I mentioned this a few weeks ago, and it's truer now than ever.  I've been focusing too much energy on a friendship.  I find myself repeating this to customers and not enough to myself.  People don't change.  I have to remind myself that no matter how bad of a story they tell, how miserable they seem...that it's a choice.  If you tell the same tragic story your whole life, and continue to expose yourself to the hardship and abuse, with that level of self awareness, then I can only honor it as a choice.  And, that frees me from worry.  Like, I can love someone that doesn't love themselves, but I can't force them into self care. I can only passively offer support.

I generally stay uninvolved, but when the drama lands squarely in my lap, usually feel like I have no choice but to react, or empathize, or help. I realize now, that even though people will bring the drama right to my fucking front door in the middle of the night, they're not looking for empathy or help or support.  I don't exactly know what they're looking for.  That's where my stress comes from.  Not knowing how to help, not knowing if it's wanted, and generally being in the dark.  I think the "being in the dark" thing is the real kicker.  I can only react to what I see and hear.  I keep that very specific, because I do have the ability to pull cards, and see things, but I respect my friends well enough to not do that, and take everything they say at face value instead.  If the face a person shows me isn't honest. then "face value" is valueless.  That's where I'm at now.

I used the word "best friend" and treated this friend the way I would treat anyone I regard that close, and I realized weeks ago, before all this current drama, that I am propagating a lie in my head, and if I simply look over the years, I've never been treated that way in return.  It's been troubling me for over a month.  He's not only not a "best friend", he treats me like the enemy often enough that it's taking a toll.  This friend has gone out of his way to disclude me from his life, keep me separated from the rest of his friends, and keep me in the dark about his life in general, to the point of constantly and actively lying.

In the past year or so, it's gotten worse, and it's making me feel like this ship has sailed. The whole thing is thrown into juxtaposition when I spend time with people that actually call *me* their best friend.  My actual friends want me around.  My friends seek me out and invite me places, and make plans with me.  I don't have to beg to hang out with my actual friends.  I don't have to constantly ask them to go places, or hang out, and understand that they will only fit me in if they have absolutely zero anything else to do.

I am throwing way too much into this, and I have been for years. I'm getting literally nothing.  Literally. Nothing.  Not even the simple truth in return.  I feel like by keeping this "best friend" thing alive, I'm just decorating a dead tree.  No matter how many pretty things I drape on it, it's still hollow and dead.  I'm the queen of hard truths, and I'm not exempt from my own medicine. It's fucking hard to type all that out.  This all basically means I've been lying to myself for years.  But when Irv and Luiz see it.  When Michele sees it, I feel like everyone has known it but me, and now I do too.  Irv said, the other night "he used you for free rides and food when you were kids, why do you think anything's changed now?".  He's not wrong.                                                                                        

Some people can't change.  Or some people have already done all the changing and this is what we're left with.  So, problem solved.  I have to accept that people choose their lives.  I've spent the weekend mulling this over, and on Friday I was losing sleep with worry about a friend's abusive situation. I went out to a huge fun thing Friday night, and it was tainted by all this.  Like...should I be there for him?  Should I call and see?  I hope everything's ok.  I hope he's ok.  All night, like stampeding horses.   I feel like maybe I was the only one feeling that level of pain, about all this.  I'm pretty much done worrying and agonizing.

I don't know why I stopped writing.  I re-read what I wrote, that one thing I stress about is that I don't want to burden my friends with my fucking problems.  Well, that's why I write.  I had my old blog Epiphany to get me through the rough years, why not write more?  I'm not making myself any promises, but just writing that previous entry was good, and it made me want to keep going.  When I get writing, I always feel like I have so much to say, that it's just bubbling out of me.

So, with the tank and armor thing, Nancy nearly quoted Irv.  When I was younger, I was that tank.  Just going and going fully armored, nothing could hurt me.  I drank and fucked and fought, and went around filled with anger.  Irv was the first person to get inside those walls.  Like, he was the first person that didn't take me at face value.  He called me "little girl" and "sweetie" which...in those days I definitely was no sweetie. He still calls me those things. Something between him and parenthood had me take the walls down entirely.  And now I'm reverting to that old behavior "armed and armored".  I somehow think I don't need anyone, and people fucking suck anyway.  Which...is not untrue. But it's also not healthy.

I touched on how when I met Irv, I was in pretty bad shape, but he was stable and good.  She asked if he was the one that influenced me to clean up, and...no, that was Tom.  So, we talked about Tom a bit, and I fucking lost it, because I never talk about him. Ever. I lost it because of where the world is now, and whenever I accidentally remind myself that he's not in it, I cry.  He would love smartphones, and look where we're at on the transgender issues?  He'd be thriving.  I miss him, a lot.  I miss his wit, and his smile, and his voice.  I miss his companionship. I miss his hugs. I am writing this, now, having a good old selfish sappy cry.  Just, I fucking miss him.  I haven't seen him in dreams lately either.  I usually get a good one every few months, and it's like seeing and old friend.

Therapy

I've been going to therapy, this is my third week.  Every time I get home, I feel like writing, expanding on what I've covered.

So, overall it's been helping.  It's nice to just talk.  To just have someone that seems interested in helping me...like that would be enough.  I don't talk to anyone, really. I constantly feel like no one gives a shit about what I'm going through, and I don't say that with bitterness.  Everyone's going through something. I digress.  But she's qualified, and professional, and I feel like with the slightest nudge, I'm making breakthroughs.

The first week, we talked about spontaneity and my ability to be functional and get out of the house.  She had me write my whole routine, and not only did I do that, but I wrote down the things that derail me, or keep me from being spontaneous, and since I just outlined and examined why and how, now I'm getting out of the house in a much timelier fashion.  It seems like a small thing, but for a first session, it was a big change.  So far, I can count about half a dozen times since that exercise that I got out of the house quickly, with no long drawn out routine.  This morning, included.

Last week, I had just stuck Alden on a plane, had a huge fight with Meredith, a huge confrontation with the house people, and a huge meltdown with my mother, and a nice fight with Luiz to boot. When I got to therapy, I was 15 minutes late and all over the damn map.  I couldn't settle down, I couldn't talk about any one thing.  Nancy suggested a book for me to read, and a song to add to my "get out the door" playlist.  The song was a little saccharine, but pretty, and the book...it's called Mean Mothers, and it's just what I need. Just the forward alone got me crying, and it's a whole world I never really thought about.  Like, I thought all mothers were kind of assholes, and that what you see on TV, or the nice relationships my friends had with their mothers was just like mine...fake.  Like a rotted apple.  Shiny and inviting on the outside, but rotted on the inside.  Turns out, no.

This week was the first real actual therapy session.  She has a sand table, and she prompted me to select three figures (she has huge bookshelves crammed with all sorts of little chachkis)  one to represent my past self, my current self, and my future self.  I chose a cute squeaky toy cartoony bull, as my past self, a nursing pig with like a dozen little piglets, as my present self, and for my future I picked a tank.  I chose a tank, because in that moment I felt like it was a representation of my ability to rally and plow through anything, and just get through things unharmed and...

 Then she asked what resources I'd need to help me get to the future self.  I added more pigs, I need help.  I need more people that empathize and understand, and that I can share my burdens (the dozen or so nursing piglets) with.  I also added a house, which is obvious.

Then she had me re-examine my future self.  Tanks are isolated and heavily armored.  We talked about what I do to relax...I play shooty video games, for catharsis.  I smoke pot, and I read.  I spend time in the garden.  I read a lot.  I paint.  She was like, ok, you want more people in your life to empathize and help...I don't see you making room in your life for people.  So.  That's a thing.

But then, I have to wonder, do I let the wrong people in?  This may be something for next week.  Am I shutting out the right people?  I spend tons of energy thinking about, preserving, and maintaining certain relationships, but are they the kind that will add to my burdens, or will they help relieve me?

I'm ok at home.  I'm ok at work.  I'm marginally ok out in the world, socializing.  I figured out where I'm not ok.  Driving to and from work.  At home my brain is always engaged, from the minute I get up to long after I go to bed, and pass out from exhaustion, I always keep mundane distracting things front and center so I am not alone with my thoughts.  Cooking, cleaning, shopping, gaming, reddit, reading, writing, tarot, focusing on my customers and helping them work through their problems, studying, crafting...  But as soon as I slam that car door, it's just me and the road, and music.  And then I burst into tears.  Like fucking clockwork.  My car is parked in the driveway, so as I'm backing down the driveway, I'm staring at the insurmountable object of pain and heartache.  Every fucking workday.  I am getting sick of showing up at work all puffy and snotty.  I've taken to keeping eye makeup in the car, for the inevitable repairs.

I am so not ok, these days.  It's a struggle to get out of bed, every day, then more of a struggle to accomplish anything.  If I have to leave the house or otherwise socialize, I need at least 3 hours to mentally prepare, and I mean stupid shit like going to the laundromat.  Seeing friends is hard, I feel like I have nothing to ever talk about, and I've been such a downer lately, that I can't imagine anyone wanting to hang out anyway. I've become fragile.  Today, after a good car-sob, I mustered my shit and got to work.  Susan was here, and I haven't seen her in over a month, she asked me how the house is going, and I tried, I swear, I tried to hold it together, and tell her the latest very bad news, just the facts, no emotion...and I burst into tears.  Right here in the shop, in front of customers.  I just went from composed and chatty to a fucking snotty crying mess. Nothing is good.

I feel like I'm losing myself.  I feel like I've already lost it.  Whatever "it" is.

I have been not ok with something for about two weeks.

I am sick over this.  I feel violated.  I feel used.  I am filled with hatred.  I can't sleep. I can't stop crying.  I've been trying to not think about it all day.

For Christmas, Luiz gifted me with a piece of art.  This is already where the controversy starts, because I asked him not to, this year.  For the past like 3-4 years, he's given me art as a "gift" and, it somehow never makes it to my possession.  One year, he gifted me a blank canvas, and promised me an amazing surprise.  I watched him paint a beautiful rose galaxy, and he kept it.  I never thought about the blank canvas, I assumed he forgot.  Two years later, I said something about how much I loved the piece, and he was like "oh? That's yours, anyway."  Then indifferently thrust it into my hands.  Another year, he gave me an underpainting, for Christmas, with the promise that it wouldn't take too much longer to finish.  26 months later, it's finally hanging on my wall.  That's after it spent time in a gallery (while it was half done).  Then came my birthday picture, the one of Bella, my sweet beloved pug.  I'm not in possession of that either, it's in his room.  Merry fucking Christmas to me, right?  So, when he asked me this year, if I wanted a piece of art, I said "no."  Why? Because he's never actually given me a piece of art.  Nothing.  Not one piece is actually "mine"  Mine to hold, mine to hang, mine privately.  Mine. Like a gift.  Like when you give something to someone as a gift.  So, I said no.

I just went through the house collecting all these bullshit "gifts" and gave them back to him.  Well, he's sleeping like a baby, so I just rested them by his bed.  They're meaningless to me, at this point.

In standard Luiz fashion, not only did he create a piece of art for me, after I specifically said I didn't want one, it wasn't even remotely done by Christmas.   But, you know, when we're all unwrapping things, it was lovely, blah blah blah.

It's a picture of a nude reclining "fairy" that looks exactly like me, with a few body flaws smoothed out, but nude all the same.  He took nude photos of me, curled up, to use as a model, then changed the structure of my body just a tad, to make it more like an Ingres painting.  The fairy is curled into the fetal position, on a cushion of marijuana buds, drifting off into a sleepy smoky dream.  There's images of my own incorporated, my doodles, my glyphwork, I even drew a spider on it, at Luiz's request.  Because this was a painting for me, of me, for my bedroom wall.  I wouldn't even hang it in the living room, honestly.

Ok.  I struggled with it, as a gift.  I don't advertise that I smoke pot.  I keep that rather private, and I definitely am not into displaying an image of my naked body.  Unwrapping it as a gift made me a little uncomfortable, but, that was on me.  I fight body image issues every day.  Just because I'm comfortable enough to walk around the house naked, does not mean I am even remotely comfortable enough to parade around in public the same way. As a piece of art, what he presented me on Christmas looked rushed and unfinished, and he even said so himself.  It took him till just days ago to finish it. Why the rush now?  Because he wanted to use it in a show.

He asked.  I said "I'm uncomfortable with it, I'd prefer you didn't. That's my piece, you gifted it to me."  Then I said "but I would feel like a jerk if it prevented you from earning money, lets let ask the cards."  The cards said, as a print, it would be met with indifference. It wouldn't earn money.  It doesn't speak to people, people can't relate.  Full stop.  I was satisfied with that answer.

Luiz displayed it at the gallery.  Today, I got to stand in front of my nude-curled-on-a-heap-of-pot picture, for three hours, while people looked at it.  It definitely looks like me.  No mistaking who that maybe could be.  That was psychological torture, but, again, what the fuck am I going to do at this point, it's in the gallery, the art opening is in full swing, I'm standing there talking to friends of mine 3 feet away from my naked ass.  To add insult to injury, they insisted on hanging the piece sideways, so it unflatteringly looks like I am sitting on a fucking pinecone. This gallery, by the way, is about four doors down from my actual workplace, and many of my customers and friends drift through there, daily.  It's closely affiliated with the shop I work at.  In fact, he never would have even met those people, if it weren't for me.  I hooked him up with them in the first place.

So, we get home from the opening.  I am exhausted, and socially wrung out.  I go to my internet playground to blow off steam.  He posted it on fucking reddit. He posted my nude image to fucking reddit.  Luiz posted this picture, his first art post ever, the first image he chooses to share (of ALL his art) is that. fucking. painting.  Which he unceremoniously just called "the weed fairy".

I'm beside myself.  I fucking hate him.  He's taken everything from me, at this point.  Over the years, he's fucking stripped me bare, emotionally, mentally, financially, and now, physically. My privacy. Gone.  My bedroom picture, a gift from him to me.  An image I won't even hang elsewhere in the house, because it's so private.  Spent all fucking day on reddit.  It's hanging RIGHT now in an art gallery.

I'm so shellshocked.  I feel so literally violated.  When I discovered it, I was upset, and I told him so, and that I've been upset about the whole thing since he decided to put it in the gallery. Upset.  No.  Physically ill.  Totally fucked up about it.  Shocked.  Horrified.  Fuming.  Angry.  Devastated.  I am furious.  His response?  "I reserve the right to all my paintings and images, it's mine to do what I want with."  I told him I hope he goes back to Brazil, where he'll live as a failure, mooching off his alcoholic father, and probably get aids from fucking hookers.  Like, I didn't even mean that to shock. I literally meant that in that moment.

I'm not sure how or if I'll come back from this.  Nothing he's said tonight even remotely touched me.  It's all bullshit self preservation.  He says he loves me.  How can he love me, if he doesn't even know me? That was devastating to learn, tonight.  He doesn't even know me. It keeps repeating itself over and over in my head.  How can someone say they love me, then do this?  Me?  I am such a private person. I have struggled my entire life with ownership of objects, and ownership of self.  My whole childhood, my mother told me ad nauseam that I didn't own anything, everything I had was hers, because I lived in her room, in her house.  I never had a room, a sanctuary growing up. I never had a shred of privacy.  They drilled the locks out of my doors, and burst into my room at any hour day or night, if I was changing, sleeping, anything.  My stepfather used to come in my room at 3 am, with a flashlight to do a "bed check", and stand there leering at me in my sleep.   They went through my stuff daily, and threw my possessions out with abandon.  Nothing, and I mean literally nothing, was actually mine.  They sold cars out from under me.  I struggle with ownership of self.  I lost my virginity without my consent, when I was 14.  Luiz created a real problem with my self ownership too, with the rape and coercion situations of the past.  I really struggle with that.

 He claims he had no idea that I would react this way.  Even though I told him dozens of times that I didn't want that piece in a gallery or as prints or anywhere besides right on the wall in my bedroom.  For the simple sake of having just ONE fucking piece of art that I could call my own.  I figured if I could even ask that about one fucking piece of art, it would be the nude, right?  The one I trusted him with.  But, what's the first thing he does?  Puts it on the internet.

I can't trust him. He did a lot of untrustworthy stuff last year.  He lied a lot, and did a lot of horrible shit to me. It took me months to start trusting him again, and feeling secure in our relationship, and even though this is a different kind of betrayal, that trust is destroyed again.

I know, though, because I am a fucking loser doormat, that he will make a good show of apologizing, and promise to never do this again, and say nice things, and seem very sincere, that we will just continue on much the same after this.  Just like after last summer, when he was looking for gay and straight hookups on Craigslist, and actively cheating on me, while resenting me and sneaking into my bed in the morning and fucking me, in my ass, and in my sleep without consent.  Just like the summer before when he decided he had a crush on Michele, and almost destroyed not only my friendship with her, but most of my social life.  Just like after all the times he's hurt me in big and little ways.  What the fuck is wrong with me?

 Writing, usually a catharsis, is just torturing me.

I don't know what to even do.

...like you don't get it.  When I say "my inner 16 year old is activated", I mean, I just had this specific moment.

All those times we talked on the phone all evening, you were baked hanging out in front of the TV, and I was dancing around my bedroom to get ready to go out.  Because you were ready in a second, and it took me hours to get ready to go.  So, there we were, all those evenings, on the phone.  Me listening to music I know you hate, with a streak of guilt, in one headphone so you wouldn't overhear it on your end of the line.  Just talking about nothing.  Listening to the low rumble of your voice and just being so deliriously happy that you were taking the time to talk to me.  Hanging on your every word.  Trying to play it cool, because, fuck that, we're just friends.  Plus, chances are, I was getting ready to go out with someone else, some boyfriend.  Who I always wished was you, but  whatever.  I always felt charged with emotion, loving you, being excited about my plans for the night.

It just happened.  I recaptured the exact pitch of emotion, the exact feeling, texting you, getting ready for later, putting on makeup, listening to really horrid dance music cranked up to 12.  I was fucking 16 again.  I love you now as much as I loved you then.  You still jolt me the same way as 20 years ago.  It hasn't softened.  It hasn't diminished.

This is going to be shit.  I will not delete this when I'm sober.  Sometimes,  I need to write absolute shit.

I have ingested everything in the house known to alter the mind, kill pain, and reduce stress in some way.  I need to be anesthetized.  It has been so grey.  There's a lot of obvious raw and hurtful death, pain, and suffering, but there's some subversive things happening too. Anguish from unexpected places. Physical pain.  I'm even scared, and I'm never scared.

There is a pain, though.  It's from loss of people and characters who make up our character, icons in our lives, legends that would always live on.  People who you remember fondly, but lost touch with.  People of a moment, of a formative year.  It's what's keeping me up tonight. There's a small but growing hole in my house, my center.   This is drafty and lets in small gusts of cold, now, forever.

Today is the first day that I feel old.