The Avalanche

There's been a lot swirling in my head of late, so I'm jumping into this post stream of consciousness style in the hope that I can make sense of things and get it out into the universe. Join me, won't you?

It's funny how some years can be fairly uneventful and others can be an avalanche, for better or for worse. A lot happened in 2017 and 2018 is apparently trying to beat that record. 2017 was high and low. When the country gained a megalomaniacal would-be despot, I gained a fiance. I branched out to coordinating weddings (on top of my corporate event planning) and booked more photoshoots than I ever had before, while also trying to make time for protests and calls to my representatives and dedicate a portion of my bank account to great causes while also trying to save for a wedding.

I started getting serious back pain (which is still an ongoing issue) and some lovely panic attacks for good measure. By year's end, I had worked my brain into such anxiety that I finally got myself back into therapy, because, as I've finally realized, my past trauma will be a life-long companion and I'll never be a completely anxiety-free person. I can only learn how to cope with it.

Oh joy.

But therapy, as I've often said, is wonderful. And I'm so glad I have someone to talk to every other week who is paid to help me make sense of things and teach me mindfulness and grounding and help me find breakthroughs that continue to teach me about myself.

I really thought I'd talk more about politics in that room, as the dumpster fire of America takes up a significant portion of my thoughts, but of course we mostly talk about my abusive childhood, my adoption, and other traumas, of which there seem to be an inordinate amount. I attract trauma like a magnet and I'm starting to think that the more trauma you survive, the more of it finds you. Ideas like that make me glad I believe in chaos and not destiny, because what kind of fucked up destiny puts so many people through so much shit while favoring the worst of us?

I prefer the chaos, the shit happens version of the universe. It's comforting. Shit happens and there's no big reason why and we either survive it or we don't. That sounds cold and scary, but I find a puppetmaster scarier.

Still, I was glad I was already in therapy when #MeToo took off as I had a place to unpack the revisiting of the repeated assaults with a professional. One's lovers and friends can only do so much. They're not professionals and it's not fair to make them your therapists. That's why therapists have therapists. Those closest to us can't be responsible for our mental health.

And, again, an avalanche. I talked a lot about my abusive mother and how I dated men like her, who would abuse me, about the sexual assault in high school, but I'd completely forgotten about my first kiss, the one I don't count, the one that was stolen from me. I'd forgotten until I was scrolling facebook and saw his name commenting on a friend's post and saw that he lives in my city and my throat closed up with fear and it came flooding back, how he grabbed me and shoved his face on mine and all I felt was fear and pain and, even after I'd pushed him off me and slapped him, I just felt sad, like my first magical moment was stolen from me. It was quick, but significant.

I didn't count it as a kiss and I still don't. I counted my first kiss as one that happened a couple years later, with a boy I liked, who made my toes tingle and I couldn't stop grinning. That is what a first kiss should be.  But suddenly I feel I should have to contend with that stolen first. A lot of my firsts were stolen, taken by men who didn't deserve them. A lot of girl's firsts are stolen. And fuck, man! Fuck. We just don't exist in a world where we can depend on consent.

I think most of us just stuff that down and push forward, because how else do you survive? You can't possibly live with the kind of fear that generates without it overtaking you. Although, maybe that's how agoraphobia starts. I know that's probably where a lot of my anxiety comes from, that unnamed fear that quietly bubbles under the surface.

I used to shove it all down and then I had horrific acid reflux and night terrors and sleep paralysis. When you don't deal with shit, it deals with you. But where do you put it all when it comes out? I try to put it into writing, but I'm not diligent with it.

I had a big AHA moment last month when I'd thought that my fiance was mad at me, but he was just being brusque and I shut completely down, not knowing what to do. And as I finally mustered up the assertiveness to talk to him (assertiveness is also something I work on in therapy) and he said he thought I was mad at him and then I completely just broke in half and started sobbing.

The sobbing was because, suddenly, I realized that I lack the ability to differentiate between different aggressive emotions. I can't tell the difference between anger and violence and brusqueness. For most of my life, that uncertainty was about survival. You never know if it will be the worst thing, so prepare for the worst. When you've been gaslighted for showing any emotion or for speaking or for saying nothing or for, hell, just existing, how can you possibly respond to your partner's moods in a healthy way? I never learned how!

So I'm glad I figured that out, but that's now something I have to learn. At 37. I'm not exhausted by my life AT ALL.

Then, yesterday, a guy walked by me in a restaurant and accidentally smacked my ass. At least he said it was accidental. And he sorta apologized, but I froze and started to tear up. It was such a small moment, but after many many times of accidental ass smacks, I'm just filled with anger. Anger that men exist in the world where, at best, they don't have to watch where there hands are and they just shove themselves past women with no regards to unwanted contact, and, at worst, they can grab whoever wherever they fucking want. With little to no consequence.

I'm at a point where I'm just so fucking angry at cishet males all the damn time. I'm done with the mansplaining and the manspreading (which is physical and auditory and fills up any space and time it possibly can) and the misogyny and sexism and the grabbing and smacking and catcalling and then, of course, the assaulting. Every tiny fucking thing sends me over the edge, because I can't tolerate one more ounce of the bullshit.

I suspect most of us feel this way.

But it puts me in an odd place as I plan my wedding and I think about the day I commit myself legally and emotionally to a man, a good man who tries realllllly fucking hard to get it and support me and support women, but he'll never really totally get it, because how can he? But it's odd to balance that much resentment of a gender whilst also spending a significant portion of my time to a day dedicated to love and romance.

Compartmentalization is fun!

Which brings me to my adoption. I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk about this, but I think I need to. Without telling you my entire backstory, I'll just say that I know *some* stuff about my biological family, but not a lot. I do know I have a sister and my biological mother passed away and I know their names. I've been sitting on that info for like 10 years I definitely want to know more, but it's hard to take the big steps.

A few weeks ago, a friend offered to help find out more with her computer skills and I awoke the next morning to an avalanche of information, to some communication (through the friend) from a bio aunt, to a photo of my bio mom, to info and a photo of my sister, and that apparently I have other half sisters out there that were also adopted, just out there in the world somewhere.

And it was exciting and overwhelming and cool. But then I threw up.

So since then, I've done nothing and I think I'm okay with that. My therapist told me that I really don't have to do anything at all, that I don't owe anyone any explanations or my time or my energy. I want to know more. I want to talk to this sister, if she wants, and ask her a thousand questions, but I don't think I can right now. I need to give myself permission to not do anything yet.

I don't think I can get married the same year I meet my biological family. I don't think I can confront a huge source of my issues, of the fear of abandonment, of my identity as an adoptee, as a person on this planet with no connection to her genetic heritage while also making such a huge life change like marriage.

I just can't right now. 2018 will be big enough as it is.

And, honestly, I have a lot that I'm happy about. I'm so excited for the changes and the love and the opportunities. I just wish it was one thing at a time.

Because a girl can only do so much.