Note To Self. . .

My grandfather, Roy Shore, died October 6th, 2006.

I've been thinking a lot about my grandfather. It's been four years now since he died, and I am healthier,more whole than I ever have been, certainly I am so much more present today than I was for about a year after he died. I am getting  ready to move to the city where he and my grandmother started their family tree. It is because of those roots that I am thinking of this move as something of a pilgrimage, an oppurtunity to know more waht I am capeable of, and of where my family came from. When my grandparents lived in San Fran, they were young newly weds, my grandfather a capitan in the US army medical core. What was the city like then, I wonder. Where did they go to have fun? What did they do? What was life like then? What did my grandfather do every day? Some of this I know. Some of thiese questions I have asked my grandmother, who tells me in her sassy soprano about refusing to have her second baby, born exactly 1 year after the first, at that army hospital at the Presido. But so much of it I don't know.

So much of my grandfather's story, I don't know. I didn't find out until after his death about his service in politics, didn't know that he would practice medicine in Greeley in the morning and close his office in the afternoon to attend legislative  sessions. He would come back to see patients who paid him with elk meat they hunted. My mother was in middle school then. I wonder what she was like. She told me that she was playing lacross when she found out that he had been elected to the senate. After he died, we went to a ceremony at the state capital honoring him. They called him a perfect example of the citizen politican.

I didn't know him as the citizen politician. I knew a man who didn't really say much at family gatherings. My memories of my grandfather are of a benevolent man with red cheeks and blue eyes, who smelled like cinnamon and cigar smoke sitting at family gatherings. I have a few memories of conversations with my grandfather, stories of his travels with my grandmother after I returned from a month in Europe. I know too the stories my mother tells me about how my grandfather came and took her out for lunch after my father in a rather ill-advised moment broke up with my mother. I know how my father went to my grandfather and asked for permission to as for my mother's hand in marriage. I can see him in my minds eye in that moment, somewhat formidible, he was an army capitan after all, but there's good humor behind his eyes.

My grandfather authored and sponsored bills regarding organ and tissue donation. He apparently championed the rights of Latino people in terms of access to medical care. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we could talk about that, in my memory I write my grandfather as disturbingly conservative. He was. He was inCREDibly prolife, an avid Rush Limbaugh fan. I have no idea how my genetic lineage produced me.

Too, I think that I'll never know them, my family. I have these carictures in my mind, which are pale I'm sure in comparison to the actual human beings they represent. One of my big fears about moving is that I'll miss out on the time I have to flesh out these carictures, and my biggest fear about not moving is waking up in Boulder at the age of 40 and wondering who I am away from the cocoon of my family. My hope is that once I do move, I will be able to be more solid in my own fleshing out, and therefore more able to see my family for who they are.  

I've always been told I look like my dad, like the Mills side of the family, except for my blue eyes. My grandmother, and my mother will often comment how my eyes didn't change color like so many babies eyes do, not from the day I was born. And, they'll often comment how like my Grandpa Shore's eyes they are. I am grateful and angry, and I wonder.

Well, hello there, pretty!

I disappered off the face of the planet there for a minute, didn't I? Sorry about that. I think I've been avoiding writing a little bit because I'm not sure what to say. But, I'll give it a go, shall I? (Heh. What are you going to do? Yell through the computer at me, "NO EMILY! NOOOOO!" Because by then it'll be tooooo laaaaate)

So, I went to San Deigo. It was lovely in a really really complicated way. It couldn't be anything but complicated, I suppose, as we are always trying to figure out if we're best friends, or girlfriends, or lovers, or fuck buddies, and I suspect we're all of those things, depending on the day. But, it makes it really hard to find your footing, and I am reminded that the point of this thing I'm doing, this life, this practice, this way of relating, is to not be able to find your footing. There shouldn't be footing. Well, that's easy to write into the abyss of the interwebs, but when you're stomping down the street in a city you don't know, hoping like hell that coffee shop is still open because you don't know where else to go, and your best friend/lover/girlfriend/fuck buddy is back at the apartment having a much needed melt down and there is nothing you can do to soothe her, then it's much much harder to remember that you chose this.

Yeah. I mean, it was lovely and fun and easy and romantic and hard and complicated and nothing has really changed. Together we managed to move a queen sized bed up a very narrow flight of cement stairs, which  may mean that my long standing goal of becoming a handy dyke is coming closer to fruition. We joked about taking turns being the "butch one" (though neither of us is very butch) but we did fall into a nice pattern of giving space to each other's emotional experience. The truth is this: we love each other and we live 2000 miles away from each other and looking for any kind of resolution at this point is not going to get anybody anywhere.  And, back in the BCO, I miss her.

You may also be curious about why you haven't heard anything about football yet! C'mon! It's the end of the preseason! CU starts Big 12 play today! Where's all the Buffalo-y goodness??

Well friends, the answer to that question is simply, "I don't know." The Buffs are 4 and 1 going into Big 12 play. That one win came against the mighty Cowboys of the University of Wyoming. We lost miserably to . . .The University of Toledo Rockets. Toledo, friends. CU got beat, bad, by Toledo. And CSU. I don't even want to talk about it. I want to win 2 games a season; CSU and Nebraska. Now, best I can hope for is 50/50. Tonight's match up will pit the limping University of Colorado Buffaloes against the second ranked UT Longhorns. It's going to be a looooong game, I fear. Last time the Buffs met the Longhorns, the Buffs lost. At home. 70 to 3. So, you know. We'll see. If the Buffs can keep it under the 33 point spread, I'll be a happy camper.

It looks like I really really am moving to San Fran, and soon. I think my mother (yikes) is going to drive out with me, although lots of friends from the Poet, to the Canadian, to my Facebook husband all have rallied for the job. I haven't decided that my mom is the only one to go but whoever decides to come with us will have to be prepared for me to be a TOTAL basket case. And I'm trying to line up visits with friends for the first, few months, because I suspect I'll need the support. So, if you need a vacay to the Bay Area in the first months of 2010, let me know!

Well, my football team finally won a damn game! The Buffs, whom I had such high hopes for (honestly, that's nothing new; I think that every year is the year for my Buffs) started this season abysmally. Before today, we were 0 and 2, with losses to Colorado State (and boy howdy do I hatehatehate losing to the Rams. If CU wins only two games a season, I want them to be the CSU game and the NU game) and we lost to Toledo. Toledo. Does anybody know what the Toledo mascot is? I didn't before last week. Toledo? Seriously? CU had never played Toledo. Well. The University of Toledo Rockets kicked the University of Colorado Buffaloes all over the field. We lost. To Toledo. Badly.

Which may explain my elation about the Buffs shutting out the Wyoming Cowboys today. 90 seconds into the game, the Buffs had their first lead of the season, and they never gave it up. I have no idea how they actually played because, well, a win's a win's a win at this point. When you lose to Toledo, you don't get to be snobby about who you beat, and frankly, the Buffs face West Virgina (ouch) and Texas (ouch squared) on the road over the next three weeks. This is a team that's never played well on the road, and it's a team that despite a lot of raw talent, has really sputtered starting the season. We'll see. It's not at all unrealistic to think that this team will go into conference play at 1 and 4, with our only win over the team picked to finish last in the Mountain West conference.

Even if we'd lost today, it was still one of those days that I chose to stay an extra six months in Colorado for. It was hot and clear in Boulder today. Maybe because CU has had such a terrible start, the fans that were tailgating were mostly a congenial, friendly, (and sober) bunch. I got to hang out with my family and eat good food, and watch the first quarter of my team's first win (my boss of course scheduled me to work today, and there was just no getting around it. And, truthfully, if we were facing another Toledo situation, I'm not sure I wanted to stick around). But hell, you know, I got to watch some of the game. I got to listen to the rest on the radio. It's all OK.

And, I've been a pain in the ass schedule-wise lately, because in addition to wanting my weekends back (don't even get me started on that) I'm taking 3 days off to spend 5 days in California next week. I'm going to San Deigo Thursday night, and I can't wait. I'm giddy about it in a really interesting way. Stay tuned. Now, I have to leave work and head to a dive bar to celebrate a lovely friend's birthday (she's 25 and sometimes I feel like a letch).

I think, when we fall in love, we make some spoken, or unspoken agreements with our beloved.

I've been thinking a lot about this today; the Poet is in that awful break up stage where one person is hurting and the other relieved. Often both people are hurting and relieved, but one emotion is more prevelant than the other. She's feeling relieved and of course, feeling hearbroken because her ex is hurting. She said to me, "I never meant to hurt him! I'm just doing what I need to do!' And of course, she recognizes that by doing what she needs to do she is hurting him, though unintentionally.

I think when we fall in love, we consciously or unconsciously make agreements, and one of those is that I will risk getting really really hurt. I will take this leap because I love you, and I am willing to risk this ending badly, not lasting forever. Or, we say, I'll take this leap because I'm excited, and I'd rather feel that exhilarating feeling of falling in love, though it can end in heartache and kleenex mountains.

I don't know, or maybe this is just me, writing in a still fevered and possibly delusional state (I've had the flu and my temp has been about 100 for the past couple of days). Maybe some people can fall in love and rest in the security of it lasting forever. That's not my experience. My experience of being in love is laying in bed at the end of the day with my lover and thinking "thank you thank you thank you thank you for another day of this." And I had willingly gone headlong into relationships that made no sense because I was hopeful. Because I was excited. And I have stayed in relationships that were incredibly painful because I wanted that thing.

And when they've ended I've been heartbroken, shattered, bereft, devestated. I've felt betrayed and hurt, and broken after an intimate relationship ends. But I have been lucky in my life to have had lovers who never intentionally hurt me. I've been hurt, misused, taken for granted, but I am very clear about the fact that even when lovers I've had behaved badly, it was not because they were intentionally trying to hurt me.

I guess that's maybe another agreement about love. When I fall in love, I want for you to be so sure of yourself, and your journey. I want you to be committed to your own process. And it sucks when being committed to your process means that you have to leave me, or when honoring my journey means I have to leave you. But, if I love you, I want you to be happy, whole. And if our relationship is impeeding that, then, despite how awful it's going to feel, we've gotta end it.

It's not easy, or even possible in the beginning of the end to access any tenderness you once had for your beloved. Hell, sometimes it's tough years later to access any tenderness. But when I start to spin on stories about loves lost, I remember; I don't want to be in relationships where someone is required to "give their all" to be with me; I want love relationships to compliment, enhance, enrich my life, not define it.    

I've been sleeping better than I have in quite a while and for the last three nights, I have had troubling dreams, which is an odd dichotomy.

These dreams though not similar, do have a common thread. The first night, I dreamed that I was following someone through a dark, scary, ally way, where a woman had been brutally murdered. The next thing I remember for the dream is being at the entrance to that alleyway and trying all manner of evasive maneuvers to avoid going down it again. I fought against going down that dark street, trying passive ways, suggesting other routes, and trying to run a different way, and finally screaming that I would NOT GO THERE AGAIN.

The next night, I dreamed I was hanging out with some people I don't consciously know, and a guy who looked like a mix of my spiritual teacher, and my father. There was something about tattooing, but what I remember most is that my right leg was split open from knee to the top of my foot, along my shinbone. The cut was deep and painful, as I remember, this man, my spiritual teacher/dad combo cut my leg with what looked like a  hunting knife, all the way to the bone, and peeled the skin and flesh away from the bone. When it started to heal, it was sort of brown and gross looking, the guy said he had to do it again, and again, I tried nicely to say no, I tried to be passive about my no, but in the end, all that worked, was screaming, "NO! YOU CANNOT CUT MY LEG AGAIN!"

Then, last night, I dreamed that for some reason, I was going in front of a firing squad. I tried to talk my way out of it, to no avail, and I did wind up getting shot. Several times. But I lived! As I limped away from the wall, a person who looked like your typical 1920's silent movie era villian, tried to convince me to go in front of the firing squad again. Again? AGAIN?! You want me to go in front of the firing squad AGAIN?! What, do I look stupid? I didn't even fool with passive methods of saying no last night, I screamed at the villian looking guy, bleeding from my bullet wounds, and yelling. Actually, it was a little cool. Here I am this sort of Kali-esque figure, yelling and bleeding and not taking any shit, but goddamn. Why?

Well. I took my ass to a cushion this morning. I mean, I intended to, anyway. I have today and tomorrow off, and all kinds of scheduling wonkiness in the coming weeks, and I'm trying to maintain as regular of a practice as I can. So, I got up and showered and went to the Shambahala Center and I sat. And I left to get coffee, work on some stuff for work, and it occurred to me.

It is perhaps worth noting that the Poet and I are changing the will they/won't they tempo of our relationship. She's moving out of her apartment, having ended her long-term relationship. And I'm going out there on the 24th. Which doesn't necessarily mean anything, other than she wants me to be there while she figures out living on her own after almost three years of co-habitation. Which is not to say that I'm flying to California for a booty call, which has been suggested to me by well-meaning friends. Which is also not to say that there isn't expectation/optimisim on both sides of being more free to explore whatever energy comes up with the two of us.

But, it seems as though my subconscious is freaking out a little bit. The Poet, as dearly as I love her, and I do love her, has hurt me blazingly in the past. And I am flying out to San Deigo when it is safe to say that neither of us will be at our most rational, or forward thinking.  And it seems, when looking at the progression of my dreams, that I have to be really grounded in my ability to say, "no", and to be really clear about what it is that I want and need. The Poet is still "unfinished business" for me, and I don't know that I'll ever feel really resolved about her. I don't know that I won't either. What I do know, is that I want to go to California and spend five days with her. I know that I feel giddy about her, and that hasn't really changed in the last five years.

So, we'll see. But stay tuned to see if identifying this message will mean that I get an ease up from these dreams. . .  

It's a gorgeous day in Boulder to be sitting in a coffee shop on Pearl Street. There's a Bernease Mountain puppy named Atlas flirting with me. Well, either flirting with me, or the patch of sunshine on the floor next to me. Either way, he want to sleep right next to my bench, a fact which makes me very happy.

I am trying to store up as much joy as I can, knowing I have to go to work this afternoon, and I'm not so excited about it. I'm working with a woman who is more insistant about rigorous communication than I am, which is to say, sometimes I want to shout at her "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY! STOP!" when she wants to talk to me. About her feelings. Again. She's new, and seems to be having a rough start at the job. She speaks Naropa, which can sound like talking down to you, if you speak Colfax Crack Addict and I am not sure how to give the feedback that her communication style is actually hindering her ability to communicate with our client. It has been made intensely clear to me that I am not in a position to give that kind of feedback. So, I bite the inside of my cheek, and remember: four more months.

And, friends, can I tell you how excited I am about school, about San Fransisco? Sitting here in this coffee shop this morning, I want to find the syllibi for classes that I will be taking in January, I want to drool over the book lists. I have romantic ideas about me, and my graduate school experience; I am fantasizing right now about sitting in some San Fransiscan coffee shop, with my textbooks and a highlighter, spending happy hours completing required readings, and outlining papers, before an evening of meaningful interaction with all the friends I am sure I will make at school and in California.

insert long pause here, for fleshing out of fantasy, coming back to reality and laughing.

I know. Right? I'm ridiculous. It's so fucking cute, how idealized I have already made this experience. I know that fifteen minutes into it, when I get lost on the BART and wind up in some neighborhood that I have no business being in, and have no idea how to find my way to wherever I'm going, I will start fantasizing about good ole Boulder, and how I knew how to do life, there. Probably, that fantasy will be complete with a tearful phone call to some of my Colorado comrades, and hopefully they will remind me about how antsy I feel right now, and how anything worth doing takes effort and goddamn it Emily, woman up and do it, already. Nothing is ideal all of the time.

Nothing is ideal all of the time. Not Boulder, not San Fransisco, not being in love, not being single, not academia, not practical work.I am making the right decision. I don't know what decision that is, but I know that to feel the tension between these what seem often to be polar opposites is the right decision. I also know, somewhere, that I am not paralyzed by this tension. Today, I am not so afraid of making the wrong decision that I fail to make any decision at all. Sometimes I stutter, verbally, in my action, sometimes I am afraid of what has to be done. But. I'm doing it.

Fuckin' A.

Oh my god, internets, my life is so many kinds of intense and crazy these days.

I've been writing like a fiend and I daresay that some of what I'm writing is actually good. But not ready for anyone to see it, yet. I'm getting sick of playing The Sims; odd, I know, and so, what I've been doing to occupy my time, is write. It's an odd place to be; I don't have as much of an oppurtunity to sit around watching movies, or DVDs, and my place of residence doesn't allow me access to the internet, and so I'm writing.

My job is driving me crazy, and my inability to make plans for the next month is also frusterating, but the less said about that, the better. I've told the stories so many times that they're starting to sound stale to my own ear.

I'm not sleeping well. Which is usually an indicator that I'm not doing well, though I don't feel that way now. I feel upended, like I'm not quite sure what to expect in any give moment. Part of it is the work schedule; instead of days I'm working 3 to 11 Saturday through Wednesday, and on my days off, I feel a little bit lost, and part of it is that I'm just, transitioning into the fact that I am moving in four months. I hope this doesn't continue for the next four month, though.

Football is about to start; and friends, can I just say I am as excited about it as a little kid, waiting for Christmas morning (maybe that has something to do with my trouble sleeping)? Because I am. I'm wearing my CU gear and so ready to get this thing started. I got to chat with the Buff's offensive coordinator, who was a delightful fellow and from that point it was on. I keep waking up going. "is it Sunday yet?" I was on the phone with the Poet the other night, talking about how excited I am about football season, and she totally tuned me out. I heard "mmmhm, yeah! Football!" which, I, dumbass that I am, took as an invitation to keep on prattering on; and then I said, "Wait, you totally just tuned me out, didn't you." It took just a split second for her to laugh and admit that she did indeed. I can't blame her; I'm a little single minded when I get started on that topic.

While we're speaking of the Poet; I'm headed out to San Diego soon. My relationship with her is confusing and lovely, and has, of late, only become more of both.

I've been thinking a lot about this phenomenon called "compersion," which is a snobby word that I became familiar with in polyamorous circles to refer to the experience of being happy to see your lover happy with/excited about another lover. Conceptually, it goes completely against what I've picked up from my culture about relationship. If you and I are in an intimate relationship, and you're excited about someone else, I'm supposed to be jealous. I'm supposed to cry and throw things and demand that we talk about what's wrong with "us", because clearly, if you're getting all hot and bothered about someone else it means that you're not really that into me, that you're running away, that I'm not that hot/sexy/smart, whatever the most pertinent story at that moment happens to be, and I should clearly throw a big fit about it, because it means I'm losing you. It means that if you're into someone else, I should be jealous.

I get that. I've been there. In my last relationship, my then-girlfriend spent the entirety of our relationship going around and around with another woman, who I would up leaving over. You want to talk about wicked awful jealousy? I cannot even describe to you the gut ripping feeling I got when she was talking about this other woman, while laying in bed with me, after we'd just had sex, or the incredible negative spin I went into when she spent two hours on the phone with this woman, while I was just. . .there, at her apartment, no car, no way to leave. Oh christ was I jealous. Worse than that I felt terrible about my worth in this woman's life. I felt awful. Like garbage. And I kept putting myself in the situation to be treated badly. My ex's actions are barely relevant -- she was doing what she needed to do on her journey. But, what is relevant, is that I kept subjecting myself to it, that I had some twisted notion that this kind of love is what I deserved. Uh uh. Wrong. Needless to say, it was very difficult to access any kind of happiness about their connection.

When I dated the Poet, she was dating someone else. I was completely aware of that when we started dating. But, I didn't know the identity of this someone else, and she was pretty adament about keeping it that way. When another mutual acquaintence spilled the beans, I was a green-eyed monster for quite some time. I made this other woman out to be sexier, smarter, more artistic, more alternative, more exciting than me. She became everything that I wasn't; cool, detached, great in bed, et cetera ad nasuem. Well, years later, I met this woman, who at this point, I am connected to on the chart at a couple of junctures, and of course that wasn't the case. She is incredibly different from me, but she isn't the brilliant sex kitten/perfect lover that I had made her up to be in my mind, because I was so fucking jealous.

I get it, the jealousy thing.

But, then, I had coffee recently with an ex who is getting married in a couple of weeks. We had a troubled, tumultous, relationship, one that was monogamous in name only, one where we did some really awful things to each other. We've managed to work with those awful things, and we're good friends, now. So, having coffee with this ex, she understandably talked quite a lot about her financee. And. It. Was. Amazing. Here's this woman who dated me, but was SO closeted, so full of self-loathing and reeling from the impact of a lifetime of trauma, a woman who couldn't respond to me at all when she was upset or triggered, with whom an argument was not even remotely a possibility, years later happy. Grounded. In what sounds like is a very health relationship with a woman. She's out to her friends, family, co-workers. In the recent past, I've had some trouble with that, sort of a "why couldn't I do that for her?" kind of response. But this last time, I left with my heart feeling so light, so open, so happy, simply because here was a human that I loved that has found someone that she's willing to take risks for, argue with, be vulnerable to. It wasn't me, because it wasn't, because neither of us was ready for that, and I am so freaking happy for her.

The Poet and I continue to work with our continued sexual energy, and desire, while respecting the terms of her relationship with her man-friend. And, he and I are good friends. There's no hiding; it's not like he doesn't know about the tension/possibility that exist with the Poet and me, but, he trusts both of us, or so it seems right now. And the fact that he is so committed to the Poet makes me feel secure and happy. I do have to work with some difficulty when their relationship is rocky, but because of the history of the three of us working so well together is there, it's relatively easy for me to recognize my story and let them deal with their dynamic, and commit to just loving both of them.

Most recently, I've had a major crush/breif flirtation with a good friend, who was (for a minute) exploring the possibility of opening up her relationship. I'm wickedly attracted to this woman, and I completely respect her decision to keep the terms of her relationship monogamous. And I love and respect her partner, but there have been some moments where I've experienced some jealousy, or made stupid judgements about their relationship. My fear of not being loved enough, or pain over not being "chosen" have really gotten activated in this scenario.  But mostly, my respect for both of them, makes it really easy to see how much they love each other, and how hard they're working to make their relationship work, and I am grateful for the oppurtunity to witness two people who want/are willing to work for their relationship, and I'm happy that kind of love exists, and I'm still crushed out. That's real, too.

What I'm realizing is that my jealousy is often secondary to sadness, greif, fear, and when I look at those emotions, they dissolve. What I feel about my soon-to-be married ex, the Poet, my crush, and their relationships is complicated, layered, but at it's core, it's easy to access compassion, and love and humor for all of them.When I think about the times I've had difficulty accessing compersion, it's been about my own shit, and bad practice of polyamorous relationships. Of course I'm going to have feelings about being neglected/taken for granted for another. Of course I'm going to assume that your other girlfriend is perfect and I am not, especially when we know nothing about one another. It has been easiest for me to access that glowy feeling of happy when I know the partner in question, when I am sitting solidly in my own skin, and I know that the other person isn't a godlike creature. When I can feel my connection to everyone in the situation, it's almost humorously easy to get to that place of love. And, of course, there is going to be hurt in relationship. It's unavoidable.

But those experiences of hurt, while terrible, are not my primary experience. There's something more complex, something richer. There is bitterness and sadness and judgement, but there is also this incredible, unfolding joy, and gratitude, and a sense of home, of family, of goodness. That richness, and complexity, and the oppurtunity to see my own story so clearly is why I continue to choose to make relationships like I do.   

It's funny to me how things you never intended get embedded in an experience. For example: I listened to Ingrid Michalson's album, Girls and Boys a lot when I was healing from my last heartbreak. Not because it was especially relevant, or involved in the hearbreak itself, but because it was sort of poppy and not especially involved at the time (ie, I could listen to it and not think of the woman that had broken my heart.) Now, when I come across it on my itunes, it strikes me as an incredibly melencholy album, and I don't think it actually is.

This has been the weirdest summer in Colorado weather-wise. I'm sitting at a coffee shop, drinking terrible coffee, but the sandwich I'm eating is good. Even though the coffee is bad, the music is like they're taking it from my ipod. Earlier, it was Cat Power, I Found a Reason, now, Tegan and Sara, Where Does the Good Go. Love it.

I understand the sentiment, "rolling thunder," as the state of the weather is grey, overcast, rainy, thunder, lighting, and the thunder seems to roll from one sound to the next, rather than clap. It's almost a murmur. It's the middle of the day, but the lights have to be on, because of the lack of sunshine, and the girl behind the counter looks so familiar. I can't quite place her, though and am not comitted enough to ask her how we know each other.  I'm happy to be sititng with headphones and my computer, clearly not open for any kind of socialization at this moment. I'm happy to have people around, and not have to interact with them. My roommate is in China, and I've been working a shift that's not terribly conducive to socializing, though, I really need the social contact right now.

"Why is that?" you may ask. "well," I would reply, "well, there's been some stuff going on that has me wickedly triggered right now." The long and the short of it is that I am the unfortunate object of someone else's projection, and I'm being shown in no uncertain terms where I'm holding old stories about survivors, about queer people.

Once upon a time, 13 year old Emily went to "therapy", where she was told that people with "unnatural attraction" molest children. They're unhappy. They will never have fulfilling relationships. Just so you know, young, impressionable, sad, scared Emily. That's what's on the horizon, if you don't date/fuck/love boys of the opposite sex. Not to worry, little darling. We'll teach you how to fake it  til you make it. And though it was never talked about, Emily could draw her own conculsions about people who had unnatural desires, and ones who had been molested (raped) themselves. She knew what no one was saying. She was pretty much doomed.  

Well. Fast forward 14 years. Emily has faced a lot of demons and is relatively comfortable in her own skin these days. And as much as she would like to deny it, she still struggles with those old voices sometimes. Though it's less and less common it still happens, and when it does, she (I) looks for the mark of the beast, that thing that gives me away as a damaged creature, a monster who works so hard to be good, because if she doesn't, that monster will certainly ruin everything. I'm trying really hard to help the logical and emotional sides of my brain connect, because the logical side knows that this is simply internalized oppression and trauma talking. But the emotional side isn't responding so well to all of that. Don't get me wrong. I'll keep working with it. And I'm sort of awesome for handling all of this as well as I have. And, sometimes, I still want to just curl up and quit.