I know I am imperfect. And having just escaped another abusive relationship there is that voice in my head which tells me I  must be more imperfect than most that I ended up in the hands of someone who delighted in my pain. I chastise myself for many things, for being willing to accept so much pain from him in exchange for so little kindnesses. I am angry at myself for not being able to leave long ago... for lettign him in my child's life. I try not to let myself dwell on those things though.

He tells alot of lies, he is willing to do any amount of damage to get what he wants. I am afraid of him top be sure, afraid he will hire someone to kill me, or take my children away from me in a last ditch effort to push me "over the edge" as he'd say. I 've slept with knives to try to make sure I could fight him off should he come to get us in the night. We have no posessions now save for a suite case a piece, no money. But we don't have to livein constant fear now.

I have spent a long time seeking my place in the world, trying to find where I fit. I have tried to understand why my heart is as gentle as it is even in the face of cruelty. I have tried to understand what that means for me, and where that puts me in terms of earning a living, carign for my children. I have saught understanding from many religions , many books, movies, television.. always looking for something that rings true and mirrors what I feel I am. But what does this have to do with real life? where did it get me.. more importantly why did I end up in the hands of a monster again?

I will undoubtedly find some meaning in it, but only after I allow myself to get mad, to mourn the loss of more than my partner and relationship but my notion of where my life was going to go.

I have been on that journey withtin for some time now... tool ong if that is possible.. or perhaps just long enough to realize it had become  anew form of hiding. Introspection as a form of distancing ones self from judgement. Odd creatures that we humans can be, find a way to choose not to fully be withpeople for any reason if we have to.

I have decided to use this as a polace for my art work, a jumping off point for my writing as well and perhaps other things in time.

What is important is that I begin here.. my OWN words. The truth allowed because of the electroin distance and the chance to work into something new completely. Here is my willingness for shange. Here is my openness for myself fully.

Here is where you will hear me.. outside of my bubble.. there in the world where I am neither seen nor judged.

 

   Remember what is true about you. Remember what it is you actually believe, not what you think they will say about what you believ, or what they would have you believe. I believe in a good life despite evidence to the contrary.

I have this idea that at some point in my childhood there had to have been one good thanksgiving which was very Norman Rockwell; happy, no craziness. I just can't seem to remember which one that was. The fact of the matter is that while I am alone tonight, after spending the morning cooking and the afternoon eating, I'm alittle glad not to be doing the family thing any more today.... we all get on each other's nerves after a while. So, yeah I'm a little lonely rght now.. hence the blathering on and on... but i'm glad there is no drunken Uncles or auntes, no cursing, no cheek pinching, dirty joke telling, relivign of the insanity of childhood tonight. I think the tryptophane and i will get along just fine just the two of us.

All I have to say is that what is real is what is right. Right of course being subjective in a lot of applications but as a general rule, right is right. The right thing to do is to not tell a lie when you could tell the truth, the right thing to do is to not harm someone when you could be kind, the right thing to do is to not choose to be the btk killer when you could choose to be mother teresa, or at least a more plausible everyday version of her. Take for example the American constitution. It is sound, and it has been used as a model and reviered for over a century because it holds that there ARE basic truths. Every person, human being, has basic rights, they have basics needs and they have basic dreams. Everyone essentially is the same when you take all the crap away and get down to the naked truth. Truth being again, the average guy/girl doesn't want to waste their time or go against the basic survival instinicts of pain avoidance. The essential question I ask myself though is how the hell do I manage to find the average guy/girl? I have clearly a tendency to find the btk, or the everyday equivalents of him as I move throught this world. But in the end that isn't really the point, as each man is responsible for his choices, each man is a free entity in the universe and an emergent property of either what is good, bad or indifferent there in. Regardless of which type fo person I meet when I walk out my dor in the morning, I still am responsible for my choices, and how I show up to the average btk or mother teresa, or even the average Joe.

I am today still batteling those demons which tempt the decision for being sane and resonable and not taking responsibility for the choices to be hurtfull that others make. And last night I realized that the fact of the matter was I only take responsibility for the bad not the good. If someone is kind, or honest or wants to be around me and likes me.. well that's becase they are good and kind, etc. I think that is a result of the life I knew as a child, and that life has encouraged constantly choosing people who will continue the baehaviors I knew which include intent to harm. Intent to harm has translated in at least two of my romantic relationships into further brain-washing me into accepting the responsibility for the bad things that happen and absolving me of any thing to do with the good. I have decided to give all of this up, and it is hard, it is hard because people want me to be the reason they call me a bitch or stupid, lie and steal. They want me to be the reason, so that belittling me and humiliating me is okay. If it is my fault they don't have the ability to stop even when thery KNOW it is wrong, if they blame me then maybe it even makes it okay, though I still am fighting the understanding of that. I have been ill again, and there was a point when I wondered if I'd be calling the ambulance, or make it to the phone, and the primary reason I didn't call even as I was making peace with my anger was because I didn't want to bother anyone. I didn't want to call and bother someone for a ride to the doctor, I didn't want to have to bother the ambulance techs and the emergency room people because I was probably over reacting.... That was where , that is where my crazy is... that belief that I am not worth it, I have no right to it, that and as far as I can tell at this point, only that is where my crazy is. The point being the other ways I play the belief in my lack out in my life are just that, other ways, different forms of the same thing. I do deserve kindness, I do deserve respect, hope, love, any good thign that is in this world because while I have held this belief that what you all out there think of me must be what is actually true about who I am, I have witnessed, experienced and known that what is true about me is that I am kind, I am compassionate, I am honest and I do the rigth thing whenever I know what that is because it is the right thing to do. I love the world in my hope,and in my prayers for those who would have me as their enemy, for those who would claim friendship even as they seek to dehumanize me. I made those choices over and over again, I make them now, THAT is the experience , the demonstration of who I am... it is tangible, you can read it, and see it and hear it when I speak to you with this in mind INSPITE of what you would do to me. To deny THAT truth seems insanity, it seems blind, and grounded in nothing of truth, it makes no sense, it holds no strength, it cannot stand up in the light of what really happens when you contrive situations and the actions I present to you in return. I have lived in this duality, and for those who I have know for so long, those who I have taken into my bed, those who I have loved, I have done so because of my love for them, done so because I trusted them, becasue when I see them I cannot help but see the best that the universe, that GOD, that the evolution of the soul has placed there which will always out-weigh the places that can hate and harm. I have done so out of hope for you because your joy, your well being has been inherently linked to my own. I often think to my self when my life gets hard and I ache for what I have not been able to do or be, that I have added to the suffering of the world instead of helping to ease it, and to ease it has been my only goal, it has been what I have prayed that my purpose here include. And if it is that I I cannot trust you then I must not beable to trust this goodness I see, this hope I feel and perhaps my wish for my life is ill placed. That is perhaps why I have been so reluctant to let go, so reluctant to stop believing in the horriffic way I have been portrayed. I think though that there must be a way for me to see, hope and wish and still hold on to what is in fact true about who I am. Who I am and I have been has never been about manipulation, or hatred, I have perhaps been guilty of wanting approval so much that I have been found to be standing around doing a bit of intellectual wanking if for no other reason than to impress upon someone that I am worth the time to talk to, I have afterall insecurities. I have by no means been completely selfless, I have by no means been perfect or more capable than the rest of the world, but what I have been is true to the notion that I do not wish to do harm to someone else. I have been true to that if nothing else and even as I have had my moments of having to defend myself with violence I have hated the acts even as they saved my life. So if you have deemed yourself my judge and jury once again today do so with a keen eye. Do so with ALL the facts, do so not out of arrogance or you will most ineviditbly find yourself looking the fool in the end. When we judge we often miss the truth and therefore find that we are liars.

The funny thing about deciding that you need space to figure things out, smooth out your rough edges, get things back into perspective when life gets a little harder than usual, people seem to take it personally. The fact of the matter is I take time to myself because I have the tendency to take the crap people choose to do and decide I am the cause of all choices bad. I am the reason e person lies, cheats steals, and generally acts like an ill mannered child. That is my primary problem, the belief I am the cause of things like that when I get rudeness, meanness and coniving-ness, not a word but it flows better, fot too long. I take responsibility where none should be taken, because the truth of the matter is I am not the reason people behave the way they do. This fact has been amplified recently by the hurricane in the Souther United States; people always have a choice in any situation as to the kind of person they will be... kind and help others or ruthless and rape, pillage and kill just becase they can. As was the case in New Orleans, the women and children who were beaten, raped, killed did not have that happen to them because they deserved it. I am a firm believer in the basic premese that the United States was built on, which is that every human being has basic rights... and those rights preclude being tormented in these horrific ways as well as those that are contrived, corrupt, and sleazy. I may not have all the information, I may not know the depth of the problem with these people whom I interact with that have chosen to be corruptable, unethical and in soem cases a moral. I don't know there history, I don't know their motivation be it money, ego, or "just because they can" thinking; I do know this, given the opportunity to lie cheat and steal despite my background, despite the multiple reasons I could give to behave that way I have repeatedly chosen NOT to... doesn't make me better but it does demonstrate that one they have no ground to stand on morally or intellectually, and two it's about them, their choices, and not me. And yes, despite the logic of this there will always be the voices of my past which have told me that it is my fault, that I was raped because of who I am, that I ws molested because of who I am, that I am only worth this type of "love" from others. I choose NOt to listen to this becasue that is insanity, that is illogical and that is the voice of hate and contempt which serves to create nothing good in this world and only seeks to destroy. The teuth of the matter is I choose to be better than the worstmoments of my life, and the most horrible events that I haev survived. I get to make that choice, it is again one of my rights, to start over, to begin again, to learn from my mistakes and be a better person because of them if not inspite of them. I do not presume superiority, but I do presume equality... each man each woman each child is in the end the same entitled to the same regardless of class, creed, or their past. Tha is what life is about over coming. as I have reminded myself lately Any person who has given anything good to this world has refused to give up on his principles even when he is alone in his beliefs. Character, integrity, in the end these are the things that will matter... not that I don't have a new car, not that someone who knows nothing about me decided to hate me because of what they heard of who I am, not because soem misguided if not socially challeneged people decide to mack me just because they could... not because they tried to eliviate the nagging sense that what they do is wrong with the idea the mantra based on a lie that I am the reason they do it. Logic alone identifies this as a false hood, regardless of ethical standings. But yes, I do with draw when I forget that I am not, or when I listen to the voices of my past that tell me I am at cause for this. My past set me up to believe that I am the cause I had alcoholic parents, I saw abuse, I was able at times to stop it and others not, I was molested, I was intimidated I was belitled and harmed in many other ways... what this did was not turn me bitter, or hateful but make it more difficult for me to allow others to take responsibility for their own actions... I have tried countless times to adjust myself inorder to aviod the outcomes I have witnessed, in so doing I become fake becasue I am not myself. And, I like who I am, I'm a decent person, if you are my friend you can count on me to be honest, to stand up with you and for you, you can count on mwe to enjoy who you are becuase we are different not inspite of it, and you can count on me to stand by you when you need me because I will NOT abandoen anyone in need of my help. If you are my child you can count on me to ALWAYS think of how somethign will affect you first before I make my choices because I realize that is my JOB as a parent, it is also my job to help you learn that you are a tremendous gift to the world, and to make sur eyou know you are loved. As my family you can count on me to love you despite that fact that you have harmed me because I realize that something in your life made you able to do so, you can also count on me to stand by you when this ability fucks up your life because I want you to know you are in fact loved by someone and that there is more than that ability to you. If you are my lover I guarantee that I will forgive when I can, like you, love you, think that you desrve every good thing the world has to offer and hope for you every day. That is of course not hte totality of me.. I have flaws, I have my past, I have my expectations for my future like anyone else.. but the fact that I like movies, chillidogs, animals, babies, the smell of rain and all the other nuances of my personality I think levels the playing field... Who I am is harmless, who I am seeks simplicity and kindness... who I am is both intlligent and blindly stupid at times, but that is what make sme human, not sub-human. And I hope that while I am sothing my sense that I am not safe to or from the world others recognize it is becuase I do not want to vomit my fear all over them, I do not want to have my past which does still hurt me at times harm them, that I do want my life to be as free from hurting another person as it can be. That is also what makes who I am a good thing... sekk not to harm but only to create for then will your existance be valid.