.

Driving 3 days made me feel like my shoulders were dislocated and somehow on fire. My knees swelled up to half cantaloupes. It wasn’t like this the times before.

Then I started thinking about all the times I swam at the quarry and how bad ticks were those years. Do I have Lyme’s disease? I looked up the symptoms and a few are on point. Headaches, vertigo, dizziness, joint pain. But there’s more, that don’t need to be discussed here, belly tings. Yucky hurty belly tings.

About a month ago I was watching Botched with my Lexi girl in the kitchen. The girl who ‘won’ Flava of Love was on asking to get her implants removed. I say won, because did anyone really win anything there?

Anyways, she described the symptoms of breast implant illness.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. But in the last 24 hours I have done a little research and it has become a very real possibility.

I think what hit me the hardest was ‘misdiagnosed Lyme’s disease’. And I have 8 out of the top 10.

My tits are not currently great. They never were. I had a baby goat get rejected by her mama about 3 nights after I had surgery. She ended up in my coat and kicked my compression bandages off on the way to the house, by the time I got her fed and settled I was too tired to look after myself and as a result my left tit sits lower than my right, noticeably so.

Add to that the fact that my last set of implants were a result of my doctor bribing me out of my eating disorder. If I could gain and maintain weight, she would give me a referral and 50% of the cost would be covered. Gotta love Canadian healthcare.

But it worked, I have since gained more weight and since fat loves to grow on muscle, I am a full cup size heavier on the left as well.

I have been back and forth about getting them fixed, even going so far as to have a consultation with an incredible surgeon, but …

There is always a but…

Do I go through this, the recovery and risk a lot of scarring to still be imperfect?

Can’t I just love myself as is?

I can, mostly. I try to anyways.

I think perfection is not in the cards for me as far as tits go.

But what if these things are making me sick?

I should be excited by the idea of being a normal, pain free human being again. And if this is it, then yes please.

By most accounts once they are out life gets immediately and noticeably better.

But can I live without tits? Do I risk getting a new set and going through this again?

What if that isn’t an option?

2 jellyboobs instead of one?

I want to go back to school in January, is this going to fuck with that? why is that every time I make a life decision and start working towards it something gets incredibly fucky?

I am so close to having a breakdown and a tantrum at the same time.

I haven’t written much lately. I think the big delete I did kinda knocked the wind out of me. Plus BLM and all the injustices and crazy circus shit going on south of the border made me feel inconsequential and like I wanted to be quiet.

But I forgot. I do this for me. And I am scared right now. This is me sorting through my thoughts and fears.

I have already messaged my plastic surgeon, done as much research I can on the brand and serial number of my implants, they have been recalled and they are Allergan. Not the Biocell textured ones that cause cancer, but still same manufacturer and still recalled.

I have a requisition for bloodwork to see if its something else.

But I won’t have any answers today, and today I am afraid.

I just wrote a really long email to someone about forgiveness and understanding.

I can literally sit down and figure out why everyone who ever wronged me did what they did.
And, for the most part I have.
I took the time to know them well enough to understand them and the ‘why’.

Granted, until 6 or 7 years ago, and even still sometimes, my first instinct is to wonder what I did wrong. But this has lessened over the years.

I went through a breakup recently. It didn’t stick, but I was pretty amazed at my reaction to it in the moment.

Theoretically and historically, I should have been decimated, devastated, a crying puddle on the ground. And I did cry, and I cocooned a bit. But instead of falling down the self-deprecation rabbithole (that for me has no end) I just decided it was because I hadn’t dyed my hair. Ridiculous, yes, but something that I could easily fix.

Instead I put myself in his shoes and understood as best I could. And dyed my hair.

And I decided to make some changes to my life, for me.

I cannot control other people’s actions, I can only control my reactions to them.

This was a person who I love and care about beyond measure, there is no flip switch that turns that off if he doesn’t do what I want him to do.

Everything is better than fine now because things we couldn’t promise in words have been proven by actions.

I have abandonment issues and this blog is explanation for that in and of itself. A treasure trove of the times I have been left. And that’s okay.

For every one of them that left, they all came back eventually, and I got my answers. But the funny thing is I didn’t need them. And maybe that’s why.

I forgive. It’s what I do.

Sure, I mourn their absence, I obviously wanted them around in the first place or they wouldn’t have been in my life. But everyone has their own path and that’s okay.

Final Boss would have had to rise above the familiarity and comfort of mediocrity to be with me. Babe, I get it, I struggle with this every day, and it’s hard. I am the queen of underachieving and meeting someone who sees your potential and wants to stick around and support it is fucking terrifying and hard.

It would be easy to get mad and say he used me, and he kinda did, but I allowed it. I didn’t do anything for him that I wouldn’t have done for anyone else if they needed it. He paid me back eventually and I hold no grudge, never really did.

All of this is neither here nor there.

Everyone has baggage, myself included. The secret is realizing a lot of things you are carrying never really belonged to you in the first place. It’s a lot of their issues they put on you and you decided to keep.

I posted this to my Facebook page and good God did people get mad at me.

Go ahead, be mad.

Hold grudges, live with your hate, hold it in your fist and see how badly you get burned.
Keep sipping the poison other people handed you when they wronged you and complain when you get sick.

It just seems like a colossal waste of time to allow someone who hurt you to continue to do so by your own choice.

As far as I can tell, I have this moment, this one right here that I am living in, and unless I am in the midst of a trauma, this moment may not be perfect, but I’m here.

If I closed myself off to experiences based on the bad experiences I have had, I would truly never leave the house, have a job, or speak to anyone, ever.

I got assaulted on a Tinder date a few years back. I didn’t delete Tinder or stop dating altogether. I vetted people and places to meet better, I changed how I dressed, I reported him and got on with my life.
Tinder still sucks, but that’s not the point.

I don’t know when I made the decision not to live in my trauma, but I must have.

I think it was when I was raped. He wanted me afraid, he wanted me traumatized, he wanted some semblance of control over my life even if he wasn’t in it. And for a while, I was afraid and traumatized, I still get a small shudder if I see someone of his stature approaching me on the street.

But what he wasn’t expecting is that I spent a lot of time in therapy after, not reliving the experience at all, but trying to figure out the neurological miswirings in my brain and my previous life experience that facilitated me letting someone like him into my life. I realized I had very low self esteem and was in a place of self-loathing about my job and my lifestyle.

So I fixed those things, I changed my thinking patterns and stopped self-medicating.

I came out of that experience better.

I decided I really liked my job and there was really nothing wrong with it other than society’s antiquated beliefs about female empowerment, sexuality and nudity.

Then I married Captain Save-A-Hoe and backslid like a motherfucker, and subsequently ended that 7 year mess by self-medicating again. But I started recognizing my patterns and eventually broke them.

There is that old adage about ‘living well is the best revenge’.

Revenge doesn’t factor into it for me, I just want to be happy, and holding grudges, reliving trauma or judging others isn’t conducive to happiness, nor is wallowing in my old mistakes.

Against all odds, I am alive and mostly well. This world, and some of the people in it have tried pretty hard to ruin my life, I have done a pretty bang up job of doing that for myself too. And I forgive myself. I forgive them too.

Everything I have ever done (or has been done to me) has brought me to this moment. Yes, I need a shower, and I have a couple stubborn pimples on my chin, my bed needs making, and I really ought to check on my kidlet, but I am here.

And in this moment, I am happy.

In approximately 3 hours it will have been 3 years to the minute that I cried in Ikea.

I used to cry a lot. In high school, in Timmins, in varying restaurants and venues in Toronto, at the farm, and in St. John’s Mark would always remark if I got through a whole night without crying, so that’s that then.
I had panic attacks and the sting of hot tears streaming down my face, but no sound would come out, just that feeling of being locked inside this body, constricted, locked in that life really, but the tears would escape. And eventually I did too.

All of this is inconsequential and not who I am anymore. I love that girl I was, the one who survived.
I didn’t always love her, but I do now.

But let us wander back to that unseasonably warm day at Ikea. I don’t think any of us needed anything, does one ever really neeeeed anything at Ikea? Mandabear and Panda knew I was about to break down and were attempting to postpone the inevitable, little did they know, I have no shame. My emotions demand to be felt, they don’t care where. And as I put my phone on speaker and they listened to the rote message saying ‘the person you are attempting to contact is unavailable’, neither one of them wanted to be the one to tell me I was blocked, but I knew.

By the man I had been seeing, boy really. 28 at the time. But he had a youthful, playfulness about him. After a year of talking and me keeping him at arm’s length, I became the girl in the Fleetwood Mac song, “she broke down and let me in.”

I did. And I wasn’t sorry at the time. He was lovely, at the time. He eluded to marriage, introduced me to friends and family, I did the same.

Then, one insanely fateful day in October, he vanished.

Best thing really, even though it didn’t feel like it at the time.

But he was the noticeably clear and mildly violent catalyst to where I am now. And for that I am grateful.

I am currently tucked in my attic about 7 city blocks from my old house and a 20 minute drive to the very same Ikea. It amazes me to think about all the places I have been and all of the things I have done since that day. How much the world has changed, and how much I have changed with it.
My room is 97% clean and I did 7/10 things on my list of big things to do.
I think I have been so busy that I didn’t really realize where I was until now, and suddenly the last 3 years kinda hit me like a train. So, here I am, talking to you fine folks after a very long hiatus. I need my acrylic nails taken off, typing is hard and they need a rest. One more thing for the list.

I changed my bedding yesterday as I always do on Sundays, and it is strange to look over at my bed and see a coverlet that graced my second room in St. John’s. Feels out of place somehow. I am not who I was when I bought it, but its pretty and it suits this space. I spent my first two weeks in SJ setting up my old room and going from room to room like Gollum taking back my precious. I still don’t know what happened to the pretty yellow damask cover and I left the green blanket of sadness behind, or maybe I wrapped the mirror in it, who knows. It was the last bastion of bad memories from the catalyst.

I woke up a week ago here. To a room in disarray and covered in cat hair. I stormed and raged a bit then just put my head down and did what needed doing. The cats are healthy, and the plants thrived being outside for 2 months, so that is enough in itself.

There are still things in the car that need to find a home in storage. The rest of my stuff n things arrived a week before me and have already been fetched and unpacked and sorted through. I did that on Tuesday and it about killed me, 3 days solid driving, 10 to 12 hours every day respectively, just to come home and have to power clean in time to drive 4 hours to get more stuff and move furniture. My body hurt in new and interesting ways.

For the record, I have a lot of stuff for a homeless person.

I mean I am not homeless homeless, but I don’t pay to stay where I stay and I am constantly fighting the urge to pack up and run away again. But it is an interesting feeling, this sense of completion, everything I own within reach and all in the same time zone for the first time since shortly after the catalyst. I plan on enjoying it for a little while.

I went to Newfoundland for the same reason they took me to Ikea. Just to get me out of my head and my funk and my sad and it turned into an almost 3 year adventure which ultimately led me to meeting the love of my life.

The same day I was flying over that island full of sticks and rocks and dirt and trees, staring out the window of the plane, dreading what was to come, was the exact same day 2 years later, that he told me he loved me for the first time.

I would love to wax poetic right now and say that was the same day I realized everything I had been through was totally worth it, and it was. But I tend to always feel that way. I never minded the wait I always knew something better would come. A lot of people despise hindsight, thinking they shoulda coulda or woulda done something different.

Well, we didn’t. We did what we did, and here we are.

The sooner we all accept this, the better off we will be.

I accept where I am and how I got here.

I see my past as a map, full of pushpins and ticket stubs of places I have been and exits on the highway sometimes planned out and other times taken on a whim that landed me wherever I was at the time, which sent me in another direction and so on. I can see very clearly the how and the why.

And in this moment, I am happy.

I found the most random bag yesterday under the table downstairs. All my shampoo and whatnot from my trip to Florida last year. Seems like a lifetime ago, so much has changed, but as I scrubbed my face with the soap this morning I could feel the sun coming through the patio doors overlooking the ocean, I could see myself sitting down at  laptop at 6am, half writing and half watching for dolphins. I could hear the waves and everything just felt good and right in the world for a minute.

I am in the same mindset I was back then after 2 years of treating my body badly out east, I am once again eating clean, doing yoga and drinking lots of water. That was my Florida resolution and I have the same one starting today.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

In 5 weeks I will be somewhere else, and 4 weeks after that on to a new adventure.

That’s all this life is really, just an adventure. Sometimes we have to wait, sometimes we get violently ripped from our reality and catapulted into something so much better.

I actually had a very clear thought upon waking this morning.

If I keep my eyes closed, I can pretend I’m not here.

The bed feels like my bed. My real bed. My 4 years ago bed. The only one I have ever bought brand new.

The pillows do not. I will amend this.

I reached to the wrong part of the fridge for milk for my coffee this morning, and that is when it struck me where I am.

Yesterday felt like a weird dream wrapped in some déjà vu.

How did I get here?

Enough of me was still here to make my old gypsy bedroom into command center for this mission.

Weigh Station, Captain’s log, star date, who fucking knows time is fucky in this place of no logic.

It is peaceful and I missed some of my things.
How could I have left that here when I bolted in the dark of winter?

Because I meant to come back, tie up loose ends. Deal with this or that.

Doesn’t make the first 24 hours any less strange.

I can see my Ku’an Yin tapestry from my mojo momo mama in the mirror. I did leave some magic here. Quite a bit I think. More than I realized.

I scrubbed and cleaned and squirreled things away yesterday until I was exhausted enough to sleep. And it still wasn’t enough. The body was willing, but my brain had to run through a thousand ‘what ifs’.

First Breath After a Coma by Explosions in the Sky is playing.

Apropos as fuuuuuuck.

Enough of me was left here that I feel like I was in a coma for a while, and I had the most beautiful dreams. Then I woke up, and the house is dirty, but it’s still here. I am different from the lives I did or didn’t live in my sleep. And I am negotiating what that means. I miss my dream life so very much.

The whiskey bottle is still in the kitchen. I want to take it and build an altar like Frieda says, but the candles all burned down in my absence and I am 13 days from new candles and better pillows. I keep catching it out of the corner of my eye when I stand at the sink. I haven’t touched it yet, and I haven’t cried yet.

I didn’t bring enough shoes for the weather, but I found ones I thought were lost forever.

When I left to come here the second time, I decorated Mandabear’s house with the things I left behind. Now I go there and feel home. This feels like that. She sometimes catches me looking wistfully at some thing that she has kept and asks if I want it, like an elephant or a cutting from a plant. I do. I need to reclaim pieces of me I have left everywhere I have been.

Brian says I can have anything I want. But he really likes that lamp. We both love lamp.

I need to come back to center. But Yeats says the center does not hold. Things fall apart. I am things.

3^rd time better hold some charm because I don’t think I can do this again.

I am calling all of my power back to me and taking it with me this time.

I didn’t really announce my arrival. No point to it, I am not really here for the next 13 days.

Try not to move, it’s just your ghost passing through. Tori Amos.

I had concerns regarding running into a few people and better to not be ambushed really.

The rest of this feels like I went to get cigarettes last year and forgot to come back, plus I quit smoking so…where was I and why did I go?

For someone who deeply and truly believes my presence is inconsequential and who is currently trying to figure out my own semi permanence and trying to stop appearing so. I am really reactionary.

I ran scenarios in my head about, what is it going to look and feel like if I run into _______.
Would it be worse to be loved, ignored or yelled at by someone I have history with?

The answer is ignored.

At least if there is an action I can summon and equal and mayhap opposite reaction.

But for there to be nothing would hurt. I must have been through that before, but I can’t remember, and I think on a long enough timeline they all come back.

The opposite of love is indifference. Lumineers

And in the 13^th hour, I got my answer. 2:42am

Is there a tracking system in my vagina that I am unaware of? Like how do they know?

He says he didn’t know I was here. He says he isn’t here. I believe one of those things.

We spoke civilly. Of course there was a call of booty. I declined.

Would have been the perfect moment to use that line from Weeds, “you made your bed, go fuck in it.”

But I didn’t. There is no animosity here.

I said I didn’t plan on getting laid while I was here, and I was going to stick to my plan.

I didn’t like how we left things. I am glad I have one less unknown to be scared of.

It’s been 6 years.

 I keep popping up in ye olde blog and yammering on about my feelings.

Buckle up buttercups, experiment 698 underway.

I have spilled my guts in here, my messy, yucky, stupid guts.

Some of it is hard to write. Some of these stories stayed hidden from even myself because of the shame and absurdity of the choices I have made.

I contemplated quitting this last week. No more blog.

But I am here.

This is my process and half a million people seem to like peeking in at my life and seeing what shenanigans I am getting up to this week.

I just hit a real half a million, I must have missed it. Yay me.

Quarter million on the corresponding Facebook page and I walked away from that too. But this is different.

I follow probably a hundred or so pages on Facebook. My little stained-glass window into the world. And god I envy the poets. They can sum shit up in 50 words or less that has taken me a thousand words in each of my 700 posts. Like a lot. I try not to compare myself to others, but man, I know some really amazing people.

But one woman in particular prompted me bolting to my laptop in the middle of the night last night, she posted a story about how she ended up in a bad relationship.

Some follower of hers chimed in saying ‘you write a lot about your past’, like it’s a bad thing. I rushed in, sword blazing.

The pen is the sword.

I replied, “we examine the past to build a better future.”

I do. Why else would I write this stuff? Why else would you be here?

Some of it is downright embarrassing. Some criminal. Some painful.

But it’s mine. And if I don’t learn from it and figure out what I am doing here, there was no point in living through it now was there.

I gave the PG rated Cliff’s notes of the last 30 or so years of my life to the guy I accidentally messaged from high school. I didn’t just vomit them up, he asked. It was a requested regurgitation. And you know what he said?

I better not develop feelings for you, or I might get crushed.

Please don’t.

We call that a self-fulfilling prophecy ‘round here.

But truth is, this is all just a little bit of history repeating, from high school no less. Not the dude I was talking to, but how things are.

The more things change, the more my life looks like revamped reruns with new actors in old roles.

But him saying that did feel like a light slap in the face.

I actually had to sit down and count how many times this has happened.

Pretty much all of them.

I have the choice now to stop it or embrace it.

Now, I don’t know how far back you have read but I need to tell a little story here.

All about having one foot out the door for 26 years and finally earning the wings I have tattooed on my forearm.

12. 13. 14

The car wreck removed a lot of dates and chunks of my memory. Lost some vocabulary too. I got that back playing scrabble, but the memories are gone. And while that pains me as an archivist, some are probably better off lost.

But I will always remember that one.

It was post car wreck. Post farm emancipation. And almost a calendar year into me deciding to go it alone.

I was never really alone.

And therein lies the problem.

I see all these memes and poems and declarations, usually from a feminine perspective about not wanting to be loved by halves.

Fair. I survived the sisterwife situation, but I was getting around 17% there. He wasn’t every good at loving and I wasn’t terribly lovable. And I loved him by less than half.

And here is the 5:10 epiphany, right on time.

I have spent my entire adult, waking, dating life with one foot out the door.

Gee, I wonder why none of that ever worked out.

One word, one hint of commitment from high school sweetheart and I would have bolted from any of the lives I lived in the middle of the night.

Not terribly fair now is it.

While I was hoping, wishing, and waiting to finally be enough for that one person, there were men right in front of me hoping, wishing to be enough for me. Sorry guys.

In my defense, I was not consciously aware of this. It started when I was 13 years old, I had never been any other way, so how could I know.

He was 3000 miles away living his own life and checking in at random. He did save my life once, and for that I am grateful.

Then the great cataclysmic events of 2013 occurred, and I went on a journey of self discovery.

I thought no one ever loved me because they didn’t really know me because I never really knew myself.

That’s a fair statement. I don’t really think it’s wrong, just not all of the problem.

And then I just repeated the same shit over and over.

I had Sunday for 2 years.

I would have to look it up, but I would bet the farm that as soon as that head was severed, Giant sprung up in his place.

Not the same. Just similar patterns. I never loved Sunday. The dates and days themselves were lovely. I enjoyed having something to look forward to, but we had an old married couple routine about a month in and I clung to the familiarity of it for far too long. Messed up a couple good things with potential because of my need for a safety net.

Giant I love. But in a ‘I can happily watch him be happy from a distance and that’s enough’ kinda way.

Took a couple years to get there with him too.

But he is not an excuse, nor an out, nor a net.

He did set a beautiful precedent for what it feels like to be loved in my entirety, in the moment, messy bits included. I have forgotten (especially on that island) to hold myself to the standards he set, which is probably the reason he is afraid for my mortal soul when I go back.

There is another article brewing that involves him. But I digress.

12. 13. 14, after a month (or 5) of intense late night conversations with high school sweetheart, I realized it wasn’t just that I didn’t know myself, I didn’t know him either. 26 years had elapsed, and we weren’t who we started out being.

And I realized what a huge block he had been in my heart and my life… and he really didn’t treat me that great, historically speaking. What he was offering was not enough.

The bar for what I wanted and how I allowed myself to be treated was so low it was buried in the sand on the beach from when we were young.

Maybe if we had been brave enough to be honest at the beginning things would have been different. But we were just kids then, and the person I became didn’t really like the person he had become.

So on December 13^th 2014 I let him go.

26 years loving the same person.

But as I put my phone on the charger that night and fell asleep in my perfect green room in the Milton house, I did not know if I was going to exist in the morning.

I have written about this before. At the time is was terrifying and traumatic. Then it was liberating.

A week later I got wings tattooed on my wrist. Almost got 12. 13. 14 on there too, but I knew I would never forget.

The last day of our acquaintance.

The day I became free.

My heart did anyways.

For once I was finally in possession of the whole thing. And while quite large in size, my heart is very light, like a cloud full of love.

Everything changed for me then, as it continues to change. But I know I became much more myself that next morning. The me that exists now, and other than a few fuck ups and foibles, I like myself.

I don’t regret holding on and I don’t regret letting go.

I am proud of what I did, not the chaos it caused to other people, but that I made a decision and held it sacred for 2/3 of my existence. That I was able to love someone unconditionally with no strings or rewards, just because I did.

I am also proud that finally, after a 26 year habit, I quit something that was no longer serving me.

 I know what I am capable of holding onto and letting go of and the general consensus is that this makes me dangerous.

 I don’t see it that way.

My fortune cookie says, ‘compel yourself to do something today you would rather not do’.

That list isn’t terribly long.

I can see it from here.

The basket of laundry that has been sitting in the middle of the floor needs putting away.

My suitcase needs unpacking and I am not ready. Princess cat has made herself a bed on top of it. Hasn’t moved since I walked in the door 8 days ago.

Figure out what else needs to go from suitcase A into suitcase B for this trip and make sure the cats haven’t slept on any of it.

Which also warrants a thorough sweeping of the floor to minimize the amount of cat hair that travels with me.

It has been ungodly hot this week, today I can move around without feeling faint. Small miracles.

Couple that with the fortune cookie and today is the day.

I remember the first time I went to the island of fuckboys, I had no idea how cold is was really gonna be, I know better now.

Sweaters, knee socks, boots and jeans. Leggings to layer under my dresses.

I still have some clothes there but other than 2 sundresses and a pretty cardigan, I couldn’t begin to tell you what I left behind. Feels like another life and mayhap it was.

I have money waiting for me, and friends and they put the second pole back up. I am dreaming of stage shows.

I have a feasible and solid escape plan in the event that the car is too broken to fix.

Apparently, I am learning.

I am not who I was the first time I went there. A broken ghost of a girl who was forcibly shoved onto a plane to stop my moping. I am not who I was the second or third time I went. I used to be an optimist. Rose colored glasses obscuring all the red flags that wave in the wind hat never stops howling.

there is no ‘maybe it will be different this time.’ I already know it won’t be, but I am, so that’s something.

The chivalry was somewhat imaginary. It came with a price that was too high to pay. I doubt I am the queen anymore and I don’t need to be. The kingdom was broken and drunk, and so was I.

They do call it the Rock, just like Alcatraz. I don’t see much of a difference.

I survived 2 years with no magic before I was rescued. I think I left some behind.

Ariadne picked up on one island, just to get dropped into the apocalypse desert.

Chiron went retrograde today. We are now being forced to confront our abandonment issues. I am so ahead of the game.

I am almost doing a case study of myself as I move through this new phase in my life.

I know what I would have done before. I am not that girl now it seems.

I did things this time, different things.

I purged the blog, that was huge and hard until I found a shortcut and just ticked boxes.

‘Apply bulk action’.

Whatever the opposite of ripping a band aid off really quick is. Stitching something closed then cauterizing it last minute instead to stop the weeping.

Changed notification tones, ring tones, playlists. Tucked things in drawers. Got one of my girl groups to send me dorky memes and poems via email to bump everything else over to page 2.

Like Wesley in the Princess Bride. I know the dangers of the Fire Swamp. Flame spurts were proceeded by a certain noise. I keep managing to maneuver around the lightning sand, I know what it looks like so I can avoid it.

But what about the rodents of unusual size?

Well I am going back to that island, they are prolific there.

---

I wonder how I appear to other people sometimes.

I don’t go to church. I have never found any comfort there and I have built my own religion of sorts. When bad shit happens, I pray in my own way. My scripture just looks different than the pious. My prophets are conduits like me. And sometimes I use cards to talk to god.

I started this by saying ‘my fortune cookie says’. Straight into yet another Princess Bride reference and now let’s talk about my 4 hour tarot therapy yesterday with my Colorado Viking witch.

My past was 10 of Wands reversed no less. Oh goody. Double whammy.

Carrying burdens that were not mine. Taking on way too much responsibility for others without even knowing. Enabling co-dependence. But the reverse kicker is I didn’t see it or feel it, just felt normal to me.

That’s astute. Pretty much exactly what was happening.

Next.

Ima skip the recent past card. It still hurts.

In my present there were pentacles aplenty. Laying foundations for financial gain. And the King showed up to remind me to take care of myself, that we perform our best work from a healthy place. I knew that already your highness.

My heart card was Strength and that hit me like a train. The visual is a smiling woman holding the jaws of a lion. Knowing it is dangerous but I am not afraid.

Knew that too.

The future was interesting.

3 of Wands. Ships returning to harbor, wait is ending, plans coming to fruition. Seeds sown reaching their potential. But the harbor and the ships struck me. I am going back to the weigh station. I already knew this.

The first future card is written. The second is malleable and depends on decisions I make going forward.

This was a warning.

The Devil.

I suppose I knew the devil is waiting for me there. The corporeal one with many faces. And it is the place of excess, addiction and vices for me.

Unfair contracts or agreements will rope me into something that benefits others more than me.

Basically big neon letters saying IT’S A TRAP.

But I lived in the Fire Swamp before, I know the dangers, I could technically build a summer home there and live, just not overly happily.

It isn’t my ever after.

I didn’t exactly need the cards for all of this, but I am grateful.

I know what just happened, I know what I walked away from months ago and I know what I am walking into. I am only 8 months sober. What I am doing is dangerous. But I also know it has to be done.

I have done hard things before and survived. This chapter needs closing so I can start a new one.

That suitcase needs unpacking so I can pack a new one.

I have written a few posts about consoling my inner child. The girl who hid behind the scratchy brown chair in the farmhouse to avoid getting a patch on her bad eye.

I went back to Disney as an adult and rode on the carousel horse I was denied when I was 7 and did the whole trip the way I wanted to when I was little. It was bliss.

The 10 year old who disappeared into a basement, mouthful of lies about how she had actual friends at school and who was instead ridiculed for wanting to wear rainbows and just being weird in general. The little girl who was legally old enough to be left home alone and so she was.

Very alone. To the point when I finally found her, she had gone mute and feral.

Thought I worked through that, and mayhap I have.

But what about that long stretch between 13 and 19.

How do I make peace with that?

I did find some friends eventually. 3 of whom I talk to and 2 of whom I have spoken to in the last few days.

I forgot about the phenomenon that occurs when the moon and stars are aligned just so and there is a retrograde of epic proportions. This isn’t my recent past coming forward, this is ancient history. Dead sea scrolls and a language I forgot I even spoke. The kin, puck bunnies, Point Clark and strange street signs. Names forming faces that I wouldn’t recognize anymore because it’s been 30 years since I saw them.

I have gone home and it’s funny. I don’t look at the adults on the street to see if I recognize them, I always look at people who are the age now as I was when I left. Part of me is still trapped there.

I won an award for a collection of short stories I wrote in grade 7. Made it all the way to the national finals. The next year I was 1 of 4 students selected for a project that took me out of class for a few hours every day. I didn’t understand why I was chosen. But a few years back, I saw my grade 8 teacher and she made a point of not just remembering my name but fawning over me and called me one of her most favorites.

That was a bittersweet feeling. To be remembered was glorious, but what did I do with the potential she saw in me?

Not a fucking ting.

Cut to the first year of high school.

I walked in one way. Academic. Conformist. And terrified.

I had my grade 9 school pictures retaken, there was a weird shadow under my nose that looked like a bruise or a booger.

In the first one I was dressed in pink with what can only be described as a curly girl mullet.

That was September.

By November, when the photographer came back, I looked so much cooler. Oddly, when I think back, I would still wear that olive green sweater now. I had figured out minimal make up, grew my hair out to an asymmetrical bob and invested in some earrings that weren’t childish ladybugs or little butterflies.

I changed. I have proof.

I had been in a microcosm for all of public school, 30 of us, for the 6 years I was there, and there was really only the one aesthetic to choose from.
High school was a whole new overwhelming world full of goths, skaters, the preppy girls etc etc.

I was a hippy goth for the few years I was there.

None of that is neither here nor there.

What is vexing me is my perception of myself back then.

Dorky, shy, awkward, fairly friendless, never fit in with one group or another really. Mostly kept to myself.

And, utterly forgettable.

Not so apparently.

I told one of my oldest and dearest friends in the world about going back to school and what for. He nervous laughed and implied I was likely to be stalked and killed. Said I had a ‘compelling presence’. But we talked through it.

That’s another thing. I am still friends with some of the cool kids from school. Does that make me a cool kid by default somehow?

It’s been a fucked up week.

3 days ago I added another high school person to Facebook. We never spoke but I knew his sister and father and asked him to pass along a hello from me.

We ended up talking and I got an arcane glimpse into the past.

I thought of myself one way.

He remembered me at a party at the very end of high school, down to what I was wearing.

“Red shirt and jeans.”

I remember that party. Everyone I knew had graduated that year. I hadn’t. But it was a tiny reunion of the halls in grade 9, present and accounted for in a girl’s backyard. I remember thinking, as I looked around surveying the crowd, that I would probably never see these people again, and mostly I haven’t.

I remember seeing my little sister smoking a cigarette and being so pissed off. She hated me smoking, and she probably never had another one after that.

I ran away from home when I was 16. Tried to go back, left again, tried to go back left again and eventually I just never went back. Greg died and there was a great amount of chaos in the fallout and I finally left for good.

A week or two before, I went to watch a rugby game at school and got charged with trespassing by the principal. Then that party and then I vanished for good, for 20 years almost to the day of that game.

I didn’t belong there.

I truly believed everyone believed the rumors about me, perpetuated by the popular girls. That I was a slut and a witch, which oddly I did end up becoming after all.
I thought everyone saw what I saw which was a sad, awkward girl who never fit in anywhere and just floated aimlessly until I ended up floating away.

I still kinda think that way. But something is changing.

This man from high school, who I never spoke 2 words to, who hung out with people who intimidated the shit out of me also called me ‘queen’. Said they all found me very attractive and terribly mysterious.

He said, ‘you must know, people must tell you.’

And mayhap they have.

But I feel like one of the hosts in Westworld. On a loop with fragmented memories that don’t make sense and every time someone gives me a compliment I am somehow programmed to think “it doesn’t look like anything to me”.

It’s not just corrupt data, it is missing data also. I didn’t have all the information.

I am trying to repair my very fragmented self.

I recognize my inner small child and I have worked really hard to make sure she feels safe and heard. I am wrestling with my inner parent who loves to degrade and dismiss my inner child and I am trying to get a handle on being able to call my inner adult forward at will instead of just in crisis.

But what about teenage me?

I just wanted a bit of attention, some kind of genuine connection, someone to notice me and accept my weird. One person did, and he died in my arms a few days after he told me.

And apparently, others did too but I never knew.

Psychology talks a lot about honoring your inner child and healing original wounds that happen when we are little, things that affect us in ways it is difficult to define because it is the beginning of the nurture half of the nature/nurture sense of self. But what about awkward shy teenagers who never grow out of that phase.

I have a hard time accepting myself. And it isn’t necessarily due to traumatic events sustained in high school, although there were a few, it is more about my perception of myself that was formed then and isn’t necessarily wrong per say. How I saw myself was valid and still part of who I am. But because I barely talked to anyone, or formed any kind of solid bonds with anyone, never dated anyone, never really talked to a lot of people. I didn’t get an unbiased view of how I appeared to others, only what I thought of myself. Which was not a lot.

If the reports I have gotten over the years are true I was beautiful, mysterious, ethereal, graceful and above all intimidating.

Too intimidating for anyone to tell me what they thought of me when I needed it the most.

Still no time machines. So I will take these small tokens of niceties and being remembered as something much more than I could have ever imagined.

 Am still wrestling with how to process all this. But I am grateful for these glimpses into my past from a fresh pair of eyes and not my own.

I think maybe I should try going home.