I’ve been busy crafting and keeping my head afloat. Peeling layers of the onion, getting to my core. Lots of tears but grateful in the end. But man, this year has been kind of a microcosm of my 20’s. Staying a secret until I can get to a place where I don’t just rant and say things I wish I hadn’t.

Goodness. I’m still a little nauseous from last night. Not sick in body but in heart and yet not. Just emotions, emotional hangover. I feel like the Universe is also putting me through some challenges that very much resemble what I went through with The Forgiven. Challenges with a man I love and his ex. Challenges with Christmas/Yule. Challenges with memories being brought up. Realizing that I’m processing some very old emotions at a deeper level. Processing them in such a way that they probably won’t come back in this same way again. Because I really am processing and I really am seeing things I never saw and am finding other ways of dealing with things that other people do.

Mr. Furnace has an ex who is deep into addiction. He has tried for years to help her out. Enabling? Yeah. Compassionate? Yeah. Fed up? FUCK Yeah. In the past nagging about this kind of thing never got me and my partner any where. I really don’t want to talk about the details. They kind of make me sick. But I do have full understanding that this is not my burden. MY burden is to figure out what it is that throws me into fear.

In general I *love* the Yule season. No matter what has happened in the past I’ve always greeted the next year’s season with joy and open arms. But after the escapades with the Forgiven I stopped. I stopped celebrating ALL holidays, all year. I had no heart for it. I had no joy for it. I just needed regular old days in order to get through regular old days.

Yesterday I kind of burst open. I’ve been making making making stuff and have really been enjoying the holidays until Friday when Mr. Furnace’s ex threw her drama and trauma and shit and crap into our lives yet again. It is because of HER that Mr. Furnace and I are taking things so slowly. It is the damage created by her behavior that prompted it any way. Yes, he played a part. And YES, I am grateful as hell to be going slowly. But if not for her we would be in a different place that’s certain. And yesterday I just burst open.

Why?

Because she crashed and he let her do it at his place. While he was at work. She’s a thief, has stolen from him repeatedly over the years and I was just gobsmacked. Bad enough he let her in but man, left her there alone???

Why?

Because we have magically cleansed his apartment and his BED twice.  We got him all new sheets and a new comforter and he let her in them. LIVID? Confused? Hurt? Fuck. I was indeed.

But I did two things differently this time.

1. I asked Mr. Furnace what he needed from me, how he would like me to respond, and what was his take on this current episode of behavior.
2. I looked at what might be going on inside me at a deeper level.

Number One

He actually had a conversation with me. Finally shared details of these episodes of hers (which include cops and trips to emergency, broken limbs and just missed charges for things like extortion), what triggers her, and what his plan is. We had a conversation. Not me nagging and him flooding and saying nothing. That sounds small perhaps but it was HUGE for both of us. An actual loving truth telling conversation.

Number Two

A bullet list of Christmas memories that are painful. Let’s go in with a given that I have several that are joyful but none affected me so deeply or validated my core beliefs of “I’m not wanted,” “I’m always left,” and “I don’t really deserve to be here at all,” like these did.  With one notable exception, the first.

• My beloved grandmother on my mother’s side died the day after Christmas but was taken from our home on Christmas day the year I was eleven.
• My son was born on December 22, 1981 and I signed the adoption papers on December 27, 1981. I never saw him after December 24, 1981. My husband, Joel, disappeared three weeks before Christmas only to sneak by our apartment while I was at work to get checks and drink with his friends and have sex with his girlfriend. OMG. I move in with my parents a week before Christmas and this probably prompted my son’s somewhat early birth.
• A large span of time with no dramatic Christmas events. The fact that I was hit by a drunk driver while crossing the street on December 18, 1987 didn’t affect my core beliefs but it did affect my celebrations.
• The Forgiven had a complete nervous breakdow the week before Christmas, 2006. He disappeared and I didn’t hear from him for 4 days. Which was unusual and since he wasn’t at home nor at work I knew something was wrong, he’d been in bad shape just previous. That Christmas Eve I took him to the airport to fly to his parents home, not knowing if he would ever return back. I took care of his home while he was gone and every other day he broke up with me and then the next got back together. I was a total mess by his return on Valentine’s Day 2007.
• Christmas 2007: The Forgiven and I had been arguing (complete one sided arguing because he refused to participate in any way) over his sleeping in the same bed with an object of affection after he promised she wouldn’t even sleep in the same tent on a camping trip in September that I couldn’t attend. We had even broken up after Thanksgiving only to patch things up the same day. He promised to be there to support me while my brother was in town for his first trip back to town in 6 years, a very emotionally rocky event for reasons I won’t go into here. On the same day that my brother’s father in law went into the hospital (here from France he spoke no English and was to die in the hospital a month later) The Forgiven told me four days into the trip and three days after Christmas that he couldn’t see me or talk to me for at least two weeks. The Forgiven and I broke up New Year’s Day.
• Thanksgiving 2008 I lost my little cabin in the woods because of my decision to leave my job, which I have tried not to regret but have ever since. I was in a downward spiral by Mabon 2009, seriously suicidal.
• Yule 2009, last year, I was barely out of the downward spiral but working for a woman who suffered from severe Borderline Personality Disorder, a very vicious mental illness that affects all who are in contact. She threatened to fire me four days before Christmas telling me that she finally had started caring about me as a human being two days later.  She did fire me two days before Valentine’s Day.

This time of the year it turns out holds a lot of potential for complete depression for addicts all over the world. And this year I’m trying not to be one of them. I was doing very well with this, even said in a meeting the other day how this was the best holiday season I’d had in years and until Friday it was.

Mr. Furnace and I had a very productive talk last night and he shared a great deal that really helped bring me understanding of what is going on. He’s shared a lot over the months we’ve known each other and last night he shared more. And I shared in a burst of tears my bullet list. And he saw how much damage I have from this kind of behavior especially at this time of year. Men, other women, abandonment, major loss, poor decisions on my part, too much empathy for others and not enough for myself, sacrificing my own integrity and common sense for a man. And he saw. That was different too.

I think this has brought us closer but we still have more work to do in front of us. Going slow is the only option. There is mutual love there, I am not worried about fidelity just don’t need the drama. I hate drama and yet it finds me. God, I fucking HATE drama. I have periods of feeling like the biggest gullible fool ever. I have periods of wanting to cut and run. I have periods of wanting smash everything. I have periods of massive creativity. I have periods of feeling great love for mankind, I have new friends this year who clearly love my company. I am grateful. But boy is this a mixed bag of tricks. I’m a little exhausted today.  The dam has broken, the Pacific Northwest is flooding, and it’s still one day at a time. I do not trust and so far have not been given good reason to do so. One day at a time. Because that skanky bitch might be there as long as a week.  OMG. I just don’t think I can take this again.