I Got Cast!

I got cast!

Reclaiming

I auditioned for a play on Saturday. If I am cast it will be my first time back on stage in almost 3 years.

Taking another one back.

Post Script

Anger is a really nice welcome change from crushing nihilistic emptiness.

Christine Blasey Ford is a fucking Warrior Queen!

We’ve hit Anger, for now

A few years ago, my friend’s city had to be evacuated due to a wildfire. Pictures from the evacuation process look exactly what I (an atheist, and admittedly not a theology expert) picture Hell to look like. It is pure terror.

Once my friend was able to return to her residence she found that it had burned to the ground.  She and her partner had lost everything.

I remember her telling me the frustration she felt  trying to talk about it.  She heard a lot of “but at least you’re ok, it could have been so much worse!” My experience is different than her’s, but I understand her now much more than I did then.

I am Angry.  Yep, Capital A.

When I actually sat down and looked at the numbers, I handed him 6 figures.  I got years of therapy and the prospect of never being right again  nothing.

When I think about how I’m killing myself to pay off debt that I got into to appease him, and scraping pennies together to try to get myself even half way to where I was with him, yeah, I get Angry.  

I am angry for the life he stole from me. 

I’m furious  he’s sitting in MY home, with MY bed and MY furniture, and gifts MY family got us, with MY money lining his bank accounts and MY trinkets and heirlooms that have no real value in this world aside from the memories and connections they have to me lining his shelves and cupboards. 

I have tried to talk about this, and very well meaning people, tell me  “It’s a small price to pay.”   “You’re lucky you got out.”    “It could be so much worse.”

Listen, no one feels my mortality or how “so much worse” it could have been more than me.  You weren’t there when he was threatening me with kitchen knives, putting pillows over my face, smashing my head against walls, pushing me down stairs, or threatening me with tools.

You weren’t there. I was. I know. I get the fucking flashbacks that remind me any time I’m feeling too comfortable.  Do you really think the other stuff is  “a small price to pay?”  You have no idea.  

I know, they mean well, and they’re trying to make me feel better, but they aren’t. They’re trivializing my loss, and making me feel as though I should feel guilty for being angry.

I’m entitled to my rage; I will take it and let it wash over me.

Aftermath

I didn't stop talking to him immediately after that message he sent me.  Truth be told, he’d ‘cut me off’ a number of times prior to that. We actually had a set of boundaries and expectations in place for just these sorts of occasions.

The last time he'd insisted we cease speaking, after the initial shock and flood of texts I sent him, I stopped texting him altogether.  He messaged me after a few days of silence and accused me of getting over him. 

So for the next 6 weeks or so, I texted him every day. Here’s some highlights of my shame:

The Twelfth

For about three years we lived on a county road.  Our home was a detached “mother-in-law” suite on the property of a woman who really didn’t know how to maintain property.  

We had countless issues that never got resolved: the hot water heater purged itself onto the floor semi-regularly, the heat would suddenly and unexpectedly cease causing our pipes to freeze, the ceiling had holes in it that were supposed to be fixed before we moved in (hah) and we had a mouse problem like you’ve never seen.

He got me in the habit of romanticizing living in the middle of no where.  Parts of it I really did enjoy; I used to love running out there at night.  It was also quiet at night and dark, plus I could lay out on the back porch naked and no one was the wiser. 

But some of the very worst moments of my life are out there.

All those issues I listed above became the list of grievances he had against me.  We had to deal with these problems because I still wasn’t making enough money, and that was because I was a lazy stupid cunt with no ambition and no respect for him and how hard he had to work.

He screamed at me so hard some times that he gave himself a nose bleed.  I didn’t even know that was possible. The physical abuse really gained a foothold here, too.  

Which made sense.  There were fewer neighbours to hear me crying.