Beginning Again

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How do you even begin to vote when one is a rapist and the other is a pedophile?

 

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My most handsome shadow. Shh! Don’t tell his big brother I said that.

 

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I’m going to put this in my own diary because there’s something that’s really bothering me but I feel like I post it in their diary, it would probably start a fight and I’m just not interested. Especially after that one person earlier in the week.


I would choose bear. This was floating around on TikTok months ago and even then, my immediate reaction was to pick bear. But I want to point out that that’s not aimed at specific men, and honestly it would apply to women as well. So I choose encountering a bear in the woods as opposed to another human.

Are most humans (including men) good and won’t do me any harm? Absolutely.

But statistically, I have a much higher chance of surviving a random encounter with a bear than I do my ex husband. Statistically, a bear rifling in a dumpster in an alley will be more afraid of me and run off than any human I would find.

I can prepare for a bear encounter, I can bring bear spray, a gun (in US), and make myself intimidating and loud. I know to avoid being near cubs, in spite of how adorable they are.

But a human? Sure, I can learn self defense, basic awareness, even bring pepper spray. A gun, eh. . . See this is one thing to consider-

If a bear is attacking me, I’ll be believed.

If I shoot a bear because it was attacking me, I won’t have to sit in trial being grilled about whether the self defense was justified.

No one would care what I was wearing.

The bear would just kill, it won’t care to take my dignity beforehand.

The bears motives are hunger or its own self defense. Not the joy and power of it.

I’m sorry to anyone who hears this going around, particularly men, and feel hurt by it. I can understand why you feel hurt, it would absolutely suck to hear and feel like the world is against you and views you as predators.

The problem is that there is a reason a lot of women view some a lot of men as predators. Once bitten, twice shy. Too many men in my life growing up took my dignity over and over and I’ve had to fight to get it back. So yes, I’d rather just be killed for food than to go through that again.

 

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I’m finding it so hard to have appropriate empathy right now. I want to, I want to be there for my sister while she sits in the devastation of her latest break up. But we warned her. Over and over and over and over, everyone did, that this guy was no good. But she dug her heels in and persisted and now it’s blown up and he took her money with him so now she’s screwed for several bills. This is why I’ve sworn off dating altogether. Am I lonely? Yup, I would love to have someone to share life with. But is it worth all this? Nope.

 

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So that was weird. I just wrote a very long thing on how there might be some merit to the alternative universe idea when it glitched and deleted everything.

Let’s try again, but more concise. Basically I’m a kook. I spent too long making the same mistakes my sister does and I finally gave up.

But there’s been one consistency. A shadow man in my dreams essentially. He isn’t in every dream, but the ones he’s in are mega intense and leave me feeling grief because I had to leave him- but I can’t remember him. I have no details other than the intensity that I feel connected to him while asleep. I know he’s held me, we’ve slept together, there’s babies I’ve held, this last one felt like a long date or road trip of childish fun together. But I can’t remember him. He’s just this shadow.

 

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That’s pretty messed up to reduce very real emotions and history to “well it’s just young people not knowing how to critically think”.

Here’s some logic- not a single person blamed it on the “patriarchy”, dunno where that came from. And not a single person said they *want* to be killed by either the bear or the man.

No one wants a bear to kill them. Everyone understands the likelihood that the bear will mutilate them to death.

But that’s the point that is going over yalls heads. We understand the logic that we would not survive a bear attack.

But we are very familiar with the fact that the bear is *only* going to kill us and will have reason to beyond just fun. I would far rather be *just* killed by the bear. That’s the point. If you can’t understand that, you have some serious thinking to do about why you are blind to why someone would feel that way.

It’s literally because there are things worse than death and most of us have either been through that already and don’t want to experience it again or just don’t really want to experience it in the first place.

As I said in my earlier post- everyone understands that there is a high chance of dying from the bear- but statistically it pales in comparison to when you combine how many people are raped, assaulted, tortured, and then finally killed by other humans. That’s the point.

 

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Unfortunately my good guy wasn’t around in my dream last night. Instead I was an observer watching another man. We were in a parking lot and at first he couldn’t find his wife. Right as he finally does, another car slams into the car she’s in. At first he’s devastated and runs to her screaming and crying in fear and grief. But she’s okay, shaken up and bruised but alive. So he pulls her out of the car, throws her onto the asphalt, and starts punching her in the face over and over in anger that she would put herself in danger. Other men had to pull him off of her.

Talk about a violent way to start this day.

 

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I was doing so good for quite a while and tonight I’m feeling so much shit. Last night I had a really good time with my nephew and his wife and helped them start getting ready for the baby they have coming. It was wonderful, I took some photos for them, they turned out fine, everything is good. But when that baby comes there’s going to be people and things that I will have to confront and I don’t feel ready. I just want to curl up in a ball and hide like I have for the last few years. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to feel all of these things that are coming up already. We still have over two months to go- how much worse is this going to get?

 

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I haven’t updated anything about what I’ve been reading since the beginning of February. Mostly because it’s been erratic, I’ve run into some slumps where there’s several books I started but didn’t finish (they all get a second chance though, eventually), and I’ve been slacking on the challenge itself. But here’s what I’ve read (and completely finished) and thoughts on them:

The Pages- Hugo Hamilton
This is brilliant and such an adventure!

A Million Little Choices- Tamera Alexander
Another super cool one. I’m not thrilled with some of the super Christian messaging toward the end and wish they would have explored certain things more.

Brutal Obsession- S Massery
Good, not one of her best but some of my favorite authors have been rushing out their books and you can tell.

Love, Pamela- Pamela Anderson
It started off strong and then just seemed to get lost. The beginning is chock full of detail and makes you feel like you’re in it with her. Then the second half just glosses over and does way more telling.

Spilled Milk- K L Randis
Good, hard to read because of my own issues. She does a good job of not shying away from details people need to hear.

A few self help books from John Delony
Eh, I mean, they’re fine I guess if you’re entry level into learning about stress and anxiety but frankly there’s much better out there and he really enjoys listening to himself talk. I like him, but ya.

The Blue Viper- Bella Barnes
I’m biased because she’s my friend but she’s a phenomenal writer and loved this!

Prayers for the Stolen- Jennifer Clement
This was great! I’m not crazy about constantly jumping timelines, but that’s my only large criticism.

Write Your Novel From the Middle- James Scott Bell
Meh, I do like his approach, it makes a lot of sense.

Tangled Innocence and Tangled Decadence- Nicole Fox
Phenomenal as always.

The Temple Brothers series (5 books)- Elle Sparrow
Sometimes it’s so bad it’s good. Nah seriously, she had some parts really, really right but some was just so bad. But I couldn’t look away and ended up going through all five pretty quick.

The Things We Leave Unfinished- Rebecca Yarros
This was absolutely wonderful. Depth while also being sweet can be hard to do and she did it great.

Open Book- Jessica Simpson
This was really well done, she owned up without shying away from anything, she is sweet as hell and I loved it.

Fierce Obsession- S Massery
This one had a pretty unique plot and was pretty damn great.

 

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Nothing heals the soul quite like back roads in sunny 85* weather, windows down, and a 60/70s playlist. Especially after a day spent hiking, perfectly, contentedly, utterly drained. It’s a day for making some homemade lemonade.

 

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Peach turnovers made from scratch by myself with peaches grown from a tree I grew myself.

It’s small, it’s not a Doctorate or becoming the next Stephen King. But I did this. On my own. My ex husband tore down my confidence (not just him, I was already primed from family) bit by bit by bit. He’d do it with backhanded compliments and so I couldn’t see just how pervasive it had gotten. I had dreamed of a relatively simple life where I’d be this super mom who did all the Pinterest things. I know that’s unrealistic for a number of reasons. But I had gotten to a point with him that I just didn’t bother trying anything. The first year we were together- I decorated every inch of my space for holidays. The last year we were together, I could barely kiss him and ate instant oatmeal and ramen (not the spruced up way) pretty much daily because I could barely be bothered to get out of bed anymore. Forget crafting or cooking.

Slowly but surely, I’m coming back.

 

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I am so grateful I was not born in high society 18/19th century Britain. Coming out season is the definition of hell.