Today feels different – calmer, more peaceful, though I’m not sure yet if that’s just the calm before the storm and it’s not at all about to begin how it started. There are 107 things on my to-do list, many of them once a month or even once every few months things, but things that I just haven’t had time to turn my attention to yet. Weirdly they don’t scare me, because what is there to be scared of? They need doing, and they will be done. There are many things to fear in life, but a long to-do list is not one of them. Remember, you don’t have to like it, you just have to accept it. Acceptance, I find, really is the key to a more peaceful state of mind.
And acceptance means me accepting me, exactly as I am right now. Flawed, imperfect overburdened, and that’s okay. Change is possible. and change will be possible, but change also takes time.
I decided to keep ramble times to 90 minutes, though rambling today has gone over that slightly because I needed to update a post, and because of computer issues. 90 minutes each day feels like a good length of time, kind of a journal of sorts, and if I don’t write one day? Well then I don’t write that day. Simple.
I did lose another fish yesterday, another corydora, though touch wood then to date the deaths have slowed down and nobody was floating on the surface when I woke up this morning. I’m going to do another 25% water change today and I’ve got some aquarium salt coming today (thankyou, Amazon Prime), so I will add a little to boost their immune systems and hopefully help them fight any infections that they may be fighting. I think it’s more than likely the damn liquid nitrogen that I added, though anything that can help right now could be helpful.
“If I lose the lot, I’m not getting any more” I say to Matt. I suppose that there are two arguments to my stance: The first is that we’re not really in the bedroom often enough to really appreciate them, or often enough at least with the aquarium lights on. For the second, tropical fish are not cheap and when they go wrong, they go wrong fast. It’s quite a headache when you have to change out some 50-75% of your aquarium water late at night because that helpful aquarium treatment wasn’t nearly as helpful as you’d hoped.
I had a knock on my door yesterday, from my neighbour, Martin. I’ll give him some credit, the guy has worked bloody hard to turn his garden around, but he is still largely an ass in my eyes – and not the good, term of endearment kind of ass. Martin is one of those types who believes he is superior and more intellectual than you are, just because he knows something you don’t. Even if he doesn’t know every detail when pressed, Martin will just bullshit his way through until you give up. Dear Reader, you know the type.
I’ll admit, when I have 4 outstanding posts to write then hanging out with and talking to my darling neighbour is not something that I particularly want to do, though often do do because he’s chronically lonely and I’m nice, He catches me for a good twenty minutes and I try to break away eventually, citing that I have to work. Well, if he can do whatever imaginary work it is he claims that he does, that definitely involves real work and not just cackling his ass off to The Buig Bang Theory. then so can I.
In our conversation he does, however, mention his current beau, that she is into another woman and that he is now in a “throuple”. I doubt it, I doubt it very much, but if you have no evidence to the contrary then sometimes you just have to accept these things.
“Well, welcome to the polyamory club!” I smile. I t’s not bad for someone who can’t understand my situation, but is quite proud of his own. Ahh yes, the famous one-penis policy. However did I forget?
He tells me about how he gets to pick and choose between his partners, how having his ‘main girl’ bend over for him is a source of ‘entertainment’ and ‘a way to bust my boredom’ (nice). The alarm bells are going off in my head – this guy puts his partners against one another for the sake of… well, bits of his male anatomy that I don’t even want to imagine? What could possibly go wrong?
If they’re even real at all, that is.
“If she tells me to choose, I have my loyalties” he says. I don’t even want to consider loyalties, I can’t. Life without Matt? Unimaginable. Life without Bill? I can’t think about that one, either. I’m loyal to both, though I think that, if in some weird scenario that I did choose Bill over Matt, he’d practically throw me back at Matt unless I had very good reason why I left. I feel like a ping pong ball caught between two bat-weilding sadists. It doesn’t sound like a very fun place to be, though maybe.
I tell him about my blog situation, about being able to cut down not only because I want to but also because I can.
“And you’re mot apologetic either. See? You’re learning. You used to be very apologetic before” he says.
No, I’m not, and yes, I was. I suppose that growing up like I did, begging and grovelling and apologising kept you out of trouble and not punished or sent to your room for whatever transgression you’d supposedly done. I won’t beg and grovel as a part of my submission (well, maybe) and I certainly won’t be ignored or sent away, ether. Both of those are hard limits for me, for should-be obvious reasons. Despite my playful nature I’m a sensitive little soul.
But as for not apologising? It’s about knowing my worth now and asking for (or taking) what I’m entitled to. Not the moon on the stick, but respect, time, attention and real, unconditional love. I’m worth it, I know I am. Others know it, too.
“You know all it took?” I ask.
“Go on”.
“A tpuch of abuse, and for the man who abused me to make a joke about my worth. The second I realised I had worth, I realised that I was worth much, much more than the way that he was treating me.”
“Women can abuse too, mind” he says, I raise an eyebrow at him. This isn’t about that, although it is about that, for him. After all, he was a victim of abuse at one time, too. I’d heard it and so I volunteered myself as a witness because I won’t have anyone abused on my watch, but also because after she beat the crap out of him, he’d turned up on my doorstep looking for sympathy.
“And you know that if the court hadn’t stood me down, I’d have been there for you” I reply. “I was suited, booted and ready to kick her ass when they called me. You know that I was on your side” I add. Abuse, in all it’s forms, is something that I won’t stand for. Respecting other people (and animals) is not hard to do, all you need to get started is to make the right choice.
There was a time that Martin abused me too – just after his ex abused him – and though I haven’t forgiven him and some of his most audacious lies then we can at least peacefully co-exist. I won’t bore you with the details, dear Reader, but it involved a decision that he wasn’t happy with and being willing to lie to others in order to get it changed. Well, and by now then you probably know my favourite saying, but all is fair in love and in war, right?
Never bully a writer who knows how to write a powerful letter to the right people in the right places, that’s all I’ll say. I’m the one who pull the strings these days, and he’s the one who dances.
Take it steady, someone gave me that advice once.
I sigh. He’s right, and reluctantly I know he’s right, but quoting me now? He’s the third in a few days and it does get under my skin a little bit. I’ll admit, I’m great at giving others advice, but absolutely shit af following it myself, particularly when it comes to giving myself a bit of leeway. It’s all or nothing. Perfect or not at all. I’m my own worst enemy sometimes, it seems.
Quoting me too now? I’m gonna want these on brass plaques next!
Hey ho.
Another me-ism.
I shake my head at my phone and laugh. That’s pushing it, Mr W.
Sadists, I am sure and at least some of them, are hidden masochists inside. I don’t ssy all, and I know that some (including Bill) do switch, but some of them like to do things that land themselves in trouble. They brat the brat, but they forget that brats can play rough, too.
I like bratty sadists though, because it’s fun to punish them with ticklings or endless nibblings, given half the chance. I mean, all really is fair in love and in war, right?
Whispers Of A Phoenix 
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