The Fixings

Property of Stormberry

The leaks in my roof have been fixed, and I hope they stay so for a while. What a relief! The people making the fixing had to come out three times to finally get all the leaks dealt with. Now only the windows need sealing. I actually messaged them today and got a swift reply after they have been silent for almost twenty days, while the rains poured and the water filtered and ruined the paint on my walls. Oh, on that note, it's worth noting that my chocolate brown walls get very marked with water, which I don't really get. The outside dark grey walls hold well their color, and so the medium grey ones. If it were because "the rain washes them equally" it wouldn't be so as the rain doesn't always falls the same way, and some parts are not touched while others are. So why are the brown walls getting so damaged with the rain water?

But anyway, we are moving ahead and my house is standing strong and lovely, and we are both growing more and more into who we are. I'm so happy with my house!

I'm not out of the woods yet, as I had a lot of expenses, and I had to make decisions about how to finance them. Nothing I can't manage, rest assured, but I decided to use my credit card again while I get over the current bump. Some things, after all, have to be dealt with switfly, and some instruments can be used to such matters, as long as we keep them well watched. Yes, it makes me uneasy, mostly because it was not part of my plans to use my card again, but one needs to deal with the cards one is dealt.

On that same line, as I was going through dealing with uncomfortable situations and things that prick at my sense of order and comfort, this friend was brought back into my memory. I have written or alluded to him here several times, and has been quite a fixture. Though I want to think of him as a good person, truth to be told, if I want to be impartial, I believe I don't have enough elements to call him so. Maybe it is the way he is around me - because, honestly, I am a menacing person for him -, but be it as it is, I'm more inclined to say that he is a toxic sort of person.

Now, as you know, I believe in magick, signs, cosmic connections, spiritual phenomenons and the such, so for a while now I have tried to understand why had this person been so mingled with my life, and have always stirred such strong emotions. Emotions that I shall clarify, are not always positive. I mean, I like him - I do like him - but I also can't stand him. So why the push-&-pull? Did I want him in my life? Did I not? Did I want him as friend, as partner, as occasional fuck or as a distant memory of the past? Why did I find it so hard to let him go? Why did I go to such extents as I did for him? What has happening there?

I'm a Cancer Sun, Gemini rising and Leo Moon. Yes, it may not make sense to many, but I'll say this: for years he has been playing my Cancer (as in playing my emotions), and my Gemini (my communicative and knowledge thirsty part), by a very bizarre game of choosing words to keep me hooked like a writer of a cliffhangery pulp fiction, but also by not telling me ever much of the information. Then again, though it has been hard to come to terms with my Gemini (a lot of people I don't like are Gemini), my twins are quite a resourceful and twisted pair, and so... we did LOTS of research. Yes, that also kept me hooked, but also started opening my eyes to the fact that there were things there that were not kosher. I paid attention, I started to see the cracks, and I believe that's what kept me (in part) from falling into his game.

But I still was hooked for quite a while. It was one of those messy tangles where you know that it's not what you want, there's nothing really there that you could want in your life, but "something" keeps you there and you can't quite figure out why.

He was here at my home visiting in the begining of June and brought me an early birthday present (even though I am positive I had told him that I am picky about my birthday and I celebrate it only the day it is). The present was a book and a bottle of wine. Thoughtful, yes, and exactly what I have gifted him the last two birthdays of him. And then he was nice and all, but also made sure to include just a hint of insulting or - at least, derogatory. I know well that he takes to heart each time I have pointed out to the flaws on his thinking, work or skills, and I also know this is his pety way to try and get back to me, even though at times he has to invent an alternative reality just to point out a flaw in me. (Like the time he told me that one doesn't "eat different kinds of meat for one meal", just because I offered him chicken stock before a main course consisting of beef. Yeah... I believe he hasn't heard of paella, or burgers with bacon... or just about any meal with more than one course.)

So far, though his petiness annoys me, I just booked it as "him being stupid because he doesn't know better and has lived so far trying to be someone he's not, that he can't turn back and try to be himself". However, this month something happened, a shifting.

As I was working and dealing with the last of the second quarter of the Master's program, and dealing with the leaks on the roof, and the leaking windows, solving the financial situation and so on, he came to my mind, and just as I was solving all my issues and finding out that I can solve these things without having to run to my dad or my brother, it kind of landed on me: this friend has the bad habits of my father and my brother. The lying, the gaslighting, forcing his ideas on others like they are truth, unwilling to learn from others, or accept that others might be right, unwilling to accept that they are wrong, and when proven wrong going pety, bringing up over and over uncomfortable events of the past which they twist to fit their narrative, going as far as turning a happy memory or even a moment of confusion into something to be mocked of.

Through the days I have found that this person had all these qualities, and I understood: he was put in my life so that I can see that and work on my shadow. And let all that go. That was why I couldn't let him go, because I wanted to fix or defeat in him what I find so disturbing in my own family. And the lesson, I'm finding is, that their qualities are not my problem, and I can walk away or call them out if I like.

I had read the book he gave me, and found it awful. Then I also saw the book in the big scheme of things: he had been for a while trying to copy the main character of that book, which was particularly sad.

As I think about him, I feel no tendrils of attachment anymore, but rather a neutral void, like standing on an edge where a bridge used to stand, where there is no longer a bridge, but which lack you can't see because it's all drowned in a fog. I don't eeven miss it.

I think I am finally over.