this entry of iGoddess is brought to you by the letter D...

D!

D as in Delena.
D as in Determined.
D as in Decision.
D as in Deliberate (v).
D as in Dammit.

so okay, i haven't exhibited the best judgement in the past. i admit it. my bad. my freakin' bad. but sometimes i wish people would look just a little deeper and see that it's not bad judgement. it's not idiocy. it's a desire and willingness to trust people, to give second chances, to give the benefit of the doubt.

people like that, like me, get it up the ass a lot by fucktards looking to screw someone over.

so i was still actually getting negative feedback from a few people even during this past weekend while i was in idaho apartment hunting with *m*. it finally got to the point where i stopped trying to find out in roundabout fashion why i was considered such a fucktard. i took my toe and drew a line in the sand and asked point-blank what it was about me that people thought of me as so stupid.

this was a text conversation with my li'l sis, *t*. at that point i was angry and fed-up. she told me that it wasn't that she (and *aj*) think i'm stupid so much as i've been fucked over and while yes, it affected me deeply, it also affected them and they're just protective. they'd still rather i didn't move at all. or, if i absolutely had to move, then live alone for a while (as in years) before making any relationship-type decisions.

i've explained to them that any suggestion of that type is merely suggesting i go completely against the grain of everything i am. i'm not a toe-in-the-water type of person. i'm a swing-from-the-ropeswing-headlong-into-the-deep-end-with-a-squeal-of-glee type person. i'm an up-to-my-eyeballs kinda girl. i jump, revel, bury, and submerge myself in those things i believe in, whether new or traditional.

have i ever turned away an adventure?

have i ever failed to explore an opportunity that even remotely appealed to me?

have i ever moved cautiously when i could forge ahead intrepidly?

i think that's part of the reason that vanity fair is one of my secretly favorite movies. becky sharp is someone i can vastly relate to. from the sense of promise and adventure, to getting in over her head and even kicked to the curb, to the world-weary heaviness...to bouncing right back and gripping another adventure by the horns and riding wildly all the way to some strange new land filled with promise and unknowns.

after that final conversation with *t* --in which nothing was really resolved-- i felt my sadness and dismay burn away, like oil left on a pan with the burner still on. i felt it just burn away like smoke. in its place was a very steely, razor-sharp determination.

"i think," i said to *m* in the car, "if i have to slit my own throat in sacrifice to all the gods of good fortune, i will make this idaho thing work, godsdammit."

"please don't," he said. "i like your throat as it is."

"i will make it work, gods damn it all. i'm tired of this shit," i said quietly. "i don't have the luxury anymore to mourn everything i'm losing. i'm making this work."

and so far i've geared myself to do exactly that. whenever i think of idaho, i think about what's positive about it. sure, the list is very short right now (what's positive about a land of flat nothingness, especially compared to portland's verdant abundance?), but i keep replaying those promising items over and over in my mind. i picture myself driving home to my new apartment and coming home to *m*'s loving arms. i mentally prepare myself for signing off my firstborn for a full tank of gas (gas prices are an anal rape in the dark over a barrel without any vaseline...compared to portland). i've put myself into packing-and-moving mode...a mode i thought i'd never see for at least another two years, but oh the fuck well.

there's been the support of a few people, the rest of the silverfox family. and my dad says i'm a grown girl, i can make my own decisions, and if i hate it i can always come straight home. besides, when mom and dad retire, they're heading back to northern cali, so it's not like i'll be in idaho forever. i'll be in no.cal. *nod* but still.

this WILL work.

i have spoken.