every day we learn a little more

have you ever had a dilemma, or a question, or a puzzle, and went to bed thinking about it and in the morning woke up with an answer?

yeah, that's never happened to me.

instead, i'll keep a question or situation in the back of my mind and go about my business. sometimes i'll have an answer in a matter of a few hours. sometimes it'll take days. sometimes, it even takes months. i measure every answer against my intuition, against the feelings my gut and my womb will tell me, so i know if i've arrived at the correct answer.

it might be slow --infuriatingly slow to people who just plain don't understand-- but it works for me. and it never guides me down the wrong path, and along the way i discover smaller insights that contribute to the final answer.

i wait, and watch, and inevitably See. and i usually end up seeing more than i really wanted to originally, but that's the price i pay for always searching, for being a revolutionary freedom fighter, for being a servant of --and under the charge of-- the goddess.

the last few days i've been wrestling with something...not too big, but as my irritation's grown, it's gotten bigger itself. and now, this morning, i finally See why. and my body's telling me something's gotta change.

remember how the other day i said details were pending about something? well, *ds*, *ks*, and i had a friend move in with us while he got back on his feet after getting out of a really, ferociously messy marriage to a psycho hose beast. honestly, for a while i was having flashbacks to *sy*'s ex, and it was scary. i hate women that are so totally wrecked and an embarrassment to the uterine divine, and who refuse to do anything to fix it.

we'd been rather close, since it's difficult not to deeply empathize with a parent who's had to leave behind their kids in the name of emotional health and sanity. he'd made a few comments about how he had "hopes" that he and i'd get closer, but i just shook my head and chalked it up to the simple fact that i'd been the first person in years who made him feel good about himself. it's entirely human to grow attached in that way to someone who makes you like yourself. i even told him this, and i told him those feelings had nothing to do with me. i figured it was a done deal, and once he got here, he'd focus on what matters: mainly, getting back on his feet and focusing on his children, with whom he now has to form a long-distance relationship with. the gods only know i know how much work that entails, and how much it can kill you inside.

but instead, he continued to make advances. i drew the line and said it wouldn't happen so long as he had drama in his life, and such an emotional basket case of an ex. that's just too much unhealthy baggage for a revolutionary freedom fighter, and all that drama would get all over my go-go boots, and on the walls, and in my hair. do you know how much work it takes to wash drama out of your hair???

now, i'm proud of myself for finally having learned to draw clear boundaries and protect myself from the slings and arrows of outrageous drama. i really am. even as soon as less than a year ago, i would have just let my discomfort grow, and not said anything, until i did something crazy like explode in anger and say hurtful things to chase him away. but my boundaries are clear, the definition of them being "no drama beyond this point."

lest i go into anaphylactic shock. i'm allergic to drama, and bullshit, and fucktards.

then he went and pissed me off --deeply insulted what i thought was genuine respect for me-- by trying to manipulate me and "trying to make me" do something i really didn't want to do. and i felt deeply angry, and lied to, and manipulated, and most of all...i felt insulted. it was an insult against everything i'd heretofore done for him, given him, and been for him...and he went and believed he could make me do anything.

so i've spent the last few days stewing over these things, trying to figure out if it's anger i must deal with alone, if it's worth getting angry about, if i should say something, if it's worth saying anything at all, if i should just "let whatever happens be okay" and let it go, or what.

and one of the small realizations i've made over the last few days is that i still haven't learned how to express anger. no, that's wrong. i do know how to express anger. i don't know how to bring anger to someone else. i still worry about how they're going to react, and i realized that --in worrying about that-- i was trying to take responsibility for their reactions. their reactions aren't my responsibility.

when i'm angry, and someone pissed me off, when i bring it to them, i still feel the anger, express the anger, channel the anger. i'm accused of "losing my temper" or "being unreasonable," when i'm simply giving them the anger they deserve. i'm not going to go, meek and humble, and say in a polite, sweet voice that i felt angry, and use those stupid "i" statements they tell you to use in therapy. THIS is what made me angry, and i am STILL angry, and it WILL be made known, gods damn it all to the seventh hell!

considering over the past few days i still envision myself bashing him upside the head with a baseball bat, i think it's safe to say i'm angry at him for the disrespect and want nothing more than to tell him off for it. who in the goddess' name ever thinks they could make me do anything?

apparently, for all his admissions of how much he respects me, and loves my personality, and admires my strength and wisdom, i'm merely a woman he can manipulate into doing what he wants.

feel the wrath of the vengeful harpies of delena's inner goddess, you sonofabitch. no one except No One violates me like that.

...and yet i know i'll probably say nothing. i'll make pardons --like he has enough on his plate, he's been through enough-- and simply write him off. it's unhealthy. but i simply don't know what else to do. i don't know how to bring my anger to the people who deserve it, and not let it go full bore. in my mind, i've been wrestling with a lion, trying to come to terms with where this anger belongs, how i should deal with it, and i realized finally that this lion isn't anger. it's Fear.

i'm afraid to express myself, most especially when i'm angry. i feel betrayed, disrespected, and raped of value. i felt that same way working in the grooming salon, and my back gave me so much trouble there were days i was actually crippled and couldn't walk.

all last night my sleep was interrupted by violent back spasms, and i woke up this morning very nearly paralyzed from the waist down. my legs wouldn't work properly, my back was afire in murderous pain, and i Saw then i've always carried my deep-seated, unexpressed anger as a back-breaking burden on my back. i carried my bio-family's anger, my own anger, big *c*'s anger, my in-laws' anger... this time it didn't take months to build up. my body let me know inside the span of three days.

this has me way angrier than i thought. i feel lied to. he holds me in no esteem, no value; all his "respect" and admiration and attraction is merely in regards to his own ego, and how i made him feel about himself. and he's so in love with himself --with his pain, with his drama, with his new lease on life-- that he not only threw back in my face a gift i was trying to give him in friendship, but tried to manipulate me. the rejection of my gift pisses me off, but i can live with that. i shall simply give him no gift ever again, if he's going to throw them away like that.

but i'm afraid i'm blowing it out of proportion. i know *ds* and *ks* will see it that way. but then, i've always known they just don't "get it" like i do. in some ways, i've written them off, too. but i'll be outnumbered 3:1 in this house, and no one will see the wisdom. my anger will be devalued once again, only now i'll look like an ass and a stupid, drama-saturated female, as well.

at least, that's my fear. it's based partly on fact, however. and i woke up with crippling back pain. i'm not being true to my feelings, or myself, and i'm mis-carrying my anger. i admit, the rejection hurt, too. rejection always hurts. i should say something. but i know i won't.