Molehill Into mountain

Oy. I needed to lie down for a bit. While I was not napping, Sprout decided to take her scissors and cut up the lounge cushion, on the side that was still sound, and pull out some of the stuffing.

She has been dealt with, I don't need advice or admonishment about that.

I'm frustrated because she KNOWS not to do that. We all like the lounge, but this may be the death knell for it. I can repair a lot, but this? May be beyond my skill given where the cut is and the use that particular piece of furniture gets.

Sigh.

If I have to toss it, I'm leaving that space empty until I can get something NEW to put there...not a hand-me-down or cast off (mind you, I'm not saying those haven't been grand because if it weren't for hand-me-downs and cast offs I'd have had very little living room furniture and it's been just fine but sometimes a gal wants something new and right now I could USE something new and I'm willing to wait for it and maybe we aren't just talking about furniture here), but something I choose that suits me.

Double sigh.

Can't see that happening any time soon.

And for some reason I just want to cry and curl into a ball and give up.

When I said I wanted to declutter and purge, I didn't mean the things we actually use.

Not Much to Write About, So Here's Some More Music

I cannot keep from singing.

Beautiful Things

I always wished I could dance...

A Brief Musical Interlude...

...because I need to fall apart a little, right now.

What We Don't Show the World

I can't always remember who I was thirty or more years ago.  I know I was headed down a different road.  I know I wasn't the me I am now.  I know I still carry her in me, carry her hurts and fears and anger and scars.  I know I carry her memories, even as I cannot recall them.

I remember people, and I remember what I thought they thought of me, but I know that my perceptions were skewed and I can't trust them today, but I'm too much a coward to reach out, reach back, and find out what's real and what's figment.

This is what mental illness does to me.

I have such clarity of memory, when I remember.  Little things, scenes, a few words here and there, so crystalline and detailed down to the scent on the wind and the color of the trees and sky, but then when asked if I recall this or that incident, I stare blankly and shake my head - some seminal event is nonexistent in my noggin.

Everything I have experienced since a very young age had been filtered through depression, through shattered self-confidence and negative self-worth, through the tangled and thorny hedgerows around my mind and heart, until it bears no resemblance to its original form.

Still, today, I struggle with receiving information as it is given rather than through all of those horrid, dark, devastating filters.

I must remain honest and open even when I fear that my honesty and openness are costing me happiness, because that happiness would be built on falsehood and I could never trust it.  I must remain honest and open even when I am afraid and want to curl protectively around myself and hide because how can my compassion and love grow if they are kept in the dark?

What we don't always show the world, what we don't always show even those closest to us, is how we tremble within, how terrifying it is to be open, how damaged we feel, how unworthy, how unwanted, how lonely, how lost.  It's too much, too much to ask anyone to understand or bear with, and we've lost so very much, so very many, showing what we don't always show the world.

Still.

There's more to gain, isn't there, in revealing than concealing?

One small step at a time, I will show the world.

Where do we go from here?

My relationship with Cygnus has taken many blows.

We have survived the complications of polyamory (his complications, as I have never been able to make other connections, have other relationships), both as they affected us and as they impacted other relationships.  We have survived cheating and lies (on his part), rage , alcoholism, and drug addiction (again, on his part), and being pushed through the meat grinder we call a justice system.

We have survived advertisements on Craig's List for NSA (No Strings Attached) sex for him while I was out of town, and the anonymous mailing of printouts of those ads to me, and the repeat of the advertising months later.  That I knew about the first lot beforehand didn't make the second easier to bear when I learned of them not through discussion, but through seeing them on my screen thanks to others pointing them out.

We have survived his alienating every one of my friends and family members and many of the people I call community out there in the world.

We have survived my mental illness, kids, weather, his moving out, and his insane jealousy at the mere idea that I might be talking to another man (with no intent to act sexually, plainly stated to everyone with an interest at the very beginning).  He can't even stand that another man once complimented me very prettily and made me smile and blush because of it.

We have gone through so much.

But.

Now, nearing the end of his time in prison...now...we are not surviving.  We are failing.  I am tired.  I am tired of the abuse.  Tired of being told that everything I do is not enough, or not good enough.  I am tired of the narcissism.  I am  tired of the anger.  Tired of the blame.  Tired of the bitterness.  Tired of being denied my emotions or emotional support because of his anger.  Tired of feeling as though I must dim what scant light manages to shine forth from me because it threatens his ego, his fragile sense of self.  Tired of feeling that I must live only for his sake.  Want to know what it is like?  Go read this.  I did, and cried, because yes.

I have tried to save us.  I am a strong swimmer, a strong woman, but I can't save the titanic if I'm the only one bailing.  Now, too little too late, he is trying to talk, saying he wants to do the work.  Now, after insults and lashing out and words calculated to devastate, now when I have told him honestly that something has broken, has died, inside me and I don't know if it can be repaired or revived, now he wants to make the effort, and...

And I don't think it's working.

I know it's not working.

I know it is futile.

I found some value in myself, and he tried to kill it.  I did something I'm proud of and he railed against me for excluding him.  I strive to provide a childhood for our daughter and he complains about what he's missing rather than exulting that she is experiencing wonderful things in the world through the many people who adore her.

I get it.  He IS missing out, he IS stuck in prison, but we're imprisoned, too, and I yearn to be free.  I have to be free.  I have to be able to breathe, to sing, without worrying that somehow I will wake the slumbering giant of rage and it will terrorize us.  It's not right to expect us to molder away here, stuck in the moment in time when HIS choices put him where he is, but expect that, he does.

I have tried to tell him over the last few nights, but he won't hear me, keeps trying to turn the conversation to something hopeful or distracting, and I'm too damned tired to fight him for conversational supremacy but I have to, have to make him understand that this isn't his home any more, that I will love him forever but can't live with him any more, we are not partners and haven't been for a very long time and I don't have it in me to carry us both any more.

I'm lonely, and tired, and aching, and lost.  There's no road map through this place.  Where do we go from here?

Indeed

I've been seeing this quote knocking around lately, and I like it.  Also, I agree with it.  And I want it.  So, yeah.

"You deserve a lover who wants you disheveled, with everything and all the reasons that wake you up in haste and the demons that won't let you sleep.

You deserve a lover who makes you feel safe, who can consume this world whole if he walks hand in hand with you; someone who believes that his embraces are a perfect match with your skin.

You deserve a lover who wants to dance with you, who goes to paradise every time he looks into your eyes and never gets tired of studying your expressions.

You deserve a lover who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom; who flies with you and isn't afraid to fall.

You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry." - Frida Kahlo

Running Towards Peace

I will not hate.

What a week it has been in the nation I call home. What a horrible, violent, fearful, hateful week.

I will not hate.

While I have been sewing and making happy plans, others have made threats, unleashed death, taken life.

I will not hate.

Tomorrow I take my kids and our friend Mizz A up to Wisteria for a week of camping, vending, music, and mayhem.  We will spend a week out of one world and immersed in another.

And when we come back?

Still, I will not hate.

Busy

I am frantically trying to prepare for an event that we're going to next week.  We're leaving on Saturday and I still need to finish sewing about 100 pieces of clothing.

As I sew, I listen to music.  Sometimes I sing along.  It all makes a nice distraction from my thoughts, which are thick and heavy and unhappy.

How do you distract yourself?

Independence Day

Yep, this is a repost, but why re-write what already suits??
~~~~~
In writing the Declaration of Independence, in ratifying it, in signing their names to it, the men named at the bottom risked the very things they hoped to secure for themselves and for future generations. They were performing an act of treason, and by putting their names to it they made of themselves targets for the man, for the nation, they accused. They fought for the principles they named, fought for their families, for their lives, and for the burgeoning life of the tender new nation they hoped to nurture into a great place, a free place, a place where anyone could hope to not just survive, but thrive - a place where anyone willing to put their all into it, to do their very best, could find success, no matter what their gods, their nation of origin.

Since that time, people have tried to follow their lead, standing up and making their voices heard to help secure their rights, the rights of future generations. They have added color and sex to the list of things that cannot determine success, cannot be used as an excuse to deny equal opportunity.

You do the same when you vote. You do it when you attend council meetings, board meetings, town hall meetings, and speak your piece; when you ask the hard questions, protest with signs, songs, shouts; when you show people who think they own this nation to the exclusion of others, people who think they have the right to amend your rights to suit them, that you are watching them, that you SEE them, that you know better.

You do it when you tell our armed forces "Thank you for your service" whether you agree with whatever conflicts we're embroiled in or not - because they are standing up for our liberty doing a difficult, dirty, often thankless job - and they are there, ultimately, to preserve our nation and its principles (As an aside - thank you, men and women of the armed forces. Thank you, and blessed be, and come home safe to the families who love you, miss you, and hope only for your swift return.).

You do it when you teach the children in your life what it means to be free - freedom to fly means freedom to fall, and freedom to rise up again; freedom to succeed means freedom to fail, and to try once more; freedom to speak means freedom for dissenting opinions to be heard; freedom is not comfortable - at times, it is downright terrifying...but it is necessary to the human spirit.

Given a choice to be cold, hungry, ragged, poor, weary, worn and free, or to be clothed, fed, housed, succored, safe and bound - I will be free. Do not make the mistake of giving up your freedom for the illusion of safety - you will one day wake to find you have nothing left but the yoke you bound yourself to.

I could go on, but to what purpose? You understand or you don't - and my little rant won't sway anyone, I fear.

Here, then, is a transcript of our most essential document, the one that began it all, the one that first gave shape to our name, to our identity as a nation. Read, if nothing else, the first two paragraphs. They are as stirring, heartfelt, and powerful now as when they were first written.
~~~~~

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1 - Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Column 2 - North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Column 3 - Massachusetts: John Hancock Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

Column 4 - Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Column 5 - New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Column 6 - New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton
~~~
If you've made it this far, thank you. To support out troops, go visit Any Soldier or Troop BeBop (I know this woman - she's a force of nature!). I wish you a safe, joyous, and happy Independence Day.