Several kind people such as Rising Rainbow and Kahless have sent me comments. I treasure these comments deeply but don’t know how to respond to them as I see Rising Rainbows do. Please don’t think I’m ignoring you. I’m still navigating my way through the technology. I’m doing good to just link you. 😉

It was 1:30 this afternoon before I “woke up.” My husband, D., and I were making up the bed and I couldn’t remember anything before that moment. He said I was having panic attacks that morning so he stayed home from work. I had a Dr’s appt. for my back. I have a degenerative disc and I hate the pain physician I see b/c all they do is give me drugs without treating the problem and then treat me like I’m a drug addict. He said I then had an appt. with Randy, our therapist. I vaguely remember that. Something occurs to me about burning leaves in his fire place and a new member, Kathy, coming out. He said we went to the mall after that where I bought, and this will be too much information but I am determined to lay it all out, I bought panties…or someone bought panties. I’m not a shopper but one of us is. She loves retail and would live at the mall if she could and we had the money. Anyway, panties were bought and that it so not typical of me. Don’t wear them because they only got ripped off as a child and I’m afraid of panties. Isn’t that stupid? Be afraid of snakes or heights. Don’t be afraid of panties. But I am, and some were bought.

So it was 1:30 when I came to and we had a conference with out children who are no longer our children. Long story. Short of it, we were the guardians for a long time and the birth mother decided she wanted them back even though it wasn’t in their best interests. At least she allows us to remain a part of their live. Twin girls. C. is doing outstandingly well. She is in all advanced 6th grade classes and her Language Arts teacher said she is the cream of the crop, she is extremely bright and intelligent, a role model of other students. Her sister, O., is also in advanced classes, thought not as high, and she made all B’s except one grade and we have work to do on helping her with organization and setting priorities and getting her self-esteem up. All in all, the conferences went well.

We worked out after that. An hour on the elliptical machine. It was so hard. There was no energy. All I had eaten today was a bagel and downed too much coffee. I didn’t get a good workout. From things D. had said, I knew he wanted sex afterward. I don’t know what is with him. He seems more interested in sex than ever before. I questioned the type of Internet sites he is visiting and the type of magazines he is looking at to see if they were creating this burgeoning interest in sex again. He said no. He lied and said it was my body. That’s how I know it’s a lie.

I decided to wear my sad, gray pajamas tonight. They make me feel so good and unfat so I decided if I had to have sex with him it would be before showering. Sex is gross anyway, why not do it when you are already sticky and sweaty. The problem with sex tonight, one of the problems, is that my butt is still sore from the cycling class yesterday. I endured it like I always do.

The shame of it, and I pray it was because I just worked out, was that I almost, but not really, only almost, felt relaxed. I didn’t want to feel relaxed or enjoy it in any way and asked someone inside, I didn’t know who, just anyone around, anyone who could hear me and care, to take my place. No one wants to take place with sex and no one came. Damn them. So I had sex with D. I don’t know which is worst: almost feeling relaxed next to him or feeling taken advantage of in the worst way. I never orgasm, seldom do, and that makes me hate him. How he can always feel pleasure and leave me empty at best, but mostly feeling the “r” word since I received nothing out of it but being used I’ll not understand. It’s one reason I hate sex. I get nothing out of it.

Switch. Someone else is with me, as if she is entitled to speak even though she would not deliver me from a sexual encounter I didn’t want to belong to in the beginning. I’m not the only one who hates sex. Tonight is particularly shameful for feeling somewhat relaxed next to his naked body. But there is hatred against him for even putting us through it. Something to that effect was said during sex, about how it hurt us. He knew and offered to change positions and I’m thinking, “you asshole. how ’bout just not doing it to begin with. how bout the position of being 10 yards away from me?” Something in him knows we don’t like it, I think. I’ve been guilty lately of responding to his advances sometimes with comments that sex sounds great and when he says he wants to “make love” I respond how good that sounds. But it doesn’t. I hate it. I hate it. I would rather shop.

So I never orgasm. I pretend to enjoy it, but mostly lie there with the same images inundating me: uncles, stuffed rainbow clouds, a twin bed I was hurt in, the headboard, the ceiling, and some little girl squeezing the tears back inside her eyes. Those images come frequently now. I call them “almost memories” because they aren’t things I really remember and I know they lead to other things I don’t want to know. They are whispers of memories and I worry they will lead to other, more lethal, dangerous, and incriminating memories. These whispers are bad enough; what will the others be like. My stomach feels nauseous just thinking and writing about this. The head has begun to hurt. I’m missing something. I had something else to say but it has been stolen.

I think The Woman with the Words is surfacing briefly. I heard her talking this afternoon with her British accent. D. is too stupid to notice. Probably b/c his mind is on sex.

I feel I’ve missed something but we’re not allowed to go back and read. So I might have repeated things or just left something out. I took my on-line test for the Inclusive Education course. Results came back immediately as a 93. I missed one and I”m so pissed at myself. If I can use my book, why in hell couldn’t I make a 100. Shows how incompetent some of us are.

I have more school work to do tonight and now that the worst of the evening is over I might be able to get to it. I will forget writing the continuum tonight of the significant events in my life and focus on my reading. I have to start Frankenstein, which I love, love, love! I am the creature Frankenstein created. I am the unwanted, hideous beast that he could not look at. I see me in the creature in so many ways. It’s a great book. 2nd time reading it. I need to continue with Little Dorrit which, for Charles Dickens, is a surprisingly good book so far. And then there’s American Lit. We are still covering writings from the Colonial time. Yawn.

Tomorrow is a day devoted to writing and more reading. Have a lot of schoolwork. I’ll get my work out in somewhere. Today, I really wasn’t motivated to skydive, so it must have been a so so day. Come to think of it, there were no tears like usual after sex. What does that mean? I refuse to let anyone grow to like sex. Now I’m getting PISSED at the thought. And I was feeling better. That’s why writing can be contraindicated. Maybe a look at my skydiving equipment will cease some of the anxiety.

Am I too hard on myself? Kahless and Rising Rainbow made comments to the effect. There is no response to this. Randy, the therapist, constantly harps on our good points and it get tiresome. Maybe I’m overcompensating for his bullshit. He is determined to turn us into a teacher. Has he ever considered maybe we don’t want to teach? I don’t know. People have always said we are too hard on ourselves. I even had a professor last semester talk to me several times about it. But it’s second nature and keeps us in place. We can’t think too much of ourselves, although I don’t know why. It seems another form of self-harm like cutting, vomiting, starving, alcohol, and drugs. We can’t give up the others, why give up the self-deprecating speech? It all spills over into who would love us if we weren’t sick or didn’t punish ourselves. I’ll save that for another night I haven’t bored anyone reading this. until then…