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RAIN

20 May 2018, 13:38

There’s a nice summer rain going on outside. All the windows are open. Comedy is playing in the background. I’m photoshopping in between trying to convince Hurley he can’t attack thunder. He gets, what looks to be, happy and excited when he hears the thunder. He is up an about and barking, I guess, trying to tell me, “the EVIL is coming, maybe it will be scared from my yapping.”

I was going to do stuff today, but, I wanted a day off from, doing and thinking. I’m just being lazy and learning to be happy with being … happy. I guess I could go do things, but I’m happy just doing this. This. Is. Pretty much nothing. Next week is a short week for me, and it’s got court at the end. Depending upon what happens in court, I will be single again. Yes. All those things mean something to me. When I was married, I respected that. When I was in a relationship, I respected that. For better or for worse, things have meaning for me, and the way I handle things gives meaning to my life. I feel bad when I fail, I feel good when I succeed and I try to keep the long game in mind when looking at any impulsive act or feeling I have at the moment.

I’m not immuned to getting stuck or bogged down in life. I’m not immune to making large, epic mistakes. I’m not immuned from being stubborn. But as long as I keep on keeping on, I’ll be all right. A big part of me is now, really happy and relieved things have changed.

Rain.

I’m trying to empty my mind and just be unthinking. That’s an impossibility. I’m drifting from thought to thought, and, surprisingly, they’ve all been positive thoughts and thoughts of the future unknown. I’ve lost a lot of my trepidation of the future. I’m just excited to just DO it. Just to DO the day to day, the building of the future. I like the journey as well as the destination. If I were just GIVEN things, I don’t know how I could even handle that. Would I have the appreciation enough not to squander whatever I was given? Would I love my gift as much or as deep as if I had to earn it? And what sort of experience or knowledge was lost when it was just GIVEN to me and there was no path to it?

RAIN.

I’m trying to understand what has happened to me. I’m trying to sift out the valuable from this. I’ve been told by all who see me go through this that I have seemed to change, and that I have learned much. It’s almost imperceivable to me if I had changed. One of my friends say I seem to be stronger and happier now. Another, says that I’ve learned so much.

SHRUG

I don’t know how much truth there is to any of that. The one thing I feel is that I’ve “graduated” to a higher level of adult operation. I don’t have to have a hustle to live. It’s like I have an honest life now. I don’t have to live in fear or under the radar. There’s nothing that I feel is off limits to me because I’m not good enough or something is not adequate. I don’t have to live from moment to moment, from couch change to temp gig. And I did it. I didn’t have to find me a sugar daddy to do it. I didn’t have to scam or steal to get to this life. A lot of the last seven years were like that. My whole reality changed with this. I knew my reality was changing in the last two – but this blew it all open for me. It destroyed the girl that existed from 2011 to 2017. And I’m rebuilding her right, this time.

Something else that is different is that I FEEL different. I feel smart and pretty. I always SAID I was smart and pretty the last seven years, but now. I FEEL it. I lot of shame I was carrying around that I didn’t even know I had is gone. The only reason I even know it was there is that there’s a giant hole where it use to be, and a lot of life’s weight has disappeared.

I now look at those around me. It’s a weird thing to say you do. I had been so self conscious for a long time. I would feel eyes on me all the time. Imaginary people judging me, or laughing at me. So, at the flea market, at the movies, at anywhere we went, I made myself as small and as invisible as I could. I didn’t look at others very much. I didn’t engage unless they engaged first. I curbed all the assertiveness and aggressiveness I had, and turned it inward. I hid behind Doug in lines. I always ran to keep up with him because he never walked with me or waited for me (as I wrote that, I just realized that. He never waited for me when we went to places. He never walked with me.) Now. I’m attentive, and I find myself watching people, looking at them directly. I feel no need to not be noticed. I am pointedly obvious now. I don’t mind being seen.

For better or worse, I’m more suspicious of people. I’m more cautious to investigate motives more. I find myself being more… selfish and …. ruthless in my dealings with people. If you do ONE messed up thing now, all sorts of bells and whistles go off in my head. I smile and I am charming, but I am so much more zoned in on who YOU/THEY are now. That’s why I didn’t go out with that one. That’s why I stopped this one when he started telling me a sob story about a messed up marriage. That’s why I stopped talking to the other one, just all of a sudden. That’s why I kept my distance from yet another one. And trying to make me feel guilty or bad because of it isn’t going to fly. If I am “rude” to you, there is a reason.

Some of my social filters are gone. True, I didn’t have many before, but this has burned through most of the ones I had left. Before all this, I didn’t care much for decorum, and now after this, you can imagine that there is no where I won’t make a scene. If I don’t like what’s happening, I will say so. If I don’t like the way your acting, you will hear it. If you persist, then EVERYBODY will hear. If you use to use women’s inherent desire not to create conflict by going along with shit and surfed that into trapping her socially into whatever outcome you were trying for, that pretty much won’t get you far with me. So I am. More rude. Quicker to judge. And have some new, higher standards. This won’t make me popular, especially down here, in the south, where everyone posesses a second face, and a forked tongue.

I’m not sure what I have learned. Everyone says I have. I’m not sure really what has changed in me all that much. Everyone says I have, noticeably. Am I more abuser than victim now? Am I more selfish than empathic? Am I even MORE rude than… well less rude? Don’t know.

I just know, that this is the right person to face Friday. And. This is the right person to face everything AFTER Friday.