#ghostee speaks

[ghxstee]

Post Cinco

Apologies, I will finish the rest of the last story at some other point. However, I need to take a bit of a break from that to talk about something else for a bit. Mostly, because I’m just sitting here thinking about it. 

The Holiday season is always difficult. Not sure 100% why, but I have my speculations. I am over 1,000 miles away from the family I grew up with so I don’t really celebrate holiday’s. I see my dad for the holiday’s sometimes. I can’t quite remember if I’ve explained that before I moved away from my shitty hometown 4 years ago, I only had met my dad a handful of times. I don’t really remember meeting my dad until I was five years old. The other points I had met him was when I was about one or two, and I have no recollection of those meetings with my dad. 

I remember the first time I met him very well, I remember feeling so overjoyed. Although, I really didn’t notice I didn’t have a dad until some kid in the first grade asked me what he did for a living. Not really thinking about it, I told him he was dead and shrugged it off. And the other first grader seemed really freaked out. I was pretty indifferent to the concept at first. 

Since then I had started asking a lot of questions about my dad. I would ask my great grandma every night a variety of questions. Ranging from what he looked like, to what he did. To where he was. Who he was. And all of a sudden, I felt really weird not knowing these things.

I’m not sure if my great grandma started relaying all of my endless questions to my Pop-pop (that’s what I always called my grandpa growing up), or if maybe it was the fact that he was only given a year left to live that made him seek out my father. But shortly after, my mom got in contact with my father. I met him at a Denny’s on the edge of my hometown. 

I remember when I met my dad. He smelt very clean, and he was very clean cut. My Dad was a fairly attractive younger man, in his early 20′s. Brown eyes, brown hair, and tan. Very opposite of me, who was blue eyed, blonde, pale, and freckled. But we were both very lanky and slender in build. 

He handed me a book by the name of ‘The Giving Tree’, it was a children’s book by Shel Silverstein. He told me it was his favorite book when he was younger. I immediately loved it because it was my favorite color. 

He asked me what I wanted to do for the day, and I was dead set on going to Legoland. I remember him saying we could do whatever I wanted, but somehow that was not the case and Sea World was predetermined. 

For some reason Sea World didn’t pan out, and we ended up going to an amusement park practically right across the street it seemed. 

I have so many fond memories from that day, and it’s funny because my dad was never around and I think I’ve spent less time resenting him than I have my mother. Maybe because he wasn’t around enough to cause any damage like my mom had. And sometimes I wonder if it would be different if he and my mother switched roles. 

[ghxstee]

Post Numero Tres

Tonight I find myself in the apartment alone. Nights like these are always weird. As I explained previously, I grew up in a large family. Outside of the fact my Grandparents from my Mother’s side had seven children, my parents did not give me a short supply of siblings either.

My father and mother never had more children together. I was the only spawn from the two of them. However my Mom had four other children, and my father two. 

I never knew what it was like to have an entire space to myself overnight until recent years. Even at that, that was a rare exception. For the most part there’s always someone around. It’s very rare to get nights like these, and not that I’m complaining. Simply put, they just feel weird. 

So I find myself alone in this empty apartment wondering what to even do with myself. 

Outside of all of this, I’ve been caught up in other earlier trauma’s. 

I anticipated that this blog would make it easier talking about the things that really spiraled my PTSD into motion. The first series of events particularly, as that is the hardest experience of my life to put into words. 

I thought that maybe typing would be the loophole on discussing these things, thinking that the verbalization of such events was the struggle point. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Instead, undoing all the sticky entanglement of trauma no matter the method, is still difficult. 

It feels (metaphorically speaking) like pulling glass shards out of my brain with tweezers. A very sensitive and precise procedure. If I pull the wrong shard at the wrong time, I feel I could leave myself just as damaged or more so, than if I just left the glass to begin with. 

I’ve been trying to start small, but I almost feel like I’m dancing around and avoiding the bigger, heavier subjects. The ones that make my voice feel small, and my throat close up. The parts that leave my tongue heavy and paralyzed in my mouth. 

These are words I haven’t even been able to say to Liebe, there are experiences that I keep trapped in myself because letting them out feels like opening up Pandora’s box for the world to see. 

These very specific occurrences make me feel embarrassed, ashamed, disgusted with myself, and broken. But the hardest part, is that I don’t know where to start. 

Do I start at the furthest point in my memory? Do I describe it all from the start as if my life was a book meant to be read from beginning to end? I’m unsure. 

[ghxstee]

Day one;

The best place to start I suppose, set the scene for my current life. Currently, I live in an apartment with my significant other and my roommate, as well as four cats. It’s a fuckton of cats, I’m not going to lie. However, I’ve learned to love and appreciate each and every one of them. Starting out I should admit that I am partially a crazy cat lady.

I never anticipated on having four cats, it just happened. My boyfriend had two cats and I had two cats. And neither of us were about to give up our babies. For the sake of anonymity, we shall call him Liebe. German for “Love”.

Anyways, our relationship started out rough. I was in the tail end of a relationship I had no desire to be in, but struggled to admit to myself when I met Liebe. I had seen him around the place that we worked often. All the time actually. I couldn’t help but notice as I felt an instintaneous attraction that I can only explain as love at first sight. As lame as that sounds, I truly do believe it and admittedly one part of me eats shit like that up and the other part of me is extremely skeptical. But I think that’s due to my own jaded perception of love after the first handful of relationships I had gone through.

I saw Liebe around work, and for the sake of the story let’s say we worked at a Sadness Factory. Everything about that job made me feel quite hopeless.

Liebe was always around the Sadness Factory it seemed pretty similarly to the same schedule I happened to be there. I would see him regularly and the days I didn’t, I noticed. However, a part of me felt truly guilty as I found him to be completely stunning and felt an unnatural draw to him the moment I saw him, all the while being in a relationship. We will refer to my ex as, Control. And as I continue to explain my story, you will understand why.

I never confronted Liebe when I would see him. To be honest, I was really unsure of how to act because I had never faced an attraction like the one I had to him. The entire situation seemed terrifying and like the perfect opportunity to make myself look like a complete fool.

And holy shit, let me tell you how right I was about that.

Besides, I was in a relationship already and I felt whatever form of relationship that blossomed between Liebe and I, would be inappropriate and disrespectful to the one I was currently in.

One day after work, being the perfect little worker bee I am, I went up to my bosses desk to check on how well I was performing at the Sadness Factory. I needed to make sure I was keeping my job happy, even if it wasn’t really keeping me happy.

My former boss and I were also particularly close and she was a wonderful human, and sitting and talking with her was always a pleasure. So I sat at her desk and shot the shit for a bit, before Liebe showed up at her desk. My internal panic set in.

I was faced with this situation where this guy I already had some inappropriate draw to was standing right in front of me. He discussed a few things with my former overlord and she got up to leave shortly after. Leaving me. With Liebe. Alone to make awkward conversation, that I was absolutely terrified of initiating in the first place based off the mere fact the situation at hand was completely foreign territory for me.

He was sweet, quiet, slightly reserved, and shy. Admittedly it was really hard to just try and act natural. Although those words became my mantra in the first five seconds of being presented with this situation.

Act natural. Act natural. Act natural.

And then the words and concept became foreign to me all in one breath. I was faced with this absolute cutie, hazel eyes. Thick rimmed glasses, a full beard. A few inches taller than me, standing at 5’9. High cheek bones, narrow nose, and three facial piercings. A face I truly wanted to spend hours studying, wondering if I would ever catch a flaw in it. A full sleeve, and his other arm being slightly lesser full of tattoos. In my frenzy of being overwhelmed by how taken I was by this stranger, I lost my mind completely. My brain was running in circles trying to make conversation. In my panic, I brought up the easiest possible thing to discuss. Tattoos! His tattoos! The saving grace to my conversation.

Nope. I was wrong. Terribly wrong.

In my panicked state, I reached down and grabbed his arm and exclaimed “Ooh tattoos!” Like a very observant five year old. That’s when the party really started and the real panic set in.

A quick piece of background, but I am very big on personal space. Particularly touching without consent. As a lot of my trauma is derived from being touched inappropriately, without my consent.

My eyes expanded to the size of plates, and my heart beat picked up rapidly.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to just touch you. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t typically invade someone’s space like that. Especially just because of tattoos because I know how annoying that is. I’m so sorry.”

Oh. I fucked this up for sure. Breaking into someone’s personal space like I had the right within five minutes of meeting them. And then the classic panic sorry. I was super fucked for sure. This guy probably thought I was weird, and there was 100% no way he was interested in me at that point.

He reassured me I was fine, and he was gentle and kind about it. I remember the small smile he gave me, and I remember how I still felt awkward and silly but I could tell that he truly wasn’t bothered. Which put me at a little more ease.

I still continued to make a fool out of myself throughout the rest of the conversation I’m sure, but I don’t really remember the rest of it. I remember pointing out my boyfriend who also worked at the Sadness Factory as to not give the wrong impression. To keep myself out of trouble and to avoid a potential fight later that evening with a Control. I was mostly stuck on the awkward interaction and the fact I completely blew any form of this guy thinking I was even remotely cool.

Which in itself felt problematic again, considering I was already in a relationship. So it shouldn’t have mattered that much.

It also shouldn’t have given me butterflies in my stomach when I received the friend request on Facebook shortly after.

Anyways, the main point of this post tonight is that I often end up upset with my significant other. Liebe gets on my nerves sometimes, not because he’s a bad guy. Not because he treats me poorly. Mostly due to my own extremely unreasonable expectations of the poor man. Tonight’s no exception. And lately it’s been more difficult to find the minimal patience I had to begin with, which is also no fault of Liebe’s.

Sometimes it just helps to remember those details of our relationship, and then think to where we are now. Things have gone so far and the beginning was so hard. And I will continue to disclose the details of our relationship throughout all of this, and how it’s continued. How it’s helped me grow. How I’ve watched him grow. How incredibly proud I am of this person. But nights like these I remember back to the beginning. I recap the entirety of our relationship, and I remind myself I am fortunate. Because I am. I’m a pain in the ass and this guy sticks through it all with me and helps me figure it out.

He apologizes. He works on himself. He compromises. He supports me. And most importantly I know he loves me at the end of the day. And if I were left with one person by my side, I know it would be him.