Memories Are Like Broken Records

I have certain memories from my life, some painful, some angering, most of which are unpleasant that are like lost souls. They refuse to find peace, wandering in my mental and emotional subconsciousness and consciousness like ghosts unable to ascend to heaven or down to the depths of hell.

These skeletons revisit on occasion, sometimes during a stare off into space, but mostly in my dreams. I had a particularly visceral visit the other morning, after I went back to sleep when My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") left for work.

And it was awful.

Painful and stinging. Even typing about it now my eyes are starting to burn and water. The specifics are irrelevant, this is more a contemplation of the why.

Why do some life experiences refuse to settle and fade?

I often hear it said that a trauma or memory has not been resolved when it lingers. That someone has not found closure. I have even read where there is justice there is healing. But some of us don't have that luxury; not everyone obtains for themselves or receives from others that which was taken from them. Justice and closure means something different to every person. And sometimes it's just not going to fucking happen. Period.

If I had it out with every memory in limbo and explored every last option of communication or action, I still feel like it would remain a scar on my brain. Life can sometimes be a war; you might lose a few battles but you must keep winning the war.

I'm not all doom and gloom but why does such useless anger and/or pain keep dragging its dead carcass around in my life? Go away bro, nobody wants you here. I feel like a fresh brain and my icky memories are like a pack of hungry zombies. It's like fucking Walking Dead up in here sometimes.

I experienced pretty significant trauma early on in my life and I feel like maybe my ability to process mental and emotional ordeals is just damaged. My Mom and I both knew it was therapy time when I started manifesting ridiculous life obstacles and rules into my day to day life. I couldn't sleep with my back to my bedroom door. I would sleep flat under my sheets and leave a tiny breathing hole, so in case someone broke into the house, they wouldn't "see" me. I couldn't turn one light off without turning on another one. Shit like this.

I still call the therapy I went through "finger therapy" but the appropriate term is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing ("EMDR"). It's used to treat PTSD and trauma disorders as well as other types of mental heath issues. It was pretty cool, honestly. It's not every day a lady looks at you and says, "Ok, I want you to think about your father while watching my finger move side to side."

My therapist would have me think about all kinds of random things, seemingly arbitrary to me but I'm sure made perfect therapy sense to her. And at the end of all of it, I was less skittish and neurotic. I consider being able to vacuum with no one home a success!

Sometimes I think I need a little bit of finger wagging again to unblock a few broken records, as my childhood therapist put it. Memories and incidents in our lives can get stuck in parts of our brain, like a broken record, and keep repeating the trauma rather than processing and letting it go.

I've never really contextualized my lingering ghosts in this way but I'm intrigued to know if EMDR could help. I've always been about moving forward and bettering oneself.

Life is too short to live in the past or to let your zombies chew on your current and future happiness.

While writing this post I found a short, succinct article from the New York Times about how to revisit the ghosts of your past.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/smarter-living/how-to-revisit-the-ghosts-of-your-past.html

Cover Me

My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") runs hot. Body temp hot. On warm nights my way too hot temps make him melt, so I try to snuggle up as close as I can without catching him on fire.

When we first slip into bed MSMF is fully covered by the flat sheet and comforter, dick pillow wedged tightly between his legs. But as the night creeps along, he tosses and turns, kicking most of the covers off. (For more on the dick pillow, read here: https://thesillyshitwesay.blogspot.com/2020/09/dick-pillow.html)

Usually somewhere in the early morning hours, I'd guess between 3-5, MSMF must get cold. Without fail, if he doesn't immediately feel covers to toss over himself he will wake me and say:

"Hey baby?"

(belligerent grunt sound) "?"

"Cover me..."

I wish ya'll could hear it. It's not a simple statement or demand. MSMF's tone and the way he says "cover me" changes. Like he's going under enemy fire and he may not be coming back alive with some blankets.

I always get a kick out of the request because the fucking covers are literally right there! Like, RIGHT THERE! Piled up along the side of him, left right where they were when he kicked them all off.

Sometimes it's the simple things in a relationship and frankly I love covering him. I pull the sheet and comforter all the way up over his shoulders, tucking him in like a little bug in a rug. And every time I do MSMF lets out a little "mmmhhm". It's the sweetest.

I thought MSMF knew this middle of night blanket abandonment was happening but nope. Turns out he doesn't remember a damn thing. Not one cover up session. When I told him just how funny his ask was and the way in which he asked it, he couldn't believe it.

Now in addition to the cough cough coughs I sometimes like to roll over while turning out the light and say, "Hey baby? Cover me."

Beggars Be Dead

My 19 year old calico has turned into the worst beggar at dinner time.

She sits at the top of the couch, as close to the edge as she can possibly get without falling - which she has done once or twice, and screams at My Special Man Friend ("MSMF") and I. Not your average, "meow" or "meuw".

More like, "MEOW MOTHER FUCKER! FEED THIS CUTE SCREAMING KITTY PIE HOLE RIGHT NOW!"

And it's not even in the cute, cat like tones. Say the above line but in like a Samuel L Jackson kind of way. She screams at us in THAT way.

And really, it's our own fault that she's like this. She weighs 4 pounds 11 ounces, per the doctor, and is way too petite. It's not that we don't feed her. She's always been like this. It's that she wants the good shit; filet mignon with a red wine reduction, chicken curry with vegetables, cod in a creamy herb sauce... basically anything that we eat that's boujee and isn't some mashed up unknown kitty meat in a can.

I've tried some nights to stone wall her and not feed her but ignoring Samuel L Jackson embodied as a cat is kind of difficult. You break eventually. And she knows that.

I have this great sticker at my bar that says "Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India".

Frustrated by the amount of money I've spent on specialized kidney cat food for Samuel L Jackson, I said to her: "Poop! Go eat your food. There are starving kitties in India". MSMF followed up with, "Yeah Little, those homeless kitties are still hungry."

Now, I would never call MSMF "savage" in any sense or meaning of the word but what he said next was downright savage. 

"No wait. You know what Little? You remember those homeless kitties you met on your night out? Yeah, well they're not hungry. They're dead."

He took the India thing and went a step further. Years ago Samuel L Jackson got out one night for salacious kitty escapades. She showed back up at the apartment the next morning wide eyed and smelled funny. She lived high on life for one night but the thing was MSMF was right; any of the toms and alley kitties she had hung out with that night are probably no longer begging or roving the alleys for scraps. They're probably long gone.

It's not every day a kitty lives to 20, which Samuel L Jackson will be in June.

We wax and wane between supporting her beggar ways because when it comes down to it we don't want this beggar to pass. So she gets her way.

Here's Jaja, aka Samuel L Jackson aka Poop aka Little aka Chicken Legs sitting pretty for a morsel.