That elephant has been in the room so long....

....it's turned into a damn skeleton.  And trust me, if you've seen what elephant skeletons look like you agree with me that they are the freakiest of the skeletons in the animal kingdom.  No holds bar even.

I'm going to dive head first into something here, that's been bugging me for awhile.  It cropped up, maybe a week ago.  It reminded me of a lot of anger I had, and still have in some small chunk that is chained up in a corner and that gets periodically taken out to do some serious exercise so that it keeps losing weight.  It's a little known demon of mine, that I've been working on starving to death.  However, when you know these kind of demons like I do... you know they take forever to die.

Well start with the friends conversation (and darling, I know you'll probably look this over, if you beat yourself up over having caused me some pain, I'm going to hex your computer again. I've been needing to nail this to the wall for awhile now). He messaged me on facebook and launched himself in a massive apology.  He'd been going over old photos from when I used to Science Fiction/Fantasy cons (Hey I've been a geek girl for a long ass time!) and started to compare the pics of me to pics of me now.

I thought he was going to weep.  He finally noticed, after 4ish years.... how sick I had been.  I was in hell,

This is only one of two pics I have from
the con he was talking about.  

and thought I was hiding well enough to where no one was going to be to notice.  This picture was one of only two and the other one has a couple of things in it that if I ever find those items, they'll be smashed with a sledgehammer and burned promptly afterwards.  (And yes, that's a turquoise duct tape corset. I SAID this was a geek event, k?)

This was back in late 2009 I think.  I was still involved with a dipshit, that I'm only just able to even admit to myself that I was nothing more than a bed warmer and...well, yeah.  I'll let you choose a word.  He was smart enough to never lay a hand on me and never did much in public besides tolerate me.  In private, he was an incredibly fucked up individual.  And that, is as far as I'm going when it's about him.  Pictures of me from 2010 are probably just as bad.  I try to avoid looking at them honestly.

This friend... has been the only person to notice and then say something to me about it.  THE ONLY DAMN ONE!  I was balling my eyes out.  He had

Me and the fiance finally had our first cookout here in the
past month.  Bout damn time too.

noticed the difference finally.... out how many folks that claimed to be my friends?  It was surreal at how much it felt like I had just lost some kind of burden.  Yeah, that's me.  I'm a rather thin individual (and for those of you want to say too thin, go fuck yourself.  Genetics can and does play a huge role it.) but even my mom I think has noticed that I'm happier.

Salt Wash Utah area, from along the I-70 (IIRC).

That tends to happen when you have a good partner.  One that you don't try and change.  That you leave alone and respect them, respect their choices in job (as best you can, there are times some of his work is absolutely infuriating, but I'm doing my best to not nag him over it.  Do I fail? I think I do sometimes.)

It wasn't until about January 2012, when I finally got out of that last funk of depression that I start seriously looking at several of my relationships (as plural as in friends not just romantic).  HOLY FUCK!  I was friends with some highly abusive folks.  I looked at myself and saw where my own faults and things that I hadn't taken care of yet, had attracted that kind of low quality person.

I'd like to think I have shaken all the folks that weren't good for me at this point.  Maybe some of them found they didn't feel like we were compatible as friends anymore, I don't know.  I stopped talking to a massive chunk of the folks I used to hang out, shoved them away.  And I've done my best to keep it cordial and friendly at times, and yet again here, I admit there's been failures at this. I haven't had any kind of abusive relationship with anyone in about 2 years now.  Most folks will not understand how huge that is, but the Fiance knows and I know, and that's good enough for me.

Another part of the anger that got pulled up has been this whole bruhahaha over MZB, author and turns out according to her daughter finally being able to talk about, child rapist.

... I greatly enjoyed Mists of Avalon, I will admit that but there is a serious reluctance now to read anymore of her own books.  The reports of her activities have come out a time when I've been finding myself forced to deal with another unsavory fact about my own life again.

I'll keep it short: the church I grew up in, had a problem with some of the teenagers molesting and being sexually active with many of the younger kids.  I'm talking three, four five years of age.  And that didn't stop just because the kids got older.  These teens had in turn, probably been molested by teens when they been at that age.  I never really said anything to anyone, but I thought it was also normal.  (shudder)
A few weeks ago, I find out such things are not isolated incidences. They are pandemic apparently.  It was weird feeling relieved that I was not the only one.

"Damnit Evelyn, can't you catch a break?"

I did. Two years ago.  There's a lot more work to be done.  I want to have kids someday AND there's a part of me going "Look at this!  Fuck you evil pieces of shit!  Look at me, being a mom and not taking my past out on my kids.  Look at me using my past lessons, keep them from getting hurt like I did.  I am doing and I'm going to keep doing it!"

All right Anger demon, back in your chains in the corner.  I do believe you've lost a good several pounds.