It's not that serious

 It fucking pours

I really hate that expression.  It sounds so pessitimitic.  I want to punch the people in the throat that use it.  But since I already feel like I have been punched in the throat I'm  totally gonna use it.

~Saturday
I wake up bleeding from my vagina.  Since I have not had a natural period in ten years my first thought is "Holy shit I didn't play that hard at the dungeon did I?!"  I force myself to calm down because I have to get to work.  And I heal quickly anyways sooo by Sunday I should be fine.

~Sunday
I spend the first part of Sunday curled up into a ball because it feels like some sadistic bastard grabbed my uterus and started squeezing maybe I did play to hard!!! I call my playmate and ask her if she noticed anything funny on Friday.  To which she said no and asked if I was having my period.  At this point I am embarrassed.  Bleeding profusely, cramps, head aches, motion sickness, craving: red meat, chocolate, sex, the mass slaughter of those found guilty of being stupid...duh!

"Was it always like this?" I moan over the phone.  The answer is yes.

~Monday
Aside from losing so much blood that I am simultaneously fascinated and horrified I  develop general malaise and laryngitis just in time for public speaking. Instead of being down about all these schenaigains I'm pissed.   I'm raising my fist in defiance at a sadistic Matronly Mother Goddess screaming "How could You!?  This is one of the grooviest things I've gotten to do in my life.  Speaking as  part of a panel regarding Healthcare in the GLBTQ community.  I thought You liked us!!!"  

She must have found my  ranting hilarious because the bleeding reached level ridiculous.... by 3pm  I'd lost so much blood that I feel faint. On my way home from work I make a desperate phone call to Terick who comes over to find me half dead and half dressed on the floor of my room.  He gets me dressed, hydrated, out the door, to my destination and back home again with zero super dickery and tons of compassion.

"You're a good man" I say as he tucks me in
"You're opinion will change when you're better"  He assures me
"Fuck you... if I say you are a good man then I mean it you bastard"
"There's the Irene we all know and love"  he kisses my forehead with practiced condescension while I make a feeble attempt at smacking him but I'm weak and tucked in far too well to do so.  So I hiss instead and fall right off to sleep.

~Tuesday
14 hours later I wake up
go to work
go back to sleep for 4 hours at work
work for 3
go home
go back to sleep

Its Wednesday I've figured out why I get the laryngitis.  I'm a mouth breather with sever allergies and the immune system of a decrepit old woman in a dark and dingy cell.   The solution: keep my fucking mouth closed when around allergens like pollen and cats and buy a humidifier.    Waaaay  harder than it sounds trust me.... the keeping my mouth closed bit.

The blood loss seems to be tapering off so my energy level has picked up
and I no longer want to eat dead cows
or strangle two year olds
or the stupid which is especially significant and noteworthy since I'm headed to Reno to dance at a club opening this Saturday.

wish me luck ;)

The message was a few lines:

Yeah, it is time for me to wish you happy birthday again, without having seen you for a year.  So much happened in your life since I’ve seen you and I don’t know the half of it.  Sigh

Hope you aren’t hiding in a hole and are out there living the good life. Lots of people love you a lot and you need to keep in touch with them!  SoCal? Really?  What’s up with that?  Anyway, if you want to know about my life, you have to tell me about yours.

 

I typed in "Nothing much I'm a massage therapist now :)" and almost hit send.

But I didn't
Alot has happened.
Alot has changed. 
To say oh nothing would be a gross understatement.  So I told her what happened to me.... in third person.   Not because I am an ego maniac, but because its really too painful to think of myself as this stupid.
It helped... it truly helped

Because now I know where I have been
Although I can see where I am going
Even if I'm far from certain of where I’ll end up
That's just fine with me

Because I made it  here… I am exactly where I need to be.

Where I am supposed to be  and where I chose to be.

 

 

 __Our Story so Far__

 

 

We last left our unlikely heroine in San Jose.  It was the end of February 2007  beginning of March.  She had just successfully:

-gotten one of her friends out of a physically and emotionally abusive relationship, 

-reluctantly left her stable albeit low paying job at the law firm to navigate the unpredictable torrid waters of  Los Angeles at  her fiancées enthusiastic and guilt riddled request

-sold or giving away 90% of her personal belongs in preparation for the relocation

- and moved in with his parents.

-and is engaged in an open relationship with fiancee and said from above friend.

Two weeks later (still in withdrawal from the massive ego high of playing the moaner) she is working at Walgreens  i.e. the "Pit of Despair".   Her fiancée who is unemployed and has been since November of 2006  is depressed and mentally MIA due to the apparent fall through of the LA thing (soon to be termed the “Great LA Fiasco of 2006”) . This leaves her to fend off debit collectors, default payments, and the repo man on her lonesome.

In April  while busting her ass at Walgreens i.e suckville USA, facing financial ruin and living with her fiancée’s dysfunctional family  her fiancée is not only passing his time crawling into World of Warcraft the way some manic depressives crawl into a bottle but also crawling into the “friend” she helped out of dire situation.  Although the relationship is an open one and she understands that means sex  she’s hurt… he should have been spending at least some of that time doing the laundry... this can not continue.  
She goes to speak to him about her leaving Wal-hell and instead of getting the comfort/promise to help out that she is hoping for she is cut off and mournfully inquired as to wether or not she is leaving him.


She thinks to herself that that is a brillant idea and replies enthuastically in the affirmative.
He is so overcome that he leaves her bed to go into the bed of his other partner the "friend" who comes and tells her that she will help her get back home to New Orleans.  Our heroine finally puts 2 and 2 together as the "friend" embraces her and tells her to just let it all out.   She cries but mostly out of the halirity of the situations.  She realizes that this is single white female without all the white females.

She decides to let the "friend" and former fiancee ride off into the sunset together.  She knows he will be back because... well the friend isn't her.  And she is right.  It took all of 7 days before it all went to hell for the new little unit.  The friend leaves the fiancee comes back and confesses that the friend was making him choose between them for the last few months and telling her that she was a cold, heartless, selfish and going to leave him for someone better anyway.  He now realizes that swf has been twisting her words and manipulating him.


Our main girl realized that 8 days ago.  "Why didn't you ask me how I felt"  she asks and for the first time is really hurt.... even more than she was over the laundry.

 

His excuse

She was becoming distant

Her excuse for becoming distant

His not bringing in money, helping with the chores, or looking for a job was a personal pet peeve and massive turn-off.

 

This recent turn of events inspires her toward her own semi-dramatic mental break down (why should he get all the fun).   She quits, moves into the spare bedroom, re-evaluates her life and enrolls in massage school all with-in 48 hours.  She figures she has nothing else to lose.  Its now early May.

By the end of May she has a job that pays her twice what the other use too, her ex-fiancée is her fiancée again (our heroine is obviously injecting heroin)  and the LA job offer finally looks like it is going to go through.  She refuses to go to LA despite the pleading of the fiancée and his mother.  She realizes that she had given up way to much of her life and needs to get herself straight and on track because she can’t depend on him for anything stable.

He doesn’t go to LA without her.

It’s now July and lo and behold after eight months he finally joins her in the land of productive adults.  He gets a job.She’s overjoyed. After all last time he was unemployed it took him a year to find a job.  He’s cut his refresh rate down by 4 months!!!

They go to couples counseling.

Her week looks like this

40 hrs work
10 hrs traffic
16 hrs school
5  hrs gym
10 hrs massage application

She still comes home and does the laundry and cooking because even though he only works 25-35 hours a week and lives close to his job he forgets to do chores.  And she is too exhausted to complain.

 

It’s August and she wants to move into their own place… he suggest they wait until she finishes school.  Besides her rent money helps his mom out a lot since his dad hasn’t worked in 25 years.  It’s a good thing they do because in February he is unemployed again.  Happy New Year!!!!

 

In May 2008 she graduates from NHI.  And becomes a Certified Massage Therapist.  She has held down a 3.96 GPA and has been class leader for the past six months.  She has made wonderful friends for life, conquered an obsessive compulsive eating disorder, discovered how awesome life could be with a self esteem and started calculations regarding her own personal worth.

 

She tells him she is moving out in three months.  He can only come with her if he starts acting like a man. By late July he has a job.  But in August she starts to notice patterns, cycles, red flags, unacceptable behavior ( he fucks around on her while she's at home visiting her mother for the first time in three years) and she slaps herself.  She looks at her relationship closely and is finally able to see that 3d image 75% of the population insisted was there but she declared as a hoax.

 

There is a laundry list of things but is sums up to this.  He is not the man(baby) she wants in her life and she does not want to be the woman (mother) he needs her to be in his.  All signs point to yes, the stars are (mis)aligned… they must part ways. 

 

Since they still share a car she gives him until the end of September to get his affairs in order.  It’s a slow but friendly break up… so far.

 

Because despite everything.

 

She still loves him.

He made mistakes, she certainly has made mistakes.  They both have been selfish, and childish, easy to defer blame, accept undeserved credit and shun self responsibility.

 

She still loves him

 

In her heart she wishes things could have been different.  Nine years…for  nine years.  He has been her best friend, her lover, her partner, her shining knight, her shoulder to lean on, both crutch and hurdle, simultaneous curse and cure.

And she has been that to him.

 

She still loves him

 

But she knows her worth and has chosen to love herself more.

 

The new chapter begins this October.
All my love,
Renie

 

ps.  There are something’s I left out... like scandalous kink, moonlight skinny dipping, semi naked photo shoot, losing my car, and a brain tumor scare...  But all those things resolve themselves for the best.

 

I caught it.  That nasty spring time bug that has been fucking with everyone around me for the past month.  I thought I was immune to it.  I assumed I was.

One should never assume.

Which brings me to Tuesday morning.

Round One

Terick can you drive me to work?

I  need to study for my final

You don’t have to work today.  Your test is Saturday and  you can study after you dropped me off.  I am going to be late and you said last night that you would drive me.

I really need to study

You suck

…

Like a hoover

…

Nobody does it like-

Fine I’ll drive you

I don’t need your help I’ll drive myself!!

Later as Terick drives me to work I remember that I have a lady doctor’s appointment .

Round Two

Umm… thanks for driving me.

(glare)

Well ummm I have another favor to ask you.

(grunt)

I have a doctor’s appointment and I need a ride to that too.

IRENE!!! I really need to study.

And I really need your help I feel like hell frosted over.  You have the rest of the week to study.

I really feel like you are not respecting the fact that I have an important test

And I really feel like you’re not respecting the fact that I’m sick my ovaries might have died a horrible horrible death.

What time is your appointment.

Noon

Noon… so you want me to come get you, drive you to the appointment, drive you back to work and then come get you again at five.

Ummm… yes please.

(GLARE)

My doctor admitted that she had no idea what was wrong with me and that she had to run more tests.  Lots of tests and that I should come back at 5:30 to have an ultrasound.  Terick is a sport about this one.  He was in the room and got to hear what the doctor was telling me.  He flinched a little.  It was all love and cherry pie until we were leaving the hospital at 6:15

Round Three

Can you drive me to WholeFoods?

Irene I really need to study

Goddamn I’m running a fever and I just had my right ovary prodded and  poked and pushed into my kidney.  I’m  oozing  astro glide out of my poor vagina and I have the headache from Hades…

By time I finish this little rant was are pulling into the whole foods parking lot 6 miles away.  I immediately start in on this woman crossing the parking lot slow as freak because she is trying to balance her grocery bags while giving her little bitch a kiss.  Like seriously she was smooching her dog.  I was head long into laws about bestiality when Terick finally stopped me… which  is good because I didn’t truly have the lung capacity to continue due so the massive amounts of phlegm free flowing down my throat.

Irene please your being…

Being what?!

…

What damn’t what?! Bitchy?!

Yeah kinda

That fuck odd cause I feel like a whiny pussy… hopefully with your particular brand of TLC I will be back to being a full blown bitch in no time.

One can only hope.

Hah! Which is all I can manage because of the coughing fit that sets up shop  in my chest.

 

He makes me stay in the car to think about my recent behavior.  And while I am on this little time out  I realize that I have been somewhat unfair and angry, and over emotional.  I could blame it on lack of sleep, lack of food, lack of usable oxygen but it doesn’t matter.  I ultimately have control of myself and my actions.  So when he came back to the car I apologized for being crazier than normal.  And he apologized for being insensitive.  And I told him that I was so proud of him for what he is doing in school and I respect his need for extra time this week.  And he told me that he was proud of me for balancing work and school and massage without breaking down… present day excluded.

 He took me home, tucked me in, fed me soup, took my temperature.  He pressed his palm to my forehead, neck and heart with a look of compassion.  He smiled.  I would groan and flip him off.  How dare he be happy when I am so miserable.  He’d laugh out loud and kiss my forehead.

He peeled oranges and fed me slices, picked up tissues that had missed the trash can, brewed vast amounts of tea.  The wrong kind but the amount of honey was down to perfection.  He let me have all five pillows on the bed.  And he honest to goddess swaddled me in three blankets when I refused to rest.

He gently moved my wrist from under my head.  "Don’t sleep like that.  You’re a massage therapist, you’ll need those."  I’d groan, make myself comfortable and just before I nodded off I would feel him take my wrist from under my head and place a pillow there instead.

He put up with a wild game of drunken Nyquil charades… since I was under orders from the advice nurse not to talk.  And he didn’t chastise me for making that horrible noise in the back of my throat.  The one my aunt told me that I had better not make a habit of because no man in his right mind would ever want to marry me if I did.

I made a habit of it

I guess Terick is not in his right mind

But that’s okay cause I’m not either.

He drove me to another Dr’s appointment… we were late and had to reschedule.  He apologized.  I told him not to worry

It was nice to be outside for a bit even if I did have to listen to 45 minutes of Rush Limbah (Terick likes to know that the enemy if up to) Rush by his sheer jaskassery and shit shine personality has added himself to the list of people I’d like the spank with a strap on.  And as we drove home on 101 south with the clear Californian blue sky above us and that smog that makes the sunsets so pretty before us I mused about what type of whip I would use on Limbah and what boots would best match it.

I realized then that with Terick’s particular brand of TLC I would indeed be back to being a full blown bitch in no time flat.

This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and loved and horny

For the first time in three days I smile

 He smiles back

I hate me...

It’s11:15 pm on a Thursday. It’s raining. You are in the den playing World Of Warcraft, the cat’s licking her ass and I am sitting in a plush beige 3^rd hand recliner in the living room of a 2 story house nestled in a suburbia which exists on the fringes of a large city in California .

The living room has shag carpet that someone told me was once orange. It might have been 25 years ago but today is an unpleasant muddy green with splotches of moldy brown. The curtains are yellow and as old as the carpet. A bowflex sits in the middle of the floor, unused, unwanted and glaring ominously at any one who passes it by.

The room is flanked by 3 bookshelves all spilling over with binders of world maps, recipes, math and English assignments, craft instructions, etc. Two plaid couches (from the late 70s?) mercifully covered by bright red table clothes, hold up the rest of the walls.

The walls themselves are plastered with a concoction of African and African American collectables, oddities and art work which start off as museum worthy then hyper jump directly into the realm of offensive and tasteless. Example: Hand carved wooden mask from Nigeria next to a green, red and white hand stitched circular pot holder that portrays a black female child in classic red lipped, moon faced, darky, pickanninny style. This is the standard décor for the rest of the 2 and ½ bathroom, 4 bedroom house. To summarize it looks as if the 70’s a Costco/Sams ( or what ever local where house supply store your familiar with) size box of Reese’s pieces, a teaching supply store and the Black Power movement got together for one wicked foursome and heaved all over the place.

The art, the carpet, the furniture, the room, the house all belong to my possibly- future -mother-in-law and is a physical manifestation of the mental and emotional abuse she endures from her husband. I used to feel sorry for her. I don't anymore. She stayed. She stayed here. She constructed her tomb. She chose to accept. I want to grab her and shake her. I want to wrap my hands around my neck and wake her up. Sometimes I even want to blame her for how my life is. If she would have demanded more of her husband and for herself you wouldn't be the person you are today right... right? That has to be the reason for it. Your father is an ass, your mother his tool and you a cross between them both.

I’m hungry. I want to stuff the hollow space within with something heavy and solid. just to pretend I'm whole. The emptiness is something food could never truly fill... but right now its close enough. I open the door to the refrigerator and look inside. It is just like the walls, just like the house, just like your mother, just like me… full of useless odds and ends, going off and in need of cleaning, in serious want of catharsis. I close the door to that little pocket of insanity and tragedy so viciously that I can hear clank of 8 13 month old salad dressings bottle cry out against eachother. Although I wonder if I have broken something I am quite certain that I do not care.

I feel destructive. This isn't good. My minds not well. I should go upstairs, sleep off or through this storm.

I might as well take a Valerian root and go to bed. I say this out loud. But the only one who hears me is the cat. Who is busily content at the moment so she could care less. I repeat my plans for retirement again, louder. And I hear you say "Go ahead I will be right up."

It's 2am before you actually comes to bed. Your feet which areicy cold from sitting in front of the window while running your latest "instance", brush against the soles of mine. I feign sleep and roll away from you but you snuggle closer and suddenly the cal king size bed isn't nearly large enough. You place your hand around my waist and slowly, slowly inches your fingers up until you are cupping my breast. Warming your frigid fingers from my body heat. I know you don't mean to be a pain. I know you just want to be close to me. But I want to cringe, I want to push you off, but I don't want to explain why.

So I lay there and I wait for your breath which comes in deep sighs to even out. I wait for you to stop your slow and gentle grinding into my back. I wait for you to sleep. And when you do I un-twine myself and push away. I'm colder than before.

I'm wide awake now.

And I'm pissed because I have to get up at 6 and go to work then leave work and go to class until 10pm and you don't have to do that.

I want to shake you. And tell you to get it together, get a real job so we can get out of this house. Get in school, get a life so I can get some respect for you. Get it together... so we can get together. Because I am so damn tired of holding our world up. So tired of being here, in this house, in this place, in this state of mind.

I want to tell you that you are killing me. That you have been killing me for five years! I want you to stop it!

But I don't. I pull the covers closer and force myself to fall asleep. In the morning I'm cuddled up next to you. It's warm, comfortable, familiar... the curve of your side against mine and the cadence of your breath, the beat of your heart.

And for five minutes right before you open your eyes, before you say good morning, I love you. I wonder if this is how your mother feels and I hate myself for it.

 

I hate this house

I hate the walls

I sometimes hate you

but most of all

I hate me

for continuing to be

here

In this house

within its walls

it's rotten, it's crumbling

it's going to fall.

Before that happen I'll come awake

I'll grab me and slap me, I'ma give me a shake

Just for now I'll sleep and grieve

But one day soon I find the strength to leave.

 

5:30am

Me:      I had this really weird dream last night…

Terick: Really?

Me:      Yeah, I dreamed that I was hungry and I was looking for something to eat.  I didn't want Jack in the Box or McNasties I wanted Whole Foods but I couldn't find one so I was like- fuck it and went home.

Terick: Wow that's odd.

Me:      Why?

Terick: I had the same dream.

Me:      Really

Terick: Yep… but instead of food it was sex.