I brought little miss skinny to her ultrasound today in search of a lost twin in her belly. She seemed to endure the testing well. Thankfully it wasn't the kind where you have to load up your bladder so that you are laying there trying to think of image the ceiling tile dots make in your mind in order to forget that there is a real possibility of peeing on the table.
I woke up this morning to the sound of rain hitting the windows, the skylight and roof. It sounded so pleasant in the early quiet. It amazes me how quiet this section of town is once it gets dark. It's a busy place during the day. Oh, then there is the train that comes blaring through even at 2am. Sometimes I even hear the kid downstairs scream for her dad each time it passes through, warning those that wander at 2am, to get off the tracks.
Too bad it didn't plow through my life a couple of years ago with such an urgent warning. I let myself believe so many things about myself that were not true. I allowed myself to be manipulated into sinking into the puppet strings without resistance. Well, mostly. Any resistance was met with the classic emotional and mental beat down that makes you feel as though you've done all the offensive things. Even when you haven't. Eventually I was pushed so far into frustration with feeling like I'd gone crazy and that my mind was mush that arguing back just set me up for all sorts of tickets from the Argument Cop. And thus I learned the rules for the relationship. How it would be. Oh, I see, so if I do this, you'll label it and make me feel like I kicked your mom in the ovary and somehow I'd believe it. But I also learned how to turn it around. Only it doesn't work when you turn it around. It only works for the one who made the rule.
In the beginning, I picture the relationship as spacious, hopeful, colorful. But that was how I felt. Over time it chipped away so that it was dense, full of avoidance, and there was a major list of Don't Go There's, even as a joke. Even jokes that many other people handle and that I didn't think were a big deal. It would be turned into me being cold, offensive. I would feel confused. Did I really say that? Did I just do that? I didn't keep track at first....and then other times I didn't keep track because I was simply talking. Suddenly I was on the stand for victimizing him. I never could figure out where the whole thing turned. And that made me prime for the lecture of why I was wrong.
Eventually I caught on and was more aware and could feel the warning signs. Could feel the conversation brewing into something that it wasn't meant to be. But when it is one on one, and the other person is angry and determined to win, they will.
I suppose there is a lot to unravel from the last few years.
The continuation of angry emails from FLIP occurred for much of the day. I answered some and then left the the last three in my inbox, unopened. When someone emails you over and over for five days just trying to get you to finally concede to their point of view, you have to know when to say when. I won't be talked into things being different than they are. He almost got me to believe it a few times, but stepping back, I can he is manipulating me some more. It has taken a long time to get to this point. But when your own therapist worries so much about you and has even shed tears listening to some of it, you know you aren't seeing it for what it is on your own.
It ain't gonna work. I have my vitamin cookies and damn good friends. No bourbon, but that isn't for tonight. That will be for this weekend!
