Tis the Season

In the midst of what seems (on the blog) like constant angst--which I've explained is not the actual case, it's simply because this is the only place where I am completely honest so all the negative-sounding stuff comes out here--it's been a great day and I thought I would share it.

Sleeping late is not something I get to often do so today's waking at 10 a.m. was shocking, as was the realization that it was snowing. With a big holiday party later today I went to the store and got the ingredients to do some baking for the party and now everything is ready and the house smells wonderful. I'm not much on domestic duties but I love the smells of baking. Add some holiday music and the scene is set, you know the environment I'm in at the moment. I'm hesitant to go take my shower because I'm enjoying it so much, but I should no doubt get a move on.

Ah, the smells and sounds of the holidays!

About the Title "Damn You, Love Me!"

The title of that post has been bothering me because I wasn't sure what it was trying to say. If I am not sure what it is saying, how can I expect anyone else to understand? But I've left it alone and have been letting it percolate in my subconscious.

So far I think it's about the contradictory push and pull I feel towards people. I want to have people close to me, people I can trust, yet at the same time I have a tendency to not trust and to push people away. Just like how I'm so distrustful of the guy who treated me lovingly that I am either waiting for him to hit me with the punchline or start acting like a jerk towards me. The possibility that he could be genuine and be a decent guy....well, the odds are against that, right?

So on one hand I'm my independent self and I don't need anyone, and on the other hand I'm a very social person who feels pretty darned good about working in conjunction with another. The two sides are warring with each other, maybe?

I've always felt I was a fairly simple person to understand but I am starting to revise that opinion. ;)

Thankful

It's a bit after Thanksgiving but I'm feeling thankful at the moment and am glad to write about something positive. There are a lot of positive things in my life and I'm headed in the right direction. I've done some cool things and have been learning a lot about myself in the process. There are some really neat people in my life. Yeah, it's annoying to have childhood stuff come back up but maybe I can still learn from it. And I know this is just a phase, that it will again fade to the background of my life. Overall I am happy with where I am in my life and thankful for it.

I'm in a Good Place Mentally

Despite the darker tone of my previous post, I'm in a good place mentally. The many life changes I've made have not been easy but were necessary. I'm growing as a person, which is not a painless process by any stretch of the imagination. Certain parts of my new life have been bringing back earlier traumas, which the darker posts reflect, but this blog is where I am the most honest about my feelings so it may seem like a lot of negativity simply because this is the sole place where I express and expel it. This is the only place I don't soften the words or the pain.

The train of thought about my feeling of not being loveable will no doubt continue, but that is something that I'm sure a lot of survivors can identify with so I will let it flow. It helps me to read others' feelings on their blogs so I will share mine as well.

Damn You, Love Me!

**Warning:: Adult language, adult theme**

I've become selfish, a voice whispers.

I want too much, it whispers too.

Who do you think you are?, yet another voice from the past whispers in my head.

Surely you don't think you could possibly deserve love, do you?, yet another hateful voice hisses at me.

"F*** you!", I think intently at the voices. "Shut the f*** up!" I am angry, so angry I could almost yell the words aloud. It doesn't matter how loudly I shout the words, though, it won't silence the voices.

Nothing silences the voices. Nothing.

But you know what reduces their volume? He does. He and the ways he shows me caring and consideration. Even when I don't act as if I am worthy of it, he accords me respect. He makes love to me, even when I urge him to f** me, just use me without regard and get it over with. He kisses me tenderly, even when I encourage him to bite me and hurt me. He shows passion for me yet I know I could break the embrace if I wanted to.

And I love it.

Where I had developed a taste for the pain, now he has me loving the tenderness again. Where before I had grudgingly accepted the usefulness of soulless sex, he has shown me that I don't have to have that.

Damn him.

Front Row, Center

Wow, I feel like I've been gone for a lifetime, or maybe two. I've missed blogging, I've missed the friends I'd made here. In my absence from the blog I've undergone a lot of change and am still trying to decide what I'll do with that. Will I continue this blog or begin a new one? Will I continue with the Angel identity or just scrap her and start fresh with another? There is such freedom in that, in creating anew and leaving behind the old.

Yet Angel is a part of me. I don't want to throw her away. I recognize her value in my growth. The massive amount of change in my life has brought back some of Angel's issues front and center; I've been rereading my posts and realize how much progress I'd made that I've forgotten about.

Boundaries are a healthy thing. Part of me wants to limit the "abuse issue" (makes it sound so small and clinical, like you can just excise the lump and forget it existed) to this blog and put my new life in a separate one.

I'm not sure what I'll end up doing. Feel free to voice what you would do. I'm open to suggestions.

Once Again, It Isn't Always About Us

It's when things are most important to me that I wrestle the most with whether to write about them or not. In light of recent discussions on blogs about how we can take things very personally and read rejection or hurt into them where none is necessary, I feel it is a timely topic. It's so painful, though, that I've hesitated, and hesitated.

I've been in shock since I was told that the person I've known and trusted and loved the longest is dying. She is being heavily sedated to take away the pain, but cancer is still an awful, awful illness. It isn't fair. She's too young, she has young children, she has so much to live for. She wants to live a long life, she wants to watch her children grow up, but the disease isn't giving her that option.

Yet she is a very private person so I should not be surprised that she does not want visitors in her final moments. She wants to remove herself from the world of the living so that she can be at peace when she dies, instead of railing at the cruelty of it like I'm sure she must want to do and like I want to do. She wants to disengage from her emotional attachments, release herself like a balloon to float into the atmostphere. In my intellectual mind I can understand that, but that means going beyond the instinctive hurt I feel. I feel like she is finding me lacking somehow, like I can't provide her with any comfort in her time of need. I am hurt that I am not up to her standards and feel rejected.

But it isn't always about me. This is not about my being lacking in any area, at my not being worthy of comforting her. It is completely about her needs. She needs peace. If she needs to detach in order to find it, then that is simply what she needs. I need to love her enough to give her what she needs. It is her right and her due. There is no point in my feeling rejected.

There's more, but this is enough for now. This is simply another illustration to show how it isn't always about us, no matter what our painful pasts may lead us to believe.

Interesting

It's interesting to me how the posts I wrestle with the most are the ones that are the most important to me. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to press the "Publish Post" button.

I Lit The Match

Taking some old photos in hand, I struck the match and it lit with an acrid smell. I watched it for a moment before touching the dancing flames to the edge of the first old photograph.

The pictures are of me and my abuser from holidays, pictures of me having to sit next to him. The look on my face could not more vividly convey my torture than if I were screaming. My silent despair speaks volumes. The photographs bear silent witness to my pain--a pain that was so overlooked and ignored that these same pictures went into the family photo album.

If I destroy the pictures, there will no longer be a tangible reminder of all those years of pain however I already bear the emotional scar. That won't go away by burning the photos. In fact, it would be destroying a piece of evidence of how ignored my misery was. The information was there for anyone and everyone to see but they ignored it. Anyone who claims that I hid the pain too well for them to have had a clue is lying. They should have had a clue but it not something they wanted to see.

I lit the match, but in the end I blew it out.

Comments Moderation

Comments moderation has been removed. That was the only way I thought I would know if there were comments left by people and I wanted to know what people thought. It turns out that you can have new comments sent to your e-mail as they are left. Doh!

Getting to Know You: Christmas Edition

(Kim, I'm copying your intro, too, in case anyone sees this and wants to participate.)

Welcome to the Christmas edition of getting to know your blogging friends. I'm not going to tag anyone specific but consider yourself tagged if you feel like posting something frivilous and fluffy!
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Gift bags.
2. Real tree or fake: Real.
3. When do you put up the tree? There isn’t a set day or date for us. It’s whatever works best that year.
4. When do you take the tree down? The same, there isn’t a set day or date for us. It’s whatever works best that year.
5. Do you like eggnog? I don’t know. I have never tried it.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? This would require too much thought.
7. Hardest person to buy for? My mother.
8. Christmas eve midnight mass/service or Christmas Day: No.
9. Do you have a nativity scene? No.
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Always mail.
11. Worst Christmas gift ever received? This would require too much thought.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Christmas Story.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Whenever I see something that I think someone will like.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yes.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? I don’t have any particular favorite.
16. Lights on the tree? Of course. We take turns between white lights and colored lights.
17. Favorite Christmas song? I don’t have a favorite.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay at home.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Can‘t everyone?
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas day? Christmas Day.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? The pressure some people feel to have everything perfect.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Ornaments made by those I love.
24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? I don’t have a specific favorite.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Santa knows. I can’t tell you or he won’t bring it.

Cat Chronicles - Detente

The battle between Baby and First cat continues. I've been out of town and apparently the felines have missed me. In fact, they missed me so much that the warring females brought themselves to sit on opposite sides of me on a chair upon my return. For only a moment, though, and while giving each other the stink eye. Then they started giving each other their backs until one of them relented and jumped off the chair. She missed me, but not that much after all. :)

My Cheer Went Poof

I was in such a good mood. Despite going to the dentist for a routine visit, I was full of holiday cheer and all that. Yet how quickly that disappeared.

The hygienist cleaned my teeth and began to floss them. She was quite rough with the floss and it was painful, to the point where I exclaimed in pain. Apparently she either didn't hear it at all or hears it so much it didn't make an impression on her because she proceeded to say, "Your gums are bleeding. Do you not floss regularly?"

WTH? Could she not tell the answer by the condition of my teeth? Or had the hair bleach permeated her brain and left her completely senseless? Gone was my good mood, immediately squashed by the pain from her overzealous efforts. Her stupid question was merely icing on that rotten cake.

"Not only do I floss regularly, I floss even twice a day or three times a day depending on what I eat. What I do NOT do is assault my gums like you have! Are you finished yet?"

I guess I won't be getting a Christmas card from her, but the feeling was mutual. Next time I will ask for any hygienist but her.

My Babies Are Growing Up

My work has involved a lot of travel this year. At first I had illusions of continuing to direct the household from a distance but I quickly realized that that was not realistic. So I turned over the list and duties to my husband, crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

Mainly I was worried about the kids. I don't talk about them here a lot for different reasons. They aren't so young that they need mommy all the time, but of course there are certain times and events when I am the one they turn to. Much to my surprise (and maybe just a little dismay), everyone has done fine without me. In fact, the tears I anticipated didn't happen. Maybe we tried too hard to make it seem like an upbeat thing and maybe I've tried too hard to foster self-reliance, lol. They have made more of a fuss before when I've gone to the store without them! They knew they could call me on my phone, text me or e-mail me so I was always reachable, even if I couldn't talk to them immediately. I made sure we spoke at least once a day. I sent them pictures of the hotel room, etc so they could actually "see" where I was. So I did everything I could think of to make it not a disruption in their schedule or a source of worry for them. Clearly my goal was to make my absence easier on them.

Yet for some reason I'm torn between wondering if they "shouldn't" (there's one of those bad words) have missed me a little more and feeling like it was a good thing that life stayed on an even keel for them despite my absence. (Okay, my husband was miserable and admitted it, shockingly enough. I thought he of all people would be leading the party with junk food, staying up late, etc. It's the children I thought might have a problem with it.)

I think I'm going to color it a good thing. They are growing up to be separate individuals and it really was a relief they weren't clingy. My husband remembered to feed them and everyone got to their intended destinations every day. Maybe the house wasn't as clean as I would have liked but it isn't necessarily as clean as I would like even when I am here. So overall this is a good thing. It makes my life a lot easier when they aren't so dependent upon me. It also reminds me that my babies are growing up.

Thankful Sentiments

I try not to let moments of thanksgiving pass me by just because it isn't that one day a year called "Thanksgiving Day" so here is an except of what I am thankful for:

-I am thankful for my spouse and children. I am blessed and know it. I try to remember to tell them regularly.

- I am thankful for my job. It has been gruelling and difficult at times, but I am grateful to have a job at all in these uncertain times.

-I am thankful for a lot of things in my life, a lot of people in my life. There are too many to go into here. When I have "down" days I remind myself of all the things I should be thankful for. It does help.

On the Subject of Bathrooms.....

I had forgotten about this practical gem:



From the ever-practical Dutch perspective, this can be a useful sign. Yes, for those of you who may not have been there or may not have seen such an event, it is not uncommon for pedestrians, bicyclers, etc to stop, take a whiz against the nearest building, zip up and continue along on their way. As a woman, I am jealous because it would be so much easier to be able to be able to do that.

Bathroom Compulsions

My friend Kahless has inspired me with her post (located at
http://kahlessnoise.blogspot.com/2008/11/compulsive-habits.html) to write this. Her topic was compulsive habits. Other readers' comments mentioned toilet paper compulsions, which is a favorite topic of mine. Well, it's a favorite topic if I know someone and feel comfortable enough discussing my toilet paper concerns with them, lol. So here goes....

Yes, I am one of those who likes the toilet paper to fall over the roll, not under. If it's under it is more likely to touch the wall, vanity, etc and possibly come into contact with germs. Especially in a public restroom, how often do you think the wall or vanity is cleaned? ::shudder:: So I like my toilet paper to hang over the roll for better odds of lack of contact with germ-laden surfaces.

I also loathe and despise it when people put rolls of toilet paper on the bathroom floor--especially in a public place. Gross! Would you rub your private parts against a groddy bathroom floor? No? Then why would you want to pick up a roll of toilet paper off the floor and wipe it on your privates? I don't. There might as well not be any toilet paper at all if it's sitting on the bathroom floor, as far as I'm concerned.

And has anyone else ever been struck by the placement of the toilet paper in an airline restroom? It's immediately to the side of the toilet, which wouldn't be a problem if only women used it. However, once someone of the male persuasion goes into it and....say.....has less than stellar aim or loses control of the direction due to air turbulence, he has quite possibly just whizzed all over the toilet paper! Don't think so? I should have taken a picture of the restroom I was in, except that that would have meant being reminded of that nightmare again later. Yuck! That single experience is the reason I now carry tissue with me at all times.

In fact, I was so horrified by that nasty restroom that I couldn't even use it myself. I tried but I had to stand so far away from the toilet so I wouldn't risk bumping into its urine-covered surface if we had turbulence that I was too tense to be able to go. It was another couple of flights before I would even dare venture into an airline toilet again. I am happy to report that that toilet was as clean as they come, much to my surprise. In fact, in light of the awful and cramped seat that I had on the flight, I even tarried a little longer than necessary in the lavatory, washing my hands in the nicely scented liquid soap, being sure the sink was completely clean and emptied and drying the tiny counter of water drops. Overall it was a pleasant respite on a very long, fairly awful flight. It's amazing what a clean lavatory can do to improve your outlook.

It's also funny to me what compulsions I have about bathrooms. Thanks, Kahless, for opening the door to the topic so I could share them. Maybe someone else will get the same chuckle out of them that I do.

Old Books

I love old books. The stories they tell can give insights into the times when they were written. Their pages and covers have seen the passage of time, sometimes from before electricity and cars. I wonder about their owners, the hands through which they have passed over the years, and the stories they would tell if they could.

Recently I read a book that was published over 100 years ago. It was interesting how, despite a few no longer commonly used words and some old-fashioned sentiments, the story was still quite good. Some things are universal, including a good storyteller being a good storyteller regardless of the era.

Where Has the Year Gone?

I can't believe it's November already. Where has the year gone?

Latest Skirmish in The Cat War

I've mentioned the cat we have who thinks she is a kitten and wants to nurse on whatever body part is closest (but only on me, not on anyone else in the house). Apparently I am not the only one who finds her annoying.

Our first cat has been being bothered by this cat, who I'll call Baby. Baby, despite her babyish habit, is a big cat. She dwarfs First cat. First cat has been unhappily trying to ignore Baby. Baby has attached herself to me to the point that she has to (according to her) accompany me to the bathroom.

Today First decided to make her move. She trotted into the bathroom (where I was), rubbed against my leg as if to claim me, and then trotted out before Baby could decide what to do about the intrusion. Hoo ya!