The slightest bit of passing encouragement has done it’s job, I’m back. In what I hope turns out to be short order, here’s an update:

Homicide Adjacent

Aggressor is still alive. They still call here, and it has been an grim lesson in how abusive relationships work; there are decades of prior relationship with Aggressor, and the white hot horror of what they did would seem to surely burn that relationship to smithereens.

And it has.

But there is also this creep of banality, so that when they call with a pitiful question like, “Where is Victim?” (Dead, you killed them) “Why did they leave me?” (Not by choice, asshole) “Can I go back home, because I know Victim is secretly living there without me?”

There comes this pull of all those decades in which you thought this person was maybe an asshole, but not by any means a murderous one, and all those sympathetic ties that were part of a longstanding fundamental relationship are still there.

You begin to wonder if maybe Aggressor could go over to the house and once they returned there, would remember they are a murdering asshole. Or you begin to wonder if maybe they really are lost in such a state of mental confusion that it is cruel to treat them as if they were cold blooded murderers when in fact, maybe they are lost in their own minds.

And then they call just to talk, and there is such a relief to have that old, stable relationship present as so normal. You hate that you feel this way, but you can’t quite hang up, because there are decades of familiarity in this conversation.

So maybe you seethe and keep your comments short and factual to the point of horrendous rudeness, but you don’t hang up.

Because Victim is not around to keep their horror fresh. It was a one time thing, and as abhorrent as it was, there is still this profoundly troubling process in your mind that wants to lull you back into the old relationship, because if you give in to insisting Aggressor is a murderer, it does lots of good on your side too: you can start wallpapering over the fact that this terrible thing happened. You can start forgetting the pain of losing Victim. If you agree, we can all pretend this horrible thing never happened.

This makes you a co-conspirator with a murderer, profoundly on the wrong side of everything. But it is so peaceful and familiar over there on the side of the lie.

It makes it easy to see how hard it is for victims everywhere.

For the vast majority of the time, we stay over here in the Land of What Really Happened. But those moment when we find ourselves slipping over the line, it’s quite guilt inducing and horrible.

Probably related if you put on your shrink hat but in the real world not directly related, more probably related to that cursed sourdough starter fad

That there is my current weight in the title. Hello, I’m 5’4”. I’m not here for comparisons or body shaming. You do you in your body however you like, but this is heavier than I’ve ever been, even during that month in pregnancy when the book is like, “You’ll gain a pound a week at this stage” and you’re like “the fuck I will” but then you gain two pounds a week and the nurse checks your stats.

Maybe related to the homicide adjacent, but I am in so much denial! I’m like, damn, I look pretty good.

Also: Huh, I’ve started snoring, that’s weird.

Also: I can’t quite tie my own shoes anymore. What up with that?

Also: Why can’t I jog anymore? Do I have Covid? Because I can’t breathe!!

Also, and this is the god’s honest truth: Fucking dryer is shrinking my panties. This is the only feasible reason for them to roll down when I bend over.

It wasn’t until I went in for a routine check-in that I got weighed. Even then? My skills at denial were like: Nah man, I was wearing really heavy clothes. Although I distinctly remember putting my purse down, I was probably actually holding it’s psychic weight.

So two months later I got checked again and FUCK. I am 206 pounds. Even that time, I had to talk myself into it, like, “What are the odds that scale is busted twice?”

Anyway, this is my new project now. My insurance happens to cover wellness weight loss for free (or at least not for any more than I’m already paying) and I’m going to try it. Not promising to be any more reliable than I have previously on this blog, but weight seems at least like something I could reliably talk about without disassociating out of my own body due to stress.

PS! Did you think Covid was over? Because my kids went back for their second week this week, and already Band practice has been cancelled due to more than half of the kids being out sick. Fuckfuckfuck.

Not even three minutes of spell check nor two minutes of proofreading will stop me from posting this. Enjoy it, suckas.