Day 608 – Demons and Sh*t (Boundaries)

Y’all. I’ve got to write this out. These epiphanies are painful sometimes… I want a good man to Love. That is what is on my mind this morning.

Nothing has worked out the way I wanted. Yesterday I went home late at night and my room smelled like either stank cooch or rotten seafood that has been in a hot room for days. I don’t know which one it was, but I know it wasn’t me. It was my dirty roommate who moved in a little over a month ago and just made everything dirty.

I am very tempted to buy a plane ticket right this minute and get the heck out of this city. An ex reaches out to me. Says he wants to do a project together. He’s pretty talented, and doing a project with him would be great, but that’s not what he really wants. Just believe me. What he really wants is a way to be in touch with me so that eventually he can ask me to help him with his life. And maybe, just maybe, if I’m dumb enough, maybe I’ll get back with him on his time and terms and just pretend he doesn’t treat me like sh*t and be ok with part-time, temporary, convenient love. He didn’t say all this, but I felt it. Just believe me. I don’t know what I don’t know but I know what I know… He is still the same. Pretends not to see messages he doesn’t want to respond to. Only reaches out if he wants to use you for something. Always plotting some sideways angle to get what he wants instead of just asking for what he wants…. Never thinks of giving much. Only when he’s obliged… I used to Love him sooooo much. I used to be so in Love. I don’t even remember that feeling, but I have the pics and video to prove it. I’m pretty sure he has some girlfriend who wouldn’t approve if she knew he’s in touch with me and so has to sneak around and communicate. Bah humbug.

Another guy reaches out. An almost ex. Someone who was willing to father a child with me. He lived with me briefly as I was helping him start a new life. Then he moved. I didn’t like him as a man. As a friend? Wonderful. But the minute we start talking about being together? It’s like a spell is activated. He starts acting like how he thinks a man is supposed to act towards his woman and he becomes an asshole. Just mean. Trying to diminish and dominate and criticize all the time. Wanting forever attention in a yucky way. Wanting to pull me away from whatever I’m doing so he can have full-time focus from me. Meanwhile, his full-time focus will also be on him. I had forgotten about all these things when he reached out recently. He had reached out talking about making babies again. And I’ve been talking about making babies for some time now, but still no babies. And I’m kind of sad about it and secretly? I’ve given up a bit. I’m older now. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to have kids, but I haven’t been able to find a good man who I want to have a child with and who wants to have a child with me in all this time, so I don’t know…

Granted, I’ve been mostly sick since I started thinking about wanting kids. Or caught up in some family, friend or man drama.

The almost baby daddy? We’ve been friends for a few years and he’s a great friend. And so I forgot about that brief stint when we were talking about possibility conceiving and how awful it was… We started chatting recently about possibly conceiving again and he had already made the plans before I even said I’ll consider it. His plans, of course, were not the plans that I wanted. I wanted to go see him and get to know him as our new selves and then see if we wanted to be together and make a baby. He didn’t want that. He’s busy right now, he says, and can’t host me. I’m busy, too, and quite frankly, I didn’t want him to host me. I wanted to go see him and have him leave me alone so I could do my work and he do his work and we just see each other for about an hour or two a day. And then I decide if I want to be with him. He didn’t want that. He wanted me to come see him during my ovulation dates and we start right away trying to make this kid and hang out with each other allllll day long. Look at his face all day long.

And while we were talking about his plan, he wanted to video call me. Said he wanted to video call me to make sure I’m not around another man. I’m too old for this kind of relating. Then, when he saw me on the video, he frowned and asked me why I had a particular shawl on. Said the shawl makes me look like I’m in mourning and I should change it… This sh*t. Prior to picking up his call, I was immersed in doing very lovely and mundane things to move my life forward, piece by piece. I got on the call with him, and he’s puckering up his lips trying to look cute. But he’s not cute. Lol. Lord forgive me. Then, he wants to stay on the call and just talk about nothing. At the end of the call, he said “I Love you”. I said “thank you”, and he asked if that’s what someone says when they love you?

And to be fair, he was right. In our talk, I became instantly aware of how I feel. I don’t like him. I don’t like his constant micro aggressions putting me down. If I bring them to his attention, he will deny everything and say I have a bad temper. That’s called gaslighting. He won’t change. He still hasn’t changed. It’s so crazy, though, because he doesn’t act that way as a friend. There are spells… I call them spells. It’s like, we tap into a certain way of being when we take on certain roles in our life. Being his almost woman and living with him was the worst thing ever in so many ways, and when he started talking about my scarf and telling me what to do with it, I remembered everything. Constant nitpicking. Constant subtle ways of trying to dominate everything all the time. Like, when we lived together, he was literally telling me that I put my maxi pad on wrong. He has never seen a maxi pad outside of a wrapper in his entire life, but he just wanted to say something and try to tell me what to do. I know where it comes from. Yuckness. I know you thought I was gonna say insecurity and blah blah, but honestly, I don’t even want to understand it. Yuckness. Mysogyny. Hating women. Whatever. Immaturity. No bueno.

Today I have many things to do, but these thoughts at the front of my mind have been disrupting me. I think getting them on the page has helped. A family member called yesterday. Updating me on many things happening here and there. Nonsense. This family member continuously believes people who systematically lie for years and years and continually invests in people who spoil the investment, take no accountability, make no amends, and seek no opportunities for growth year after year. And then this person is disrupted, set back, etc, after the same people do the same things year after year. Like me. Like how I used to be. Like my relationship with these men.

This person was telling me about someone who had recently stolen their stuff and lied about it. The person was actually questioning the lie. The lie from a liar who had lied across the whole process and had been caught trying to steal the stuff before the stuff randomly disappeared and said person blamed it on someone else. And Family was talking about making people admit to their wrongs, and something dawned on me. They’re going to admit to anything. They could possibly lie to the death. They don’t care about my family member. They just don’t. In fact, they feel entitled to harm my family member because they want things from said Family that family won’t give them. And they make up their own reasons as to why family won’t give it to them. And they may be right in some of their reasons… This is something deep to think about. Because this is life. Those people will never tell my family member, “We hate your guts because you won’t give us what you have and help us be as successful as you even though we think you can do it. You won’t do it because you want to be better than us. So, if you ask us to help you, we will help sometimes, if it benefits us, but not really. We will mostly sabotage you and steal from you. Because we hate your guts. And we’re jealous of you. And even if you did help us be as successful as you, we wouldn’t trust it, because why would you help us be as successful as you? We wouldn’t help you…”

Will they ever say that? Never. Will they ever even admit that they think that? Maybe. To someone they’re really, really close to. In the past few years, I’ve had confidants admit things like that to me. Admit how they felt about other people and why they did the things they did. I have seen evil… And this is SO not where I was going when I started this blog, but I think this is really what’s on my heart.

What do we do about evil? What do we do when people try to trick us or harm us? And even harder, what do we do when people we love and people who love us try to trick us and harm us, knowingly and/or unknowingly? What do we do about the evil within ourselves? I know the USA is on this big “boundary” trend and the instruction is to cut people off, protect your peace, disengage, etc.

Yesterday, I told my almost baby daddy that I felt confused about what to do with him and he told me he doesn’t want anyone around him who is confused. This is the same guy who came to me confused, lost, helpless, while I was sick and barely managing my life and expected me to hold space for him…

I just figured out what to do. Deal with it. That’s what you do about evil, about hard things, about people trying to harm you, etc. You deal with it. First, you try and solve the problem. You tell the stinky girl to clean the room and throw out her stink stuff. If she doesn’t listen or gives push back, you escalate or de-escalate, whichever is appropriate. But somehow, you make sure that you get that stink room taken care of. You can do it. If by chance it’s impossible, you get another room, another place. Go somewhere healthy. That is actually what I need to do.

And the men? Deal with them. Deeeeeeeal with them. Can y’all tell I’m a bit amped up? The family? The friends? Deeeeeeeeeal with them. They’re gonna have to do better. That’s just it. They are not allowed to treat you bad. It doesn’t mean you have to cut them off. Cutting them off is the very immature way to deal with these things. You can create boundaries. I just figured it out. It’s kind of simple. Just say no. No. You can’t steal from me and work with me. That’s just it. Yes. You are lying. That’s just it. No. You can’t just come back in my life trying to use me. I mean, you can do what you want, but no. I won’t be used. I will give to you what I want to give to you when I want to give to you, and at this moment in time, when I’m just coming out of crisis, I will only give what gives to me. Gives me joy, gives me peace, gives me inspiration. Gives.

What the eff? Y’all. It’s like I just woke up. People are really out here in these streets just damaging each other. Starting wars. There’s a war going on in the world right now, but I won’t talk about that. Angry, ego-maniacs have somewhere to put all their unresolved hatred and pick a side and talk about it all day. And never think about peace.

I’ve ranted a lot with no conclusion. In between the ranting, I sent a message to almost baby daddy telling him he’s gonna have to do better. That’s just it. It’s not a talk. It’s not a conversation or debate. It’s not me trying to prove a point. I don’t even care why he does what he does. He’s harming me, and in order to access my inner world, he’s gonna have to cut that out.

I remember some years ago, I was in a coaching program and the woman spoke about boundaries. And I believe that’s what boundaries are. It’s not a negotiation. It’s a line. Other people can’t cross it. That’s just it. Energies can’t cross it. Sometimes, if you are wanting to help someone or do something, you will have to go into an environment where people don’t treat you well, and then there is a choice to be made. And the choice is always that you protect yourself and/or shift the environment so that space is made to be treated well. And you do this through embodiment. Through lived example. Not by ignoring the malevolent nonsense happening. Address it. And then you be the example of treating people well. Not because you want to be an example or be holier than though, but because you want to treat people well. Because it feels good.

This is what I came here to write. Not for a lecture, but for myself. I’m learning how to live a life from scratch and it’s ok to make mistakes. It’s ok to be confused. I’m not supposed to be punished when I’m confused. That’s not my life anymore. I’m supposed to be comforted and helped. That is my life. And I will do it for myself first. I’m not supposed to be kicked and shamed and blamed when I’m down and out. That’s not my life anymore. I’m supposed to be helped. Talked to. Loved. Given feedback. Given tangible support to get where I’m going on my own terms, not on the terms of people who think they know better or don’t even care to know what my final destination is. That is my new life now. This is what Loving yourself means… I never knew.

It means treating yourself in the ways that you wish others would treat you and giving yourself the opportunity to connect with others who will treat you in better ways than you can imagine. It means making space for things that ignite your passion and support you. Etc. etc. It also means being good to and loving the people who you want to love. And it also means taking your focus back and putting it towards what’s important to you in this lifetime. When I have power, or when I am just barely above homeless and starving and sick, it doesn’t mean that I have to give my barely above zero energy to any and everyone who has a problem. Nonsense. Or anyone who wants to thrive with my support whilst being quite comfortable with me living a ridiculously subpar life in order to help them. I can use my power to fuel my purpose. In fact, that’s what I do. And people can support me to thrive. It’s ok. It’s good to be supported to thrive. I don’t have to feel guilty about it anymore. I welcome it. I welcome support so that I can thrive…

Thank you blog. Thank you witnessers who are witnessing me. I’m a human, y’all. And I’m a good human. And I deserve to be treated well. Moreover, I need to treat myself well and know how and when to apply boundaries if I’m ever going to be anything near happy or fulfilled. I recognize and I thank God for this realization this morning.

I can do some work now. Have a Blessed day.

Oh! And one more thing. Lol. You’re gonna have to do things differently if you want things to be different. There’s just no way around this. In the past, I would have attacked my friend or disappeared, etc. But no. I told him the truth and told him what I expect this time. I laced it with the energy of love. He may not be ready to hear all that and may want to keep being possessed by demons and being evil. That’s fine. I’m not into demon slaying at this particular month, as I have some work to do. But he will know that if ever he decides to do something different, the door to healthy relating is open.

I Love you. Take care. Mwa!

Day 608

Demons and Sh*t (Boundaries)