Safe

from istock. I just liked the colors and how cute it was. 

I’m going to depart my usual madcap whirl of promoting some obscure project or informing people that my pet eggplant has recovered from the ground squirrel attack it had to endure in brave, stoic silence.

There’s this person. Z. I’ve known this person since high school. So a thousand years at least. Ha ha. Okay.

This person had fallen on hard times, as John Steinbeck wrote so eloquently about. The current economic clime is not nice to lots of people, you make mistakes you can’t recover from, it’s a dog eat dog world and…yup. I, myself, and I am in a place. Where I don’t wish human company, I don’t miss the cities, I don’t wish to visit or chitchat or spend time with PEOPLE. See posts about my own family for evidence. I wish to be left alone, as Greta Garbo sneered.

I won’t go into details about the Day I had with Z. I can only and should only address my reactions and why I’m having said reactions.

I got home, after the Day, and agitation colored my entire being. I could not relax. My teeth seemed permanently pressed together. Rage rage rage throughout me. I wanted to smash all the dishes. I had shaking hands. I could not concentrate. I had shortness of breath. I didn’t feel…safe. I felt like I had been attacked all day.

Maybe if I erased my entire self and had someone else re-design me…I’d be a real person at last. Mm.

Z, though someone from my dim past, is not someone I trust.

They have claimed to respect my fierce need to be left alone yet intrude and poke and pry and assume and…yup. I don’t enjoy Z’s company. I have to watch whatever I say, it will be used against me. I mentioned I wrote a zombie novel, for instance. Everything from holding up zombie novels to asking if they had been included in my writing…which made me defensive and curt and awful and terrible and barely in control at times. I don’t mind being questioned on my writing…I mind someone inserting themselves into my writing like a footnote I forgot to include. I mind “hurting” people because I forgot to base a character on them.

Fuck! FUCK OFF. Okay, breathe, breathe.

Now, I have kept my distance, in case you’re wondering why moonbat me spends every day suffering like this.

I don’t. Our last outing was, I think, last year. I wrote a blog post that went from hysterical to hyper-hysterical then deleted it because it was mean, awful and unfair. I do have rare moments of actual thought and care for others.

This person learned to keep their distance but I…I agree to outings because I feel guilty. I feel like the bad guy, the villain, all the time with Z. I feel an obligation to be nice because Z is so ‘nice’ all the time.

I remember my mother telling me to be nice. How awful I was all the time that my mother had to tell me to be nice over and over…that I should be grateful anyone wants anything to do with me. Which is tied into other things in my spotty childhood and…I won’t ever go into that here.

Tears. Tears now.

You think you’ve dealt with something. You think, hey, that’s the past. It’s over. You read the sayings that say just that.

The scary too-positive quotes that make you feel even worse about not being able to forget or forgive or magically turn into not-you and conquer the world, the universe and heaven and hell.

from Pinterest. See??? Who can survive that relentless positive attack up there? Or is that just me who starts laughing hysterically while stabbing myself in the eye at that advice rant?

That you’re supposed to be grateful for whatever trauma put permanent scars on you instead of wishing it had never happened in the first place. That being angry is somehow bad or evil and you should just be peaceful and smiling and…

Yeah, the list of how to conquer your demons and past blah blah. Entire wings at Barnes and Noble devoted to this subject.

Where was I. Obligation.

I know Z knows I agree to go anywhere under real duress and reluctance. I know Z is stuck in a rather awful situation and feels alone, cut off and powerless. I can back off and look at all this very coolly. Somewhat coolly.

But I don’t feel safe.

That might seem silly to some of you, who have never had to question the people around you all the time or some of the time.

There’s this new show called Dietland, where Plum, the main character, has to assess each and every person that talks to her and ask herself what that person wants or why they’re talking to her at all. She’s fat. Not a size four fat when everyone around her is a double zero, she’s FAT. That rang the bells and then some with me. What does this person want? You have to question everyone’s motives all the time. Because they will hurt you. Because people go out of their way to find new ways to make you cry. Because people butter you up to…yep.

If you haven’t seen Dietland yet or were scared off by the MILITANT FEMINISTS theme implied…honey, overcome that and go watch an episode. 

I can’t do slavish, best friends devotion with this person. I am also financially worth pennies. I can’t go on shopping sprees and spend the day eating lunch and impulse buying. I also get so uncomfortable when Z offers to pay for stuff. I can’t repay it, I can’t reciprocate the way Z wishes…sighs here. Lots of sighs. 

I’d rather look at costume jewelry, makeup and shoes, as I am FAT and clothes shopping is a horror to me when I go with skinny people.

I just have to stand there and look at stuff or go find a section I can actually buy stuff in, which I can’t, because I have no money to spare for even the stuff marked down.

Okay, I promised not to kvetch about the actual excursion. Sorry!

I’d also rather shop for clothes alone or with people I trust…having to admit the tent-like polyester brown and gray tunic, that’s too short and sleeveless, you found stuffed at the very end of the Savers plus size rack isn’t quite tent-like enough, no thanks.

I jest a bit. A bit. 

Ah.

I cannot do the BFF thing. I can’t. Not with Z. It creeps me out.

I get a creepy sensation. That not-safe crawl across my skin. My instincts tell me to get away, get away. Not that I think Z will physically hurt me or anything like that. It’s more like a parasite burrowing into your inner organs…oh that sounds so unkind and horrible and NOT NICE. I sense the clingy. There are some I don’t mind being clingy with me, this one I do mind. I mind it a lot. 

Also, yours truly is terrible with confrontation and admitting to having real feelings or being hurt or…yeah. I whisper that it’s fine, it’s fine. I tend to say that a lot. You don’t give them any ammo…is my actual life motto. And then all that repressed everything explodes and splatters people who have nothing to do with any of that repressed emotional magma. I should suck it up and confront the person I’m so and so with.

MAGMA! Whee!!!! Fun!

Safe.

I have to deal with whatever had actually started this notion that I am not safe around Z and that I need to avoid her or even just end the friendship, such as it is. Then Z doesn’t have to try to recruit me to her stable of bolsterers and I don’t have to grit my teeth and pretend very badly what a good time I’m having.

I meant this to be very short. I tried to keep it all about me and my magma emotional fuckwaddery. I don’t experience this with my other few remaining friends…and oh, what if they are just tolerating me? Do you see where the vicious circle kicks in? Yep!

Molly, hoping I’m about to take her somewhere fun.