In Today's Performance, the Role of Pam Chubbuck will be Played by <user site="livejournal.com" user

[bookofmirrors]

OK, before I post, I always settle in by catching up gmail and LJ... which I did... and since they're SOOOO apropos, I have to post these... (compliments of keiracaitlyn, of course)

General Daily Overview

The Moon is in hard shelled, self-protective Cancer today, symbolizing our tendency to defend our vulnerabilities. Things are not as they seem, for the Sun is forming a harmonious trine with Neptune, the planet of illusions. This trine represents balance between our individual will (the Sun) and our creative vision (Neptune). We are reminded to open our hearts as we respond with compassion. We need to remember, however, that Neptune's confusion makes us susceptible to escaping our problems rather than dealing with them.

blckwngdorcl
- The Four of Hearts

The Four of Hearts is a sign of protection in love, marriage and family. It represents one's marriage and the foundation of love upon which a family and life can be built. The Four of Hearts is usually considered a good influence, especially for a happy family and social life. You may even turn down offers of love at those times when you are feeling so fulfilled in the areas of friendship and romance. If you are single, the Four of Hearts as the Result or Venus Card is a strong indicator of marriage.

The Four of Hearts can also speak about your home and family and things going on in these areas. It represents, at its most basic level, the foundation of love upon which all of our other relationships are built. It is the home of the heart.


bookofmirrors - The Jack of Diamonds

The Jack of Diamonds is usually representing a younger, business-minded man who is creative. Often they are salesmen or promoters of some product or idea and always are involved in the world of business or finance. Either a person of this description will play a major role in your life when this card is present or you will be manifesting these qualities yourself.

For this reason, the Jack of Diamonds is considered to be a card of great financial success, especially success through promoting or selling, or otherwise being very creative in your business.

On the other hand, if you know some man who is a Diamond Birth Card, this Jack could mean that he will be playing either a romantic, creative, or dishonest role in your life at the time this Jack appears.

lunenoire - The Three of Hearts

The Three of Hearts signifies creativity or indecision in affection that can manifest in different ways. This could indicate having two or more love interests at the same time or simply that we are unsure of where to place our affections. This indecision can lead to either more fun or worry and fear, depending upon how we handle it. This card's influence usually occurs at a time when we are wanting to learn about love through experimentation and variety. Its presence usually means that we will not be making any hard and fast relationship commitments until later.

On a positive note, the Three of Hearts is a card of self expression and its presence can indicate that we are talking more, expressing our feelings, and meeting new people.

OK, so keep in mind that blckwngdorcl's birth card is the jack of diamonds... and that I've always, since we all started dating, considered the 3 of hearts a card to represent the 3 of us...

So... well, just damn... a lot happened today...

I'm cut-tagging this, of course... because it's likely to be long, and likely to be deep, and likely to be private, and that's the best modicum of privacy I put up in my LJ...



So, blckwngdorcl and I went to therapy this morning. It was his week, but I was wanting to take the session, 'cause I had some issues I'd been dealing with for a few days, and he didn't have any pressing issues to discuss.

Basically, Sunday was a busy day. As you recall, we're looking for a place to live, the biggest obstacle to which is owning 7 cats. We'd had our eye on a house with a lease-to-own option, being sold by this FABULOUS woman I can't say enough good things about. Our collective credit was (is) a problem, though. Not for her, really, because she loves us, and seems willing to work with that, but because we don't want to be in a position of not being able to follow through on a financial commitment. Personally, I have a bad history with that. I do eventually pay everything I owe, and not a penny less, but sometimes it takes YEARS for me to get the money to do it. And I'm not good at payment plans, so I tend to wait until I get a windfall, then dump the lump sum on the person to whom it was owed, and had long since given up hope that they were ever gonna see a cent.

But I digress. Fabulous house. Small, with its own problems, but fabulous, GREAT energy, GREAT owner, all good things. But we like her too much to put ourselves in a position to fuck with her on a financial level. So, we were kinda iffy once the practicalities of it all creeped into the picture.

So, we were still looking for other options. I was making a bunch of phone calls to apartment complexes on Sunday, basically to just exhaust the options. It was mostly a matter of a quick inquiry about the pet policy, a thank you, and a check off the list. Apartment complexes just don't rent to people with 7 cats.

Or so I thought.

We found a place that would. The condition, of course, being that they merely assumed that, when we moved out, they would have to replace the carpet, so they insisted on a non-refundable carpet replacement fee (of $900 for about 1300 square feet, by the way, so the cost to replace the carpet of Harmony, if it comes to that, should be NEARLY that much, and well within our original $600 pet deposit). They also said that if we went there that day, they'd give us a $99 move in special.

*blink blink* It was my favorite floor plan, too...

So, we did. In the course of telling blckwngdorcl and lunenoire about this, I discovered that lunenoire had put out a shitload of energy the night before to get just this type of result. Of course, now he had a headache, but we all loaded up in the car and went, anyway.

The place was beautiful. We actually found a bigger floorplan than the 2-floor plan I liked, on one floor, much bigger, and damn near perfect. They were really nice people, and all seemed to go well. lunenoire even knew someone who lived there, who we ran into, and convinced us to choose a different apartment (same floor plan) in the complex, 'cause the one we were gonna get leaked. So, way cool.

Again, reality strikes. I'd forgotten about the pro-rated rent thing, due upon signing. Still, doable, though, with lunenoire's paycheck. He'd paid the $99 fee, which I promised to pay back, since it came out of his car payment money. I was planning on paying the pet/carpet deposit out of my paycheck. But... when they ran the credit check, the program insisted that we come up with an ADDITIONAL deposit of one month's rent ($1060). So... all told, we'd have to come up with $3K at signing. Which we totally don't have.

We said yes, anyway.

(I'm working on getting that money, from sources who prefer not to be named, and I honor that. Bottom line is, unless that falls through, I shouldn't have to ask my father. Halle-fucking-lujah.)

So, at that time, we had no lease in hand, were looking at a life of desperate destitution while we recovered from coming up with an impossible $3K, and even though we loved the place, where it was, etc., we were stressed about it.

I went home, and sent an email to my evening clients, letting them know what was up, and also that my cell phone had been cut off (long story - it's better now), and about the apartment and such. Keep in mind, we hadn't yet said no to the house, either, so we were now in a position where we had 2 potential yesses, and we kinda felt bad about declining the house, but we agreed it would be better for us, long-term, until we COULD get decent credit again.

So, anyway, I have one of said clients that evening. This particular said client is a pretty wealthy guy, who is a partner in his own company, which, I believe, is either a holding company, an investment company, or both. Smart, savvy, all things good financially. Of course, he asked about the situation with the apartment (I'd already been gushing about the house the week before), and said that we'd actually be better off doing the lease-purchase (for various reasons I'm not going to go into here). Well, he's a smart guy, and he makes his living doing similar smart things, so I thought his opinion was one I should consider strongly.

So.

When I got home, lunenoire was taking the garbage out for the next morning. I approached him about it. He was none too happy about it, which totally caught me off guard. He wasn't happy that I'd re-opened what we had thought was finally a closed issue. He had been much more stressed about the situation than I'd ever imagined. The brave and calm face he'd put on had left me unprepared for the level of emotion I was now faced with. He was angry about it, and in the course of the argument, brought up a bunch of things, including that he thought I was selfish, that I was sometimes a bitch ("said bitchy things", I believe was the actual verbage), that my financial status sucked, and had a history of sucking, that I wasn't willing to make sacrifices, and that he was disappointed that my cats seemed to be getting highest billing in my life (over him, and common sense when it came to finding a place to live). He had been willing to give up Loco if it had meant finding a place to live vs. not finding one. To fornorald, of course, which would have been a great match, by the way. Anyway, the whole thing wasn't pretty. blckwngdorcl was also getting angry, at me, and I was feeling overwhelmed.

I was also feeling angry. This is a big deal for me, you know. Granted, he had said at first that he didn't want to get into all the reasons why he was upset at me, because he didn't feel safe sharing that with me. My typical reaction to feeling attacked (whether I'm actually being attacked or not) is to recoil within myself, and silently reinforce whatever someone is saying by my own arguments of agreement. I'm pretty good at telling myself I suck without any help. Other people just give me more creative ways to do it.

But this time, I wasn't escaping. I wasn't buying it. Granted, I didn't fight back. Two reasons. The Truth is, I'm scared of fighting, scared of escalating an already volatile situation. Part of me was really wanting to (verbally) go for his throat, though. However, the truth is, that it was late, other people in the house were undoubtedly trying to sleep, and I didn't want anything to escalate into something noisy. So, I pretty much just sat there. If I made any contribution to the conversation, I don't remember what it was, other than to say that yes, in fact, the cats do rank very high up on my list, that Glenn was equal to the cats, and I was sorry that it hadn't been made clear that I was, and always had been, a package deal with respect to the cats.

I was allsortsa in my Mask, pushing down the anger. And I remained that way for 3 days. Problem with that, y'know, besides the obvious, is that the effort to keep all that shit at bay prevented me from slipping in and out of my Mask, which I can usually do with great facility. At any rate, my act must have worked, 'cause neither blckwngdorcl nor lunenoire knew I was pissed. Granted, at least one of them was always sleeping when I was coming or going (such is my life), so it was easy to avoid both of them.

So, the anger, a hot pulsating band that rested (of all places!) surrounding my heart chakra, was still there in full force this morning. blckwngdorcl and I did our usual morning thing, and headed off to Pam's.

It wasn't until we got in the car that I mentioned that I was angry. I told him a few things, but not everything I wanted to bring up... triads are a tricky thing. You want to be honest about your feelings, but you don't want to create in the other person a cheering section who will be on "your" side at the expense of "the other guy's" side. Ideally, of course, you always want them on their OWN side, even though that's painful sometimes. We all like cheering sections. They let us hide from our own role in our lives. If someone's cheering you on, you can be righteous (right!) all the time. I don't want to be that. I want to learn shit. Anyway, I'm digressing again. The point is, what I told him in the car wasn't important. It comes up again later in the story, anyway, in more detail.

So, we get to Pam's. I think I remembered what comes up later on a subconscious level, because, as I was walking up the driveway, I was thinking to myself that, since our cell phones are out, if there had been something to call Pam away unexpectedly, she couldn't have gotten a hold of us, since she doesn't have the house phone number. Interestingly enough, when I brought this thought up later, blckwngdorcl was having similar thoughts at the same time. We do that a lot.

Anyway, we found the door to the waiting room locked. That so rarely happens. Anyway, we stood around for a while (we were early, anyway), talking. Eventually, Pam called down to remind us that she was leaving for the airport in less than an hour. At first, she thought she had forgotten to tell us, but then remembered talking to me on the phone. Consciously, I have no recollection of this. But the way she described the conversation certainly sounds like something I'd say, and my lack of recollection certainly sounds like my over-busy life, too.

So, anyway.

I told her I was kinda disappointed, 'cause I was actually angry for a change, and thought I might be able to get that out. (Remember, I don't have anger management issues - I have anger acknowledgement issues. Hell, the fact that I was able to sustain a discernable anger for 3 days straight is some kinda huge progress for me. Isn't that fucking twisted?) Yeah, so, anyway... Pam said that, even though she couldn't be there, I should go up to the therapy room and try to work it out. She remembered that I had said in the past that I didn't feel safe being angry at home (again, in addition to the general fear of anger, there is the noise issue), and that I should go up and work it out, anyway, and just lock the door when we left. I was a bit scared of this. I mean... y'know, no safety net. blckwngdorcl said he didn't think he would be a good therapist, and wasn't sure what to do. So, we both had our reservations about this, for various reasons.

So, we went in, anyway. I rolled around on the roller for a while (some of this isn't going to make any sense to anyone who hasn't done this kind of therapy... just bear with me... the definitions aren't important), and tried to get grounded, stomping my feet, trying to bring my energy down. At the same time, I was talking, telling blckwngdorcl a bunch of stuff... not really venting, more like processing out loud, and imparting some information I'd thought of. I finally got more into the spirit of things, my energy less in my head and more in my body (where all that pesky anger hides), and moved over to the bed to kick. I kicked for a while, and had marginal success with that. I would get kinda sorta into it, and lose it. I can't remember exactly what cut me short that time. I know it was different than usual... but can't remember why, 'cause what happened later overshadowed that.

Anyway, (I say "anyway" a lot, don't I?) I asked blckwngdorcl to bring me a towel to "strangle". I don't usually use the towel, but it felt right at the time. So, I started using that, twisting it, wringing its neck, as it were. That worked better. I still clenched my teeth against the sounds I was making (gutteral growls and whatnot), but at least I was making sounds for a change. That stopped after a while, and I laid there, panting for a bit. I checked in with my body, feeling where the energy was. I kicked a little more to get it back into my legs, and took stock again. Energy in my legs. Nothing in my pelvis. Energy in my torso. I didn't really notice much beyond that, because the energy in my torso became my focus. I noticed again the energy around my heart chakra. This time, it made me sad. I got progressively sadder, as I paid more and more attention to it, exploring it. I couldn't let anything out or in with that energy there. It was a protective shield I was afraid to let down, but I could clearly feel that it cut me off from so much joy, so much love. I began to cry at that point, the towel still clutched tightly in my hands. Such a sad thing to be that closed off, such a sad thing to feel so afraid that such a shield would be put up in spite of the consequences. I spent some time doing this. About this time, blckwngdorcl came over to me. Again, he said that he didn't really know what to do, but he just wanted to be next to me, to support me. I was grateful. It was exactly the kind of support I was talking about earlier. Not taking sides - just speaking and acting from his heart in that moment. Did I mention I'm madly in love with this man, and so grateful he's in my life that it often brings me to tears? 'Cause, y'know, I totally am.

Anyway, after that tide of emotions ebbed away, I got to talking again. I started to get angry again. I was angry, 'cause most of the things that

lunenoire had accused me of, I saw in him, too. Sure, my financial situation was fucked, but I'd seen his be fucked up, too, just in the short time he'd lived here. I was selfish? I worked HARD to be this selfish, buddy. Sacrifices? Jesus fucking CHRIST, what more could I sacrifice than giving up sleep, time with those I love, and any semblance of a social life, in order to (almost) pay the fucking bills??? But, of course, there was the rub, right? He wanted me to make DIFFERENT sacrifices, sacrifices like giving up Core, so I wouldn't have to work so hard, so I could spend more time at home. With him, of course. So yeah, only the kind of sacrifices that would benefit him in the way he wanted were acceptable.

And then there was the cat issue. I'm selfish 'cause I put the cats over them, and our ability to easily find a good place to live. He's willing to make the sacrifice of giving his cat up in order to find a place to live.

Problem is, I think differently. Now, keep in mind, I've been there. I've had Loki on the table at the vet, having made an appointment to put her to sleep, because she was pissing all over the house, and I didn't think I could deal with it any longer. I am forever grateful that the vet offered me another alternative that I was previously unaware of. Truth is, I would have NEVER forgiven myself, but I had seriously weighed all the other options I had known of, and truly thought that out of all of them, putting her to sleep was the kindest of them. Anyway, for the record, I was there once. I am perhaps, conceited, thinking that my cats wouldn't be happy with anyone else. But the point is, they are living creatures.

THEY ARE *NOT* DISPOSABLE.

You wouldn't give your child away because the only houses you liked were ones that didn't accept children. And don't try to convince me there's a difference. I just don't believe there is. Remember, I've said before that I think when it all comes down to it, I'm the same as cats are the same as carrots are the same as cars are the same as carbon. All one. Of course, I don't live by that 100%. I prefer to be a vegetarian, really. It's sheer laziness and lack of funds that prevents it. And don't think I'll hesitate to deliver a quick death to any flying stinging insect that "threatens" me. But that's my ideal, my belief that I don't always live up to. So, for someone to put themselves on a pedestal above an animal, and say that an animal should be given away for what amounts to convenience is just anathema to me.

Yeah, I'm THAT kind of crazy animal-lover/crazy cat lady.

So, I'm venting about this, getting all pissed off, and blckwngdorcl quietly says, "How do you view adoption?"

Y'know, my first thought was that he meant his own daughter, how he and Sasha had given her away. I was immediately afraid he thought I was judging him (and her, for that matter) in that same light. I told him I didn't see what he did in that light, and that it wasn't convenience; they just couldn't take care of her, so they did the best thing for her. (Sacrificed for her, now that I think of it.)

"No," he said. "I meant Nano."

*blink* Nano?

My birth mother.

Oh. God.

I went numb. Completely numb. It took a careful examination of my own energy for me to finally recognize that I wasn't *completely* numb. Remember how I've said before that I typically don't actually feel anger? More like, I get a set of purely physiological sensations that I've come to learn is anger. Emotionally, I typically feel nothing. I have access to other emotions. Sadness, fear, love, etc.. But not fear.

This time, it was different. I was feeling a set a purely physiological responses, but I could tell that these "symptoms" didn't spell anger.

They spelled fear.

Fear that was apparently so terrifying, so paralyzing, so utterly incomprehensible to me, that I wouldn't even allow myself to feel it. In fact, it's very likely that if I hadn't been in that exact situation, under those exact circumstances, I wouldn't have recognized it at all. I would have been too distracted.

Still, I tried to fight it with logic. I reasoned that it wasn't the same thing. "She didn't want kids," blckwngdorcl persisted. "You were inconvenient."

"She tried to kill you."

Remember this post? The one about my meditation on being in the womb?

And this one? About how I've got more orality than I thought I had?

Y'know what causes fucking orality??? (For the detailed version, and a lot of extraneous information about me, see this post.) But the short version is...

*drum roll please, maestro*

Abandonment.

Caused by?

*drums still rolling*

Being rejected/abandoned/neglected as an infant. Which goes back as far back as the womb, apparently.

And Nano didn't want me. I was inconvenient.

I'm a little distanced from that moment in Pam's office right now. I'm back to the point where I can hold it at arm's length and do a little bit of analysis. I'm gonna try not to do that too much, though. Partially 'cause I don't wanna make it that easy for myself. Partially 'cause, to anyone besides me, it's probably so clear as to not require it.

But it does make so many things going on in my life right now so perfectly clear.

lunenoire has long triggered my abandonment issues. (I mentioned it, in fact, in one of the links, above.) He reminds me a great deal of logomancer who abandoned me. Now, for the record, he did it with many good intentions, and didn't really abandon me. But it felt like being abandoned. And hey, it would seem I've had an issue with that since before I was born.

And, hey, since I didn't take that gift horse the Universe gave me to work on that issue, it gave me another one in the form of lunenoire. One that didn't have all the baggage of high school. One that didn't know me back then, to cloud their vision of who I am now. (And am I really all that different, really?) One whose anger I can't blame on blood sugar, but have to learn to face head on (which just trips about a half-a-dozen other triggers of mine).

I always talk about the gifts the Universe gives us to work out our problems. I truly do believe that. Perhaps that's my version of the silver lining. But sometimes, when I'm in the middle of feeling angry, scared, hurt, whathaveyou, I lose sight of that. Sure, I pay lip service to it. I can verbalize that things have a purpose, and it all happens for a reason, etc.. But when I'm in crisis, I call these times (trademark waterfall_sh, I believe) Just Another Fucking Growth Experience. Later, like now, when I grok it, it becomes a Beautiful Problem (trademark Jac o' Core, I believe). I can see the gift the problem is. How it helps me learn and grow, if I choose to do so.

Which, actually, is what I was saying to lunenoire
later. One of the things that lunenoire said on Sunday, after having told me all the things (well... maybe not all...) that I did that made him crazy, he said that, in spite of all that, it wasn't a dealbreaker for him. I almost said, "For you." lunenoire asked why I didn't say that, if that's what I felt. I said partially 'cause it was just cruel. It was the most vicious cutting thing I could have said, even moreso because it would have been implied rather than stated. And also, because, underneath it all, I knew I was angry, and that I wasn't thinking with all the parts of myself, and that that fact would make anything I said in that moment a truth of the moment, but a Lie overall. It was just wrong, y'know? Even in that state, I could see it. I was waiting for this state. Where I can see what happened as a gift. A light at the end of the tunnel rather than a blockade. I knew that we were put together for a reason. I've said all along (and may have said in my post coming out as a triad) that I didn't know for sure if the 3 of us were meant to be together romantically or not, but I knew on a very deep level that we WERE meant to be together. And it's for just such things like this.

lunenoire, you are a gift to me. Never forget that. And I'll try not to.

logomancer, I've been entirely too long forgetting the gift you are, and always have been, to me. I'm learning to remember.

And I feel like every moment of my life for the past several months (years, perhaps, even) have led me to just this point, this moment of revelation. I told blckwngdorcl... well, I got distracted just now, and I don't remember what I told him. But the point is... I can see a cascade effect that led me to this, in the events that have shaped my life in the recent and not-so-recent past. And it's hard, but it's a good thing.

I think I had more to write, but I'm getting so tired, I can barely keep my eyes open. I think I got out what was important, at any rate.

Thank you, blckwngdorcl, for being my best gift, and thank you Pam, for having to leave us alone this morning.

It all worked out.

Comments

[bookofmirrors.livejournal.com]

Yeah, truly. And the stuff about my body is right on. That's what makes it easy for me to ignore the clear signals it sends me to move, exercise, eat right, etc..

*sigh* Layers upon layers upon layers.......

[elorie.livejournal.com]

I suggest doing something that will encourage you to be in your body...yoga, or belly dancing. And some good old-fashioned feminist-Witchcraft communion with the Goddess as Divine Feminine Archetype. Work on loving your woman-self via Goddess, and see where that gets you.