Monthly Archives: June 2013

not today

Summer has been over­cast, if not rainy. It’s great. I can keep every win­dow open, and the whole day feels like it’s a dew-soaked morn­ing on the verge of a sun­rise. It’s enough to make me believe that the real sum­mer is nev­er com­ing.

girl playing cello

These days I’m still recov­er­ing, still learn­ing to treat myself with com­pas­sion. Sometimes it’s a blur­ry line between that and pro­cras­ti­na­tion. I don’t know how I feel about parts of my life, parts I nev­er ques­tioned before, and it’s a strange uncer­tain­ty to be car­ry­ing.

That means I don’t know how to act around most peo­ple, some­thing I haven’t had trou­ble with since I was a kid. I’ve been avoid­ing most social con­tact, while spend­ing time with the few peo­ple who know me well enough to hurt me. Sometimes it’s like walk­ing on a tightrope, wait­ing to fall off. Everything is an exer­cise in vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Luckily, they’re the right peo­ple to help me through as well, the right peo­ple to put my trust into. This is how I learn to love again.

pugs

I’m learn­ing to be self­ish too, espe­cial­ly at a time like this. I’ve real­ized how impor­tant it is to be oblig­ed to myself, instead of con­stant­ly putting aside my feel­ings for the sake of oth­ers. That means under­stand­ing what I need out of my rela­tion­ships, instead of try­ing to make them what I thought they should be. Sometimes that also means mak­ing sure I spend enough time alone.

Lisa-time, me-time

Our reunion end­ed on a cliffhang­er, where *Skins SPOILERS* Tony gets hit by a bus, Sid finds Cassie, and Angie breaks up with Chris. But fin­ish­ing a sea­son means we have the chance to start some­thing new (or resume anoth­er show), and we tend to alter­nate between com­e­dy and dra­ma, sweet and savoury, while sur­round­ed by kit­ties in the lit­tle nest we make for our­selves.

girl and cat

Cats warm their balls in your hair and make eye con­tact to show dom­i­nance.

I did­n’t real­ize how hard it was to go a whole month with­out her until I saw her again. The time we’ve spent over the last few years has made me com­fort­able enough to let my guard down, and it’s good to be remind­ed that we’re capa­ble of such things every now and then, espe­cial­ly when still deal­ing with trust issues and emo­tion­al trau­ma.

The things we share are often small and sim­ple, as they’re most­ly about plea­sures and we’re eas­i­ly pleased. Actually, it’s more like she’s eas­i­ly pleased, while I’m pleased when oth­ers are hap­py. It’s a dynam­ic that works real­ly well for both of us. I love myself when I’m with her cause she appre­ci­ates me in all the intri­cate ways I want to be appre­ci­at­ed, and that gives me a lot of the val­i­da­tion I need in my life right now.

this must be the place

Somewhere, I have notes on fam­i­ly and names, the infamy of Cuban fare, being alone togeth­er, break­ing the seal, pass­ing Damian on the way to Havana, salty hair from salty air, rum and brown, thread­ed fin­gers, not enough euchre, every life-guard try­ing to sell me lob­ster meals, pat­terns on palms, plus 20 min­utes Cuba time, find­ing out how deep my scars run, blush­ing through my sun­burn, sand every­where and in every­thing.

beach

Continue read­ing “this must be the place”…

thousand-yard stare

Heather G left a pack­age out­side my door after try­ing to make plans and get­ting what must have been a dis­tant answer. Organic herbal tea, 80% dark choco­late truf­fles, and not only sushi from my favourite restau­rant, but my favourite kinds too. She knows me extra­or­di­nar­i­ly well for a per­son I bare­ly get a chance to see, and she cares so much even though she has no idea what I’m going through. It’s helped me real­ize that some peo­ple are bet­ter at being what you need, that you can’t expect every per­son to fill all the roles in your life. I’m also try­ing to fig­ure out what those needs are right now, and how to express those needs to oth­ers (or how hard it is for me to express them).

It always takes me a while to recov­er from these kinds of weeks, and this one was par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult. When the cops showed up, I pulled the whole Drexl Spivey thing and ate my Chinese, car­ried on like I ain’t got a care in the world. I know what they need to hear, espe­cial­ly the sec­ond time around, and what’s more, I know that noth­ing they say will make a dif­fer­ence.

Everything has left me feel­ing numb and over­stim­u­lat­ed. Almost all the hours are spent in Far Cry 3 with a bolt-action sup­pressed Z93, wast­ing time and lives in appro­pri­ate por­tions. Losing myself in that world and not get­ting any­thing pro­duc­tive done at all was an easy deci­sion. I know I deserve to be okay for a lit­tle while, and we all deal with our dam­age in dif­fer­ent ways.