Hello, friends. Thank you for the replies and hugs. I miss interacting here and appreciate you all, but I'm just unable to connect lately. I often have that problem in real life, too. I suppose that's why I have very few friends, and why it's absolutely killing me that my brother is moving away to Australia next month. I understand why he's going and that it's not personal, that he is sad that his going means being separated from me and that he will miss me, but I keep having storms of "He's leaving me! How can he *&%^$%^&* LEAVE ME?
. He's basically my only local friend. But that's not what I came here to talk about.
Triggers in white.
I went to the stupid bleep-bleep insert-many-expletives-here memorial gathering last week, and I handled it genuinely truly well. The gathering was in the back yard at the house down by the shore my mother now lives in, which was originally my grandparents's weekend house during the summers. When I was a kid, we spent the summers down there, and the back yard was a beautiful place with a large though geographically uneven lawn, a vegetable garden, fruit trees, flowerbeds, mint, a grape arbor, slate patios, a raspberry patch, a slightly fascinating but gross compost heap (and the ugly brown jug that always sat on a mat in the kitchen into which waste vegetable matter from the kitchen was placed to later be carried all the way across that lawn to the furthest recess of the property) to be added to said pile), and corner of deep shade at the back in which my grandfather used to rest on a fold-up beach lounger on hot days. I have a story in my mind that I used to play on the ground next to his chair and that he would sometimes reach down and ruffle my hair, but to be honest, I'm pretty sure I made that up. At least the hair-ruffling part. My grandfather was not a demonstrative man. I have no idea what he thought or felt about anything, but I do know that he, like everyone else in my family, bought into my mother's narrative about me being a pest and a troublemaker, and I know that he was no lover of silly, noisy children, particularly female ones. I remember a lecture he gave me when I was ten about how I was now in my “second decade” of life, and as such it was time that I learned to...What? I DON'T *&%^$%^&* KNOW. I just remember the stern, unforgiving tone and the repetition of the phrase “second decade”. Maybe I would have been able to get to know my grandfather as the years went on if he hadn't
committed suicide by hanging a month before I turned twelve. Ooops! Off track again.
Anyway. The memorial. It was scheduled for late afternoon, and somewhere from the universe came an inspiration that I should avoid sitting should avoid sitting around all day being anxious about it by doing things to take care of myself. So I splurged on the luxuries. I had a long massage, and then I had my hair done by the young woman I was lucky enough to find a couple of years ago after I confronted my haircut trauma (no, Bach, don't go into the haircut trauma here. Maybe another time). It was actually kind of amazing to me that I chose to get my hair done as pleasurable self-care rather than as a dreaded task to be done only when absolutely necessary, and sometimes not even then, but for the first time in my life, it was actually a nurturing and strengthening experience. I freakin' love that woman who handles my hair and me with deference and care, rather than treating the unusually thick and luscious glory on my head as their personal playground. On top of the childhood trauma around my hair, you would not believe the kind of intrusive pressure I've had from hairstylists to experiment with what grows out of my scalp! And what do you know, there I go again. Wow, I really don't want to write about that bloody memorial, do I? Even though I DO want to, and even more, I NEED to. But I think maybe I can stop now and do some chores, and continue later.
Show Posts
I just wanted to say Hi and say that I'm still here. I've been having a very hard time both physically and mentally since I got the vaccine, but I'm still here. I wish I could write but it's too hard. The blank page makes me freeze. Maybe soon? I hope so.