Tuesdays with Abhorrent Fiends vol. 18

Shocking surprise twist*: the abhorrent fiend is me!


Dave's reaching out to me. I want to reach back, take his hand, accept it. I want to not just sit there with a choked expression on my face, afraid to move, afraid to speak, paralyzed by guilt and uncertainty. And fear of what he feels, to be honest. You know, "here is my journey through a hell that would have been purgatory if you hadn't hurt me as you did." He's getting a grip on the edge preparatory to heaving himself up, he's tracing a line down the shoulder of the road. I've got to show, and not just feel, my respect for that. To honor and encourage as well as cherish him.

Music. Important to both of us. A mix CD can be like a book of the bible when music means that much to you, when that much care and blood went into it, the way blood goes into any creative work. It just hurts so goddamn much, he hurt so much to be able to express it that clearly. And I freeze up with guilt trying to help him describe it to himself, trying to name the shapes and parts in it.

And now he's going to work and having a shitty day and coming home and having shitty frustrations at home and I wanted to shield him from that. In a way it's shitty of me, and stunting him and not letting him grow and all that. But I wanted one of us at least to have a life of ease, comfort and self-indulgence, and it for fuck's sake shouldn't be me.

It's almost as if guilt is part of the fuel that keeps me going. Having something to atone for makes the mental judo of revving myself up for spending all day doing things I hate around people who don't appreciate me (lo, the common lot of mankind) very simple and straightforward. You live this life and you do these duties because this is the fate you earned by your evil actions. Not an accurate or complete way to describe the shape of the time or the vagaries of chance, but certainly effective in getting my emotional ducks in a row.

It comes down to this. We both have to get better at the same time if either of us are going to. Dave's rage and my guilt fuel us in different ways and they stem from the same source, broken trust. Broken self for Dave as well, broken identity. Identity is the hardest thing to repair, regrow, to heal, because it's what holds everything else together and it doesn't understand words.



*not really a surprise