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eloarei · 3 years

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A little rambling: on grief; and grieving a dog, a cat, an unborn child, and pieces of me that got hurt along the way.

2300 words under the cut.

It’s a very gloomy day today. I don’t usually mind; I like rain. But on a bad day, or a bad week, it only seems to insulate me in my own dark thoughts. That’s what today seems to be. I’ll work on fixing it later-- getting some exercise, sunlight if the clouds clear, making some tea. Should’ve done that already, but I forgot. Ate half a banana, at least.

As I’ve complained about a few times lately, I’ve just not been doing especially well. When and why did it all start? It’s hard to say, but this ‘unwellness’ spell seems most potent starting April 11th (my anniversary, unfortunately, which is why I can remember it), when I came down with a gruesome stomach bug. Really haven’t been feeling right since. I’m really bad about being sick; it scares me and I handle it badly. I assume that’s part of what has messed me up.

But grief is the other part, I think. Grief, and my being scared and worried that what caused it could strike again at any minute. Look, I’m... 32 now, and I’m sure that most people by this age have experienced profound loss. I’m probably not unusual, and I’m certainly not alone, but I think all the loss I’ve experienced is just piling up on me now, like there wasn’t enough time to process the new fresh ones before newer fresher ones came on, and so now even the old tough scars are aching.

When I was a teenager, my parents died. They were old, and it was health problems. It was not a surprise, but that didn’t make it easier to deal with in freshman year of high school. (What made it easier to deal with? Rabidly cleaning out the fridge and watching Lord of the Rings tapes the neighbors lent me. That’s all I did for three days after my mom died.) It’s been a long time-- more than half my life ago-- and I do feel like I’m ‘over it’, but sometimes it just wells up, tears from nowhere. Maybe that’s just how grief is.

A certainly had a good decade of my 20′s. I got married at 19, and had a pretty uneventful set of years. That felt normal to me. I do think, though, that the loss of my parents haunted me in that time, quietly. It influenced everything I did; it probably still does, if only because it changed the person I have become. But other than that, things were good, I think. My dog Roxy died two years ago, when I was 30, not long after I got back from seeing my siblings for the first time in ages. She was violently ill, and died right in front of us as we were getting ready to take her to the vet. I think I’ve written about it. In fact, the next day I wrote a depressing fanfic piece, certainly as a coping mechanism. (It made people cry, so, mission accomplished, I guess.) I think that helped a lot. A few months later, my in-laws’ dog died too, while mom-in-law was on vacation, and that was rough as well. I wrote another sad fanfic about death. I really like both of these pieces, because they mean something, and they’re very raw. Furthermore, I’ll always have them, as tokens for Roxy, Ginger, and the little pieces of me they crushed when they died. I don’t know if the exchange is worth it, but it’s what I have.

My grief over Roxy was gentle, as time went on. It didn’t bother me. I think I’d processed it well. I’d written out my feelings. I held her body in numb arms as my husband dug her grave. It was okay.

In early 2020, basically on my 31st birthday (and right as Covid was happening), I found I was pregnant. Long story short, those were the densest two months of my life, where everything seemed to change so quickly. My thoughts and feelings could fill so very many pages; this is not the place I’ll leave them. The point of this particular story is that it didn’t work out. The baby ‘died’ not terribly unlike Roxy had-- violently ill, in front of me, with far too much blood. I passed out three times-- the real start of this current fearful nature, because I cannot overstate how very much I felt like I was going to die. I went to the ER; it was miserable, an ordeal I could say quite a lot about. I won’t, though. I have before, and I likely will again, elsewhere.

This... This grief... I think I still don’t know what to do with it. I don’t think I ever will. Months later, I started writing a fic to deal with my feelings, though it took 90k words and many months before I got to the part where I could really delve into my trauma. And it has helped, I’m sure. I’m really sure. And I care about this fic so much, because like the others it is raw and real and it’s something I’d never have if not for my experience. Again, it may not be a fair trade, but it’s what I have.

I don’t grieve for the baby. It didn’t make it far enough to even have a heartbeat. It doesn’t have a name, a gender. It doesn’t have a grave. We let the hospital take care of it. But I still grieve. I’m sad. Wrecked. I grieve what it could have been. I grieve the hope that was spent and lost on it, a precious resource that will take a long time to grow back, if ever. I grieve over not only my own disappointment, but my husband’s, and my in-laws. They’ve never pressured us to have kids, but they’re in their 60′s now, with no grandchildren. I think they feel... lacking, in a way. I understand. I feel the same (though different). I wanted to give them that. I wanted to have that.

I still....?

I can’t say. I don’t know what I want. The event complicated my already complex emotions. I’m still waiting for them to simplify. Maybe they will, or maybe they won’t.

I was alright for a while. Stressed enough because of Covid and family’s declining health. Then in early April 2021, just a year after the miscarriage, I got badly sick. Gross, but not what most people would call a real issue. But only a year after the miscarriage, when my body betrayed me and I was at its horrid mercy, this felt like too much. Again I felt like I was going to die. A week of near delirious fever and nausea; I’d have handled it badly enough in any other circumstance.

As expected, I got through it. A horrible week, but just a week (or so). And then my dog Tobi died, just days later.

This is it. This is the one I... I’m speechless about. The one I... maybe haven’t processed enough. I was just back from the edge of being badly, violently ill. I didn’t have the energy to write, physically or emotionally. And that just made it worse. I love writing. It’s my outlet (surprising, I’m sure). I wanted to write. I thought I ought to write. I needed to write. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t muster the words. I still... can’t.

Tobi was... my baby. Not literally, of course. I didn’t conflate him with my lost child or anything. Tobi was 14. I’d had him since I graduated high school and got an apartment. Adopting him was one of the first things my husband and I did as an established adult couple, before we were even married. He was there, at my wedding. The photographer took a cute picture of me holding him before the ceremony. He was 11 months old at the time. Still had all his brown spots before they turned tan, then later white. He was there; he was always there. He was my entire adult life. And now I’ve lost him, the pup I had longer than my marriage (though soon we will outlast him). He was the big brother to all my other pets. He practically raised all the cats, and they adored him. (Tobi was a chihuahua, so they might have thought he was just another cat.)

He was a sweet boy, who loved his mom and dad first and foremost. When he was little, he was scared of everyone else. Eventually he warmed up to strangers and friends, and in his old age he mostly liked to nap somewhere on his own. He was silly and playful; he always chased the cats when they wanted to be chased. It was a game they all loved.

The vet... well, we took him in when he started to cough badly. He’d had a cough for a few months, but it wasn’t constant and didn’t seem to be affecting his quality of life much. But that day it was bad, so we took him. (We can’t afford frequent vet visits, so this was clearly desperate.) The vet took him and put him on oxygen. We had to stay in the car because they weren’t open for human guests. Then she came and told us a scan had revealed cancer, marbled through his lungs. He was suffocating. In fact, he wouldn’t likely even make it home, not even the two mile drive. We had to put him down. My husband and I cried like babies. We’d never put an animal down before. Generally speaking, we don’t really ‘believe in it’, if that makes sense. But faced with this situation, we had no choice.

I didn’t see him again. I think that’s the worst part, though it would have been equally bad to see him, I think. And it was all so sudden. He was playing and chasing the cats the day before. Begging for treats of human food. Barking at the Roomba. And then I had to pay hundreds of dollars to say goodbye to him. It felt so unfair. I cried all day. My husband and I, we just went home and laid down and wept.

But I still haven’t written about it, not in the way that I wrote about the others. For all that I wrote here, it doesn’t begin to encompass my deeper feelings on what it means that he is gone, and how I felt to have to make that decision. I have ideas. I think I know what I would write, if I could, but writing... still mostly eludes me. I may try. I probably should.

I take a deep breath. I know I should sum this up and take care of myself, but there’s yet a little more to say.

I think Tobi’s death is a large part of what affects me still, but several weeks ago I had what I could only call a panic attack. In the middle of the night I awoke, my heart beating rapidly, a horrible feeling of dread like certainty that all I could possibly do was die. It took over two days for me to feel mostly normal again, and then I still felt vaguely nauseous for two weeks. Then, just a few days ago, it happened again, but this time before bed. I could feel it rising in me, this indescribable sickness. It took several days ago before I felt normal. And this is where I am now.

Sadly, a little while after the first panic attack, my husband and I failed to save a malnourished feral kitten. It was not a surprise, but yet one more reminder of the fragility of life, and how little I can do to keep death away from those I care about. This poor thing, it was so desperate to live, but nothing we could do could save it. I could have poured all my time into trying, could have scrounged up money to take it to the vet (when I should take my own cats, who all have colds), but I know better. I know... so much of the time, there’s nothing you can do. And now I’m trying to help what might be its siblings, a few cute feral kittens nearby. My favorite seems... a little lethargic, and not very interested in eating the wet food and meat scraps I sometimes bring by. I don’t think there’s anything I can do, if it ends up being sick, if it ends up being malnourished. I can’t bring it inside when it could infect my own cats. I have to care for them first.

But knowing that it could die... it bothers me.

And knowing that I could die. I could die. I’m too aware of that, on top of everything else. I hate doctors, so I never go. (Also I’m poor.) This toothache? Could be a terrible abscess. My brother went to the ER for sepsis from an abscess tooth recently! That’s probably what caused the panic, to be honest. But then... why have I felt so week? Is there a problem with my blood? Am I sicker than I know? Do I have breast cancer? My grandma did, and I know I should get it checked out, but it’s just ONE MORE THING. It’s always like that.

And that’s... how I feel right now. Covered in ‘one more thing’s on rainy days and night-work schedules. Trying to take care of myself but not always knowing what that means. Lacking the inspiration to do the things I know I enjoy, because worry and apathy holds me back from everything.

I’m okay. Really. No day of mine is ever entirely without merit, and I have plans to do most of the things that should keep me healthy. But the day is short when my needs and long, and the day is long when I’m paralyzed by apathy.

So. I’ll just take it a moment at a time. And when I can, I’ll try to keep writing.

#elo talks #long post #personal but ok to interact

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lonelyreputation · 4 years

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C’est Toi (coffee shop au) • PROLOGUE, wc: 1.4k

Wednesday - January 02, 2019 - 18:31

There’s a lot of people watching at an airport. The thought always crosses my mind––who is returning from a trip? Did they enjoy it? Or are they dreading returning home?Who just left the comfort of their own home? Are they sad? Elated? Well, I guess that’s more than just one thought. I still have an hour until my flight. Why is it required to be at the airport hours before an international flight? Just another thought to tack on.

“Oh, sweetie,” McLane’s mother wrapped her arms tightly around her daughter, “I cannot believe you’re off for another semester!”

McLane let out a breathy laugh, squeezing her eyes as tight as her mother’s hug as to not let any tears spill over, “Yeah,” it was a weak response, McLane knew it, but she didn’t want to cry during her send off, she promised herself she wouldn’t cry, “another.”

Easing her way out of the hug, McLane’s mom held her daughter away at arms length, with her hands softly rubbing her shoulders, “London, oh goodness, how’d you manage to convince us on that, Mick?”

Shrugging her shoulders, McLane abandoned her mother’s soft gaze to stare at her suitcase. One large suitcase to stowaway under the plane, one carry on for the overhead bin, and her back pack. McLane’s stare soon hardened into a glare at her luggage––she swore they were mocking her and that they knew she was forgetting something.

“Yeah, Mick,” William, McLane’s twin brother raised an eyebrow, “How’d the golden girl manage to escape for a semester?”

McLane let out a genuine laugh as her mother whipped her head to the side and glared at her son as their father lovingly hit him on the back side of the head. William gave his father a side-eye and rubbed the back of his head. He rolled his eyes, stood up straight, and opened both of his arms wide, “Gonna miss my golden girl.”

It was a curious thing––William and McLane––while they were twins, they looked nothing like siblings. William stood at six feet tall, while McLane was five foot and three inches. William inherited his mother’s blonde curly hair and green eyes, and McLane had her father’s pin straight brunette hair and blue eyes. Physically they didn’t look like each other, but they were almost identical in personality.

Once McLane felt her mother’s hands drop from her shoulder, she barreled into her brother’s open arms. She clutched to the back of his red Maryland flag t-shirt as he soothingly ran his hands along her back. She took in a shaky breath as her brother’s fingers continued to ghost over her back.

How was she going to survive a semester abroad?

She and William didn’t attend the same college, but she would road trip every spring to watch his lacrosse games at Duke, and he would road trip to see her at least once a semester at the University of Virginia. Between their road trips seeing each other and traveling home for the holidays, they always saw each other a minimum of four times a semester. But with a plane ticket to London being more expensive than a five hour car ride, it would be a different semester for both of them.

“You should probably check your bag then get in line for security,” McLane turned her head to the side to see her father looking down at his watch, “Wouldn’t want you to miss your flight.”

At the mention of her departure, McLane’s fist tightened around her brother’s shirt and she buried her head back into his chest. William tightened his hold on his sister. He knew his sister better than anyone else, and he knew just how bad she wanted to study abroad. Ever since she was thirteen, he vividly remembered their summers when they shared a room at their grandmother’s beach house in Ocean City, Maryland and how she would stay up for hours talking his ear off about studying abroad.

William kissed the top of her head and whispered, “This is all you’ve ever wanted––it’s literally just hours away now.”

McLane nodded and once she got her breathing under control, she let go of her brother’s shirt and quickly wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm. She took four deep breaths before speaking, “I––I’ll just miss you so much,” She sniffled, “You know how I am with goodbyes.”

William smiled down at his sister and patter her head. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“We’ll be here when you get back, idiot.”

“William.”

William turned to his chastising mother as he held his hands up in surrender, chuckling, “It’s a term of endearment.”

“No name calling,” Their mother glared at him before bringing her fingers up to her temple to rub them, “I swear you’re the reason why Daisy back talks so often.”

McLane snorted, “She’s fifteen, she’s at the worst age.”

“Lucky you for escaping.”

The twins shared a beaming smile with each other before turning to their mother with the same shit-eating grin. The one that always got them out of trouble. She looked at her kids with a hard stare, but traded in her faux hardness for a tender gaze, “I miss you both so much when you go away.”

“I’ll still be around to bother you.”

“William’s very good at that,” McLane nodded her head with a tone that said she wasn’t messing around, but playful enough to earn her a forehead flick from her twin.

“Hey––“

“Mick,” It was their father who interrupted before any of their shenanigans started. He held up her book bag in one hand with a solemn look on his face, “It’s time.”

It was like the past few minutes of playing around with her brother evaporated. Her throat went dry, palms sweaty, and she felt the familiar prickle behind her eyes start back up.

Turning away from her brother, McLane took a few steps toward her dad, took her backpack from him and gave him a hug. It was a quick hug––their father wasn’t much of a touchy feely sort of guy with his emotions––but she knew she was loved. He kissed her head before taking her larger suitcase and rolling it towards her, “I’ll help you check your bag.” That was his way of saying everything will be alright. She nodded her head.

She wished checking her bag took longer. She wanted to prolong her family time for as much as she could––five months she would be without them––five months too long.

When McLane and her father reached back to where William and her mother stood, she gripped the strap of her backpack and took her carryon suitcase from her mother. She swallowed down a cry, “I––I’lll––See you later?”

McLane looked at everyones expression. Her mother’s eyes were rimmed in redness as she gave a tight-lipped quivering smile, her father sent her a nod and a soft smile, and William was beaming ear to ear. She returned his grin and took her passport out from her sweatshirt pocket, flipping the book between her fingers, and with one final smile––a genuine smile––she spun around and headed for the security line.

“Hey, Mick!”

McLane stopped right before the black barrier and scrunched up her eyebrows at her brother’s voice. His hands were cupped around his mouth––very unnecessary, she thought, because she wasn’t that far away from him.

“You won’t want to come home by the time you’re finished!”

With a roll of her eyes she shook her head. There would be nothing that would make her not want to come back to her family. They were her everything. Sure––William could be a nuisance, her mother could nag her to death, her father brought up post-graduate plans every chance he got, and Daisy was at the God awful stage where everything revolved around her as the world simultaneously hated her––but she wouldn’t trade them in for the world.

So as she handed her ticket and passport to the TSA officer, put her luggage on the conveyor belt, took her shoes off, and walked through the metal detector, she looked back one last time. Her father cradled her mother into his side as she sobbed into his shoulder and William looked at her with a smirk and a glimmer in his eyes that spoke volumes of him being certain she wouldn’t want to return home.

She rolled her eyes and flipped him off.

a/n: Coffee shop AU! Coffee shop AU!!!! Woot! I’ve been working/planning this for quite sometime! Exciting stuff coming in the future!!

And while Shawn isn’t ~in this chapter, he WILL be in the next chapter!! This is just some background so you get the gist of McLane! Let me know what you thought of this / what you think is gonna happen in the future! Whoop whoop!

I’m still also filling out requests so keep your eyes peeled for a baker!Shawn AU, unrequited love piece, and a jealous!Shawn 👀

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mylifewithhurley · 3 years

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My Life with Hurley Story

My Hidradenitis Suppurativa Story

l believe the best way to start is with a description of the disease - and this is my description of the disease, based mostly on my experiences, but also drawing from the hundreds of medical articles, forums, and discussions I've had the pleasure of reading over the past decade in my attempts to understand and manage my disease better. Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) is a chronic skin disease, in which pus and blood-filled abscesses form under the skin in the groin area, inner thighs, armpits and under the breasts. These abscesses can range from the size of a pea to as large as baseballs. They grow in size until they are close enough to the surface of the skin, and may break open. When they do, they either do not heal at all, or take a very long time to heal... I'm talking years. As open wounds, they constantly leak blood and pus. There is nothing more horrid than the smell of an HS wound, trust me. They are extremely painful, if you can imagine. Large abscesses can often restrict your ability to move your arms, if they are located in the armpit, or restrict your ability to walk and make it vert uncomfortable to sit, if they are in the groin or inner thigh area. With all that being said, you can imagine the shame and embarrassment such a condition can bring to a person. An individual with this disease can be extremely self-conscious and depression is very likely as well. There are some points I'd like to stress before I move on to my personal experience with the disease.

HS is NOT contagious. It is NOT the individuals fault. No one knows why this happens. HS has NOTHING to do with a person's hygiene. HS has NO cure!

IN THE BEGINNING...

My HS started out as small pus-filled bumps on my groin when I was around 15 years old. These were easily popped open and were not painful. They would come and go. They were a nuisance, but were not totally alarming. I did not know I had a "disease" at this time. I did not seek medical care. I was about 20 when bumps started appearing around my breasts. These were larger and had to grow a few days before I was physically able to squeeze them out. The pus was generally very dry, like something that would come out of a pimple on your face. It would quickly shoot out and splatter onto the mirror or whatever I was in front of. I mention this only to illustrate the change in consistency of the pus over time. They would heal, but always come back. Same spot, same size. Seeking help was difficult. I didn't want anyone to see. I can remember going to a walk-in doctor who prescribed a topical cream to rub on them. That didn't help. Eventually, the pain was too much to bare and I was forced to go to the emergency room. I went in the middle of the night. I had an abscess about the size of a quarter on my chest, between my breasts. It was so painful, I couldn't sleep. I had my first I&D (incision & drainage) that night with a very nice doctor. After he had cut it, he told me a nurse would come in to "pack" the wound and that I would be set up with home care. I didn't know what "packing" meant at that time, so when the nurse came in and simply covered the wound with gauze and tape, I thought I was good to go. That specific wound came and went over the years but it would easily break open after a week or so, and the pus and blood would pour out, like syrup, messing up my bra and clothes.

I went to a walk-in maybe a year or so later who I could tell really sympathized with me, but truly didn't know what to do. She referred me to a dermatologist. I waited months to see her. When I finally did, she was cold towards me. I didn't feel like she cared as she told me there was no point in treating this externally (I was hoping she would cut one or two open to give me some relief). She told me the only way to get rid of this was to do it from the inside. She prescribed me some pills (probably an antibiotic). I asked her if it had worked for others, and she nodded yes and she scooted me out. The pills she prescribed did wonders for the acne on my face but absolutely nothing for my HS. I was told to come back and see her in three months, but I never did. She didn't care enough.

For a long time, I just waited for the lesions to grow large and break open on their own. There's one that I actually tried opening with a needle (DO NOT DO THIS), and of course I just made it worse and probably make it stick around a lot longer than it would have had I just gone to a doctor. I had started working full time when I began getting abscesses on my upper leg, extremely close to my groin and bottom. This was extremely painful. I had to find creative ways to sit on my chair without drawing too much attention to myself. There were many days I wouldn't even sit. I would just do type on the computer standing up, pretending like I was only checking something out on the computer and would have to leave in a second to do something else. The days in which I did sit, I learned I needed to sit on my jacket or sweater, in order to not stain the chair with the drainage coming out of my open wounds, seeping through my pants and onto the furniture. I often walked funny, trying to avoid feeling the wounds rubbing against my pants. If anyone asked why, I just told them I had a problem in my leg.

It was a Sunday night when I decided I needed to see a doctor to drain one lesion on my inner buttocks. My mother took me to the emergency room. When the doctor had seen how large the abscess was, and the others that surrounded it, he called for a surgeon to come and take a look. The surgeon told me that I needed surgery, but because I had eaten dinner that night, and she and her team had already had a long day, I agreed to come back in on Wednesday for surgery. On that day, while the surgeon was briefing me on the surgery, I asked her if she didn't mind also draining a lesion under my arm. When I showed it to her, she couldn't refuse. When I awoke from surgery, she mentioned that she had arranged for a Infectious Disease doctor in the morning and also told me that I may want to consider plastic surgery, a suggestion I wish I had taken at that time. I was released from the hospital the following day and set up with home health care.

The Infectious Disease doctor examined me and prescribed me two antibiotics to take over a period of three months. Whether theses helped my case or not, I'm not sure. It's possible I could have been worse off if I hadn't taken them, but I wasn't getting better. I went on living my life just waiting for my abscesses to open and draining them myself - or going to the emergency room if I thought it was getting too large with no signs that it was going to resolve on its own. Going to the ER always meant that I was going to be set up with home health care, or what they call CCAC (Community Care Access Centre). Nurses could either come to your home to change your dressings and check on the progress of your wound, or, as they preferred, you could go into a near-by clinic every day or every other day for the same service. This may be common knowledge, but there are great nurses, and there are terrible nurses. I could write a book about my bad experiences with CCAC, but I won't elaborate. The point is, more often than not, CCAC nurses made my life more difficult than pleasant.

DERMATOLOGY

My sister had told me about a dermatologist that would see patients without a referral. This sounded great to me because having to explain to doctor after doctor (or anyone, for that matter) about your disease and the things you've already tried to manage it is exhausting. I called and made myself an appointment for a few months later. When I met with Dr. A, I felt like he sympathized me and I had hope. He knew my disease. He had patients with my disease. He had touched my wounds and wiped away pus. He sampled the pus for testing. These are things the first dermatologist I had seen never did. He had a son who worked in clinical trials and had just finished a study on my disease with an expensive treatment called Humira. He called his son right there in the patient room to ask him if he knew of any upcoming studies so that I could possibly get medication for free, but unfortunately the answer was no. He had also treated patients with HS with Accutane, but this too was expensive. With the knowledge that I didn't have any drug coverage, Dr. A prescribed me two strong antibiotics to take over a course of three months. Those antibiotics did help some. When I revisited Dr. A after the three months had passed, he prescribed me another run of the antibiotics.

HS controls my life in every way. There's not a moment I'm not thinking about it. There's not a minute I am not uncomfortable or not in pain. There is not a decision I make without considering my disease. I have to think about my HS before doing the smallest tasks. There are times I put off going to the bathroom just because getting up, changing positions, can cause so much pain and discomfort, and I'm literally mentally preparing myself for what I'm about to experience. Needless to say, there are many activities I just cannot participate in. Simply getting into the car can be difficult. I dread going shopping - too much walking, which means wounds rubbing against my clothes. I'm often caught off guard when someone asks me why I'm walking funny, or holding my arm awkwardly, because I think I'm hiding it so well. HS also controls what I can wear. As much as I love form-fitting clothes, its just not comfortable to be in them. I don't wear anything white - my wounds will stain it. I don't wear anything sleeveless - my underarms are full of wounds I don't want anyone to see, not to mention the drainage that will have no place to hide. I try to wear my clothing as loosely as possible, but I'm fighting to keep my pride, despite this disease and I hate to look shabby. Depression is all over my face. I try to act happy as best I can, to not bring any attention to myself. I look back at old pictures, and miss how happy I was and how beautiful it was to not be in pain; to just feel nothing. I cry all the time. The tears often start because of the physical pain - but they quickly grow into a bawl just thinking about everything I've already been through, how much the disease controls my life, and how I don't have any idea how to make this better. HS affects my sleep, because it's not easy to fall asleep while you're in pain or you're too busy scratching or squeezing a nuisance of a wound. It's frustrating just knowing that I can't just tell someone, 'I have HS' and have them just know what it is and have a small idea what I'm going through - as I could have if I had something like arthritis or psoriasis. No one knows what this is. No one has heard of it. No one can ever understand - and so I don't try to explain it. I've tried before, and it only leads to individuals thinking they know how to take care of it. I've been told just to scrub it, just to take the pain and squeeze it out and it'll go away and never come back. I've been told to just use natural soaps; that my skin just can't handle the harsh chemicals. I've even been told that it's because I don't pray hard enough. Everybody thinks know, but nobody really knows. It hurts to know that people don't believe me when I say this is an actual disease! It cannot be healed by something as simple as washing it away. If it were that easy, I would have rid myself of this a long time ago, believe me. Would you tell a cancer patient to just wash it off? I didn't think so. My loved ones, who know my condition still don't know what I truly live with because I try so hard to be normal, act like it doesn't bother me, around them. Firstly, because I don't want their ideas on how to 'easily fix' the problem, and secondly, because I don't want to be pitied. I just want to be free.

After two three-month courses of antibiotics, I was over it. I was over putting these pills into my body just to get little to no results. I stopped seeing Dr. A and went back to just dealing with it - drug free. This meant frequent visits to the emergency room and urgent care centres, and of course just waiting for some to burst on their own. I remember crying to a doctor at an urgent care, telling her how tired I was and asking her to I&D an abscess under my armpit. She told me there was no way to cure this and I was just going to have to live with it. How rude! I mean, so far I haven't found what she said to be untrue, but she could have been a little more comforting and optimistic. Can you believe she didn't even cut the abscess? She told me to take some antibiotics and wait for it to break open on its own. With this disease, I've learned that you're going to have to kiss many frogs to find your prince - kisses being doctor appointments, frogs being doctors, and the prince being a doctor who doesn't necessarily have all the answers, but just cares enough to try, and then try again. That night, I was in so much pain and a doctor refused to help me. Physically and mentally, I was fed up. I actually quit my job that next morning and applied for Employment Insurance. Getting up and ready in the morning was too hard and my supervisor was beginning to give me a hard time for the times I showed up a few minutes late after giving too much attention to a wound in the morning. I was physically and emotionally tired, and I truly just needed a break. So I quit.

I must have had enough of 'just dealing with it on my own' again, because I decided to go see a doctor one more time. I went to see a family doctor, who prescribed me some antibiotics but also referred me to a lovely dermatologist, Dr. Nisha Mistry. Oh, Dr. Mistry, what can I say about you? On my first visit, she presented me with print-outs and spoke to me on what HS is, what the different causes might be and different treatments. Now, I had already read most of this online while doing my own research, but it truly meant a lot to me that she had taken the time out to read up on my disease prior to my visit. After I told her I had already tried antibiotics - maybe too many times, she told me about Humira. Humira defined by www.drugs.com: "Humira (adalimumab) reduces the effects of a substance in the body that can cause inflammation. Humira is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, plaque psoriasis, and and a chronic skin condition called hidradenitis suppurativa." Don't you just love how HS is the only disease they had to briefly define? She explained that she would only recommend this in extremely severe cases, because of the possible side effects. She had me change into a gown, and after taking a look at my wounds, she agreed I had a severe case. Unfortunately, like Dr. A had told me over a year prior, Humira is very expensive, and I didn't not have any drug coverage. She too, like Dr. A, knew of some clinical trials in which I could get the drug for free, but the trials had just ended before my meeting with her. That's when she told me about a program called compassionate care - where the Canadian government actually pays for your medicine because your doctor feels so terribly for you. That's my definition of compassionate care, anyway. She didn't make me any promises at that time, but told me she would put in an application for me. I was approved! There were a few tests and things I needed to do before I could officially start, but I eventually began my Humira treatment a few months later. I also started working again around the start of my Humira treatment, about four months after I had quit my last job.

I have to believe Humira helped me. It did not cure me, but I feel like my case got better. It's hard to say for sure because every time I would meet with Dr. Mistry for a check up, she would say it didn't look any better. But I felt better. My range of motion improved and I feel I was able to do more things a little more comfortably. I was still making visits to the emergency room, however. After one particular visit where I ended up staying the night, the hospital notified Dr. Mistry. She called me in a panic about a week later demanding that I come and see her right away. The hospital had totally exaggerated my symptoms. Apparently I had a fever when I was admitted, but they told her I came in shivering! They even told her I had been there for 3 days when it had really just been one night. I explained to her that it wasn't as serious as they made it seem, but she was still very concerned. She suggested I stop taking Humira immediately. At that time, I begged her to let me continue, but she pointed out that after eight months of treatment, I was not seeing sufficient results, and with the side effects of Humira, it may have been causing more harm than good. I agreed to stop, and after discussing with her some of the symptoms I was experiencing, she referred me to a gastroenterologist to check for Chron's disease, an internal medicine specialist, to just check me in general, and a general surgeon to actually operate on the HS manifestations.

SURGERY

Dr. Mistry had suggested I see the gastroenterologist for of some of the symptoms I was experiencing. I had a consult with the gastroenterologist to explain my medical history and my recent symptoms. At that time, he said if it was Chron's, the Humira should have helped with that - but he proceeded to schedule me for a colonoscopy anyway. I was cleared for Chron's - which I was happy about - but that doctor never really addressed the reasons I may have been experiencing the symptoms Dr. Mistry was worried about. Sigh. Doctors. Dr. Mistry had wanted me to see an internal medicine doctor because I was experiencing many fevers and she just wanted to make sure my body chemistry was alright. Somehow that appointment never happened. I was, however, scheduled to meet with general surgeon Dr. K for a consultation, rather quickly, I might add. She was lovely. Before examining me, she explained that she was only a general surgeon, and if my case would require something called a 'flap', then she would have to refer me to a plastic surgeon. A quick glance at my skin would confirm that I, of course, was more of a plastic surgery candidate. My heart sank. Luckily, she knew of an excellent plastic surgeon, she said, and would be able to get me an appointment with him a lot sooner than it would typically take. She was very sympathetic and encouraging and I really wished she could be my surgeon. At that time, I had recently been to the hospital for an I&D and was visiting the CCAC nurses every night. Getting the wound packed was very painful because the incision had been made so small. Dr. K was nice enough to widen it for me. As her nurse was dressing the wound, she assured me that the plastic surgeon I was being referred to was very good, told me I was very brave and that she was impressed with how high my spirits were. If only she knew I was fighting back the tears that would burst out of me as soon as I entered my car.

It felt like forever before I got a chance to see the plastic surgeon, Dr. T. If Dr. K had in fact expedited my appointment, I feel really sorry for those who don't have that privilege. My parents came with me to this appointment. After I had told them about what happened at my appointment with Dr. K, my dad told me to let him know of any future appointments. It means a lot to me that he didn't want me going alone. I'm guessing Dr. T had just finished reading a Wikipedia page or something on HS when he walked into my room because he was basically telling me all the things I would have read had I quickly did a google search on the disease. He basically told me at that time that surgery was not a good idea because of complications and scarring. This was before he even looked at my skin. After examining me, he tells me that he would prefer I go and see Dr. S, an expert in HS, and he would only perform the surgery if Dr. S recommended it. He told me that he would put in the referral, but not to worry because his office scheduled appointments quickly. In the mean time, he told me to focus on losing weight because HS was often made worse by heaviness. I am not a skinny girl, but I am not huge either. Weight may be a factor in other peoples HS, but not mine. I know this because I had actually lost quite a bit due to stress (of the disease) and my symptoms did not change. I didn't take it personally though. I knew he was just spewing out whatever he had just read on the internet. I was devastated, still. I had really high hopes about him because Dr. K and her nurse had praised him so much. I had even warned a supervisor at work that I may have to take time off shorty in order to recover from surgery. So of course, my heart was crushed. Another appointment that had caused me to go home and cry.

At this point, I'm waiting for an appointment from Dr. S, but not really, because for one, I had already seen a GREAT dermatologist in Dr. Mistry, and she had already recommended surgery, and two, I no longer trusted Dr. T. It didn't seem like he was eager to help me, and so I didn't want him to. I went back to 'just dealing with it', until I got a call from Dr. Mistry's office asking me to come in to talk about renewing my Humira prescription. I thought this was odd, seeing that I had stopped taking Humira, and Dr. Mistry knew of this. I went in to see her, anyway. I told her about my experiences with Dr. Kapala and Dr. T. She told me that she actually worked for Dr. Sibbald (who still hadn't called me for an appointment, by the way), on his team in his office on Fridays, and she knew for sure he would recommend surgery. This made me even more upset at Dr. T. She offered to refer me to another surgeon. I explained to her how frustrated and exhausted I was at all the appointments and disappointments - and that I needed a break from it. She understood completely, and let me know I could call her whenever I was ready to try again.

I got another odd call from Dr. Mistry's office a couple months later telling me that Dr. Mistry wanted me to call her to discuss my test results. It was odd because I hadn't taken any tests. I called anyway. She explained that she had been in contact with a Humira spokesperson who had asked her about my Humira experience. After she had told him that I didn't really benefit from it, he told her of a plastic surgeon who would love to help, as a 'special favor'. She said she knows I had opted to take a break from surgery consultations, but she didn't want to let the opportunity pass without offering it to me. I accepted. I wanted to at least talk to this surgeon. I was still in pain, and maybe this was my luck finally turning around.

I met with Dr. CT on Monday, November 21st, 2016. She asked about my Humira experience and about the surgeons I had seen before her. After I told her that Dr. T had basically told me he didn't want to do it, she told me that nobody wants to do it. She explained it was an extremely messy surgery that would require a skin graft and two separate surgery weeks apart, and after all of that, my body may reject it. When briefly describing what surgery on my lower body would be like, she mentioned that I would have to urinate in a bag temporarily. As you can imagine, this is where the tears starting filling my eyes. As she was working really hard to turn me off this surgery, I'm sitting there wondering why I was even invited to this appointment. I was told that there was a surgeon who wanted to help me as a special favor and when I met her, I felt like I was just being kicked in the gut. I told Dr. Mistry I needed a break from the heartbreak of surgeons telling me they can't help me, and she sent me to a surgeon that would reject me again. The surgery did sound awful, I have to admit. Her goal was clearly to make me change my mind about desperately wanting the surgery, and she did so well that I even forgave Dr. T for rejecting me. After seeing the tears run down my face and the disappointment in my eyes, Dr. CT offered to refer me to a plastic surgeon at St. Mikes Hospital who had done more complicated HS surgeries. I declined. I was so over it. Instead of surgery, Dr. CT suggested that I should go back on Humira. She stressed that it is a very new drug and it will get better and work. Whatever. I was on Humira for eight months and it barely helped me. I'm convinced I was just injecting cancer into myself and not seeing any immediate benefits with my HS. I refuse to go back on Humira. Something has got to give.

Dr. CT called me herself the next evening at 7:00PM to tell me she had spoken to the Humira representative, and he was doing to be in touch with Dr. Mistry in recommending some other dermatologists that have a little more experience with HS. She also said that she would contact Dr. Melinda Musgrave, the plastics surgeon at St. Mikes, and ask about any new approaches she has come across and can suggest. She explained St. Mikes is trying to develop a clinic of some sort where they can talk to HS patients about lifestyle changes, such as diet, that may minimize the effects of HS. She stressed that even though she didn't think surgery was a solution to HS, she didn't want me to believe that there was no hope, and that there were hopefully a couple things we could try before taking that route. The call meant everything for me. It lifted my spirits. It just felt like there was another doctor out there, in addition to Dr. Mistry, who was in my corner - who saw my pain and truly wanted to help.

NATUROPATHY

I had reached out to a naturopath, Dr. S. The appointment was booked for a few days after I got the call from Dr. Mistry about Dr. CT, and I almost cancelled it thinking that I wouldn't need him anymore because Dr. Mistry found me someone that would help, but I didn't. During my first appointment with him, I just spent the hour telling him about my disease and how it affected me daily. He asked questions, I would answer them. He ended the appointment by telling me that he "really, really, really wanted to help" me, and gave me a few of his ideas. He prescribed me Effer C, a supplement to help me go to the bathroom more often and Vitamin D, and we booked an appointment for about 3 weeks later. By the next appointment, he had a very detailed plan written up that predicted to have me pretty much healed in six months. The plan included a couple supplements, something called colonics, and a strict diet of no dairy, sugar, gluten or wheat. As you can imagine, sticking to that diet proved to be difficult, but I did try. I saw little to no results, but to be fair - I was not completely committed. I went to a few subsequent appointments, but naturooathy is not covered by OHIP, and although my work insurance covered a lot of the cost, it was becoming expensive to keep seeing him, and during the appointments, he was mostly just making other suggestions of changes I could make to my diet. I felt like I could handle that on my own.

What's it like to feel nothing? I miss feeling nothing. No discomfort, no pain, no sting. I used to take feeling nothing for granted, and now I know how precious it is. I miss being able to sit down on a chair, a bed, the floor, without feeling anything. I miss being able to get into a car without feeling anything. I miss being able to drive without feeling anything. I miss walking and feeling nothing. Oh, I miss going up and down stairs without feeling anything! I miss putting on my panties, my pants, my bra, my shirt, my coat, without feeling anything. What's it like to get in and out of bed without feeling anything? To take a shower and feel nothing?

SURGERY PT. 2

After that meeting in November 2016 with Dr. CT, I hadn't really been to any doctors, with the exception of the few additional visits with the naturopath. I gained a little relief by changing my diet - but no major improvements. In April 2018, the drainage coming from my arms was uncontrollable. My shirts were soaking wet within a few minutes of changing into them. I didn't know what else to do except to plea with a surgeon to operate on me. I chose Dr. CT. I met with her on June 6th 2018. Again, she illustrated a nasty surgery that might not even be successful. I told her I didn't care, I needed to do something. She offered to send me down to St. Michael's Hopsital to see plastic surgeon Dr. Melinda Musgrave or her colleague Dr. Karen Cross, who do a lot more work with HS. I agreed to a referral, just because I could tell how badly she did not want to operate on me. If you'll recall, she had mentioned referring me to these doctors before, but nothing ever came of it.

This time, I got a surgery consultation with plastics surgeon Dr. Karen Cross, scheduled originally for November 2018, but moved up to September 2018. It was simply and honestly the best consult I've ever had. She specializes in HS surgeries and really can't imagine why I hadn't been referred to her before. She told me I was an excellent candidate for surgery, but she agreed that my disease was so active that it probably wouldn't be effective. She requested that I see a dermatologist of her choice, follow their suggested treatment for about three months, and after the disease had calmed down, she would operate. I loved speaking with her because she just got it. She knew exactly how I was feeling as a person living with HS without me having to tell her. She knew and answered all my questions before I even had a chance to ask. It was obvious she had spent real time with other HS patients because she truly just got it. She was so hopeful and encouraging. She let me know that it would be a long journey to recovery, but that we would be on that journey together - and that I should always let her know where my head is at and how I'm truly feeling not only physically, but emotionally. I had never met a surgeon like her and even if I don't end up getting a surgery, I'm so glad that my path lead me to her - just to know doctors like her exist.

CLINICAL TRIALS

Dr. Cross referred me to dermatologist Dr. Afsaneh Alavi, also specializing in HS. She enrolled me into a clinical research study for a potential new "antibody therapy". Without going into much detail, I was required to go into a clinic every two weeks for intravenous infusion and complete a small questionnaire on a phone-like device nightly. I officially began getting dosed in October of 2018. A lot like my experience with Humira, I couldn't see any changes in the way the disease physically presented itself, but I can say the day to day pain dropped considerably and my quality of life increased. However, in mid-December, I developed a large abscess on my upper thigh. It had been growing in size and pain for about a week before my next scheduled infusion and meeting with Dr. Alavi. After examining the abscess, she decided immediately to take me off the study and arranged for me to have it drained that morning. She prescribed Ertapenem, an antibiotic infused intravenously daily, for four weeks.

ERTAPENEM

Ertapenem is an antibiotic administered intravenously. I was taught how to run the IV on my own at home. It took about 30-45 minutes and then I would wrap up the IV site with gauze until I was ready to do it again the next day. While showering, I used a arm cast protector I found in a home health care store. It's basically a long plastic glove-bag that spans the entire arm, the way a cast would, and tightly seals before the shoulder. I couldn't use that arm to clean myself with, but the IV site was protected from the water. My IV site would have to be changed every 3-5 days. I would go to a CCAC clinic to have a nurse set up a basic IV line in my arm or hand. I have very difficult veins, and so nurses often had a hard time starting my IV. On every visit, I was poked multiple times before one was successful. There was a night when the nurses were not able to find a good vein, and I was sent to the emergency room for one of the nurses there to try. I waited four hours that night just to get an IV started. Initially, the plan was for me to have a procedure done to get a 'picc line', which is more secure than the regular IV and could remain in my arm for weeks without having to be moved, but that wasn't scheduled until week three of my four week course of the drug and it just didn't make sense at that point. All this to say, the treatment of Ertapenem caused some minor inconveniences, but overall I was pleased with the results.

Ertapenem was the best treatment I've received so far. I felt virtually no pain during the 4 weeks I was on the medication. My wounds pretty much dried up. Although you could still see them, there was no drainage coming from any of my wounds. My clothes remained dry throughout the day and through the night and I never worried about staining my seat. Proving this, my laundry loads we significantly smaller and my jeans/pants were clean enough to re-wear before washing.

CLINICAL TRIAL DRUG: IFX-1

Although an effective treatment for me, I could not remain on Ertapenem for very long. Antibiotics are not meant to be taken long-term. I was on the drug for about five weeks. With permission from the sponsors and executives of the clinical trial, Dr. Alavi allowed me to continue treatment with the clinical drug, IFX-1. During the first phase of the trial, I was either being given the active drug, or a placebo. Dr. Alavi wanted to give me a chance to enter the second phase of the trial, which guaranteed active drug administration.

Since beginning the second phase, I can confidently say I feel better. I have not experienced any large new abscesses, and the ones I already had are smaller and draining less. The most improved symptom is my ability to move; my range of motion. I am able to move my arms and legs in ways I wasn't able to do before. This alone has improved my mood and my quality of life. Dr. Alavi agrees, I will still need surgery to remove the skin that the HS has completely destroyed over the years, but if this drug makes it to the market, I believe it could help many of us keep the disease under control.

December 30th, 2019 Dr. Cross performed a 'left axilla extraction with flap' surgery on October 31st, 2019. She removed all of the affected skin from my armpit and pulled skin from my back to replace the missing skin. It was a day surgery that took about 3 hours. The wound was cared for by near by clinic nurses. It took a little over a month to fully close. The surgery went extremely well and I am please with the results. I will meet with Dr. Cross again in a few months to talk about my right arm. Dr. Alavi thinks I should return to Humira in the mean time, but at this point, I don't think I want to take that route. I know it's only been a couple months, but I believe surgery is the solution for me.

November 22nd, 2020 Dr. Cross performed the same surgery, this time on my right axilla on August 20th, 2020. Again, the surgery went well and I am pleased with the results. Now, I don’t have any inflammation or affected skin in my armpits and it’s truly changed my life. I can wear sleeveless tops and I don’t have to worry about drainage messing up tops with sleeves. I can finally wear white if I choose to. I do still have some HS on my lower body, but nothing that warrants the surgeries I needed for my arms. I will try to treat what’s left with diet changes - specifically the keto diet and will keep you updated.

The rest is still unwritten...

#hidradenitis #hidradenitissuppurativa #chronicillness #skindisease #skincondition #mylifewithhurley #myhsstory

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bubblyani · 4 years

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Deeper Relations: 10

(Freddie Jackson x Reader)

A Freddie Jackson Multi Chapter Series

Final Chapter 10: The Resolution

Rating: Mature (18+)

Story Requested by: @97freaknik 😘

Summary: Being the youngest sister of Jackie and Maggie, you were quite young when Freddie Jackson went to prison. Upon his return, you cannot help but recall your innocent love you had for him back then. And surprised by your transformation into womanhood, Freddie cannot help but form a desire towards you. Will a dangerously seductive attraction grow between the two of you? What will be the consequences?

Author’s Note: Cannot believe it’s finally ending. Glad I was able to figure out how to do this the best way possible. Hope you have enjoyed so far. And hope you enjoy this one too!

Series Masterlist HERE

Whenever you thought the worst already have passed, life never hesitated to prove you wrong entirely. It had happened every single time. And you had never wished for a do-over in life, more than you did this very moment. Still speechless, you stood there with your jaw dropped and motionless.

“Is it true?”

Maggie asked, her fear intensifying by every second, “I saw you two together last night, behind the bar. Please tell me if I just was imagining things…” she said, “Y/N! ANSWER ME!” She bellowed. You jumped out of your state, yet still speechless. “Please don’t tell me Freddie is the father of your child…” your sister said softly, as if she feared even imagining. Until patience was not possible any more, “Y/N PLEASE!” “YES! YES! HE IS….” You shouted back, “HE IS …ALRIGHT?” Both panting, it was realized. That you had finally let it all out. With her body shaking, Maggie raised her hand. “So does that mean…” she began, “..you and Freddie are..?” You nodded, fearful of what was to come. Covering her mouth, your sister’s eyes widened with pure shock. It was the reaction you dreaded. “How…How long?” She asked breathlessly. That was it. You could not do this any further. “Maggie please…” “HOW FUCKING LONG?” She cried out. “A few months!” You answered in desperation. Maggie clutched her chest, just so she could wonder if she was even alive at this point. “My god….” She breathed, “How could you-how could do this, Y/N…” Heavy was your heart, so heavy. You could not take this. “Maggie please-” “How could you do this to us???” She cried out, “To me…To Jackie? Your own sister?? How could y-” “WELL, HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL?” You truly surprised yourself when those words exited you like an explosion. Words which were actually your true frustration in disguise. Maggie instantly grew quiet, her eyes were filled with tears. But so were yours. Being the clear winner, you found yourself crying out loud. Landing on your knees, you covered your face as the tears flowed.   “You think I didn’t know how wrong this was?” You cried out, “I tried so hard Maggie…But it’s like a fucking spell I couldn’t get away from. I-I-I was mad about him when I was a little girl. But he and Jackie…they got married and everything was fine. I obviously moved on…” your shoulders shook as your tears kept flowing, “But when he came back from prison, something…something just happened between us.” The tears were akin to a waterfall, while your eyes were red. You were such a mess, “Things just escalated and …Oh Maggie! this is wrong I know… I know…But I can’t deny anymore...I love him. I love him so so much. And now with the baby…I just..please…” clasping your hands together, you begged your sister. You begged her for forgiveness.

Lips quivering with emotion, Maggie fully burst in tears, joining you on the ground just so she could hug you tightly.

“I’m screwed up, I know.” You bawled being held in her arms, “But I love him and I love that baby. I don’t want to lose either of them, Maggie…”

“I know…I know…” she replied midst her tears, stroking your head, “Oh Y/N…”

Tears shared provided enough words for the two sisters to calm themselves down. Unsolved yet calm.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(5th Week- 11th Week)

With Maggie in the picture, with all that was revealed to her, you could certainly admit that everything had changed. Suddenly you felt you were being watched. Even though it was never physically possible for her to do so, your guilt and enabled her to watch you at all times. That day, once tears were fully shed, she did not utter a word. Cleaning up together, it was vital your mother did not find out. With your sister’s silence you were not certain how she will act out. Will she be of support keeping your secret? Or will she be compelled to make a rash decision? You were her sister, but so was Jackie. Where or where would her loyalties lie, you wondered.

You made your best attempt to see less of Freddie. Truthfully it had come to the point you did not see him at all. You would pass up on Family dinners casually with random excuses every time. They were random but convincing. All to keep a low profile.

Whenever a rendezvous’ were planned, you did not go, but instead left him hang written letters. It had become the only way you chose to communicate with him. He never replied, and it was not expected of him. It was never his to do so anyways. Nevertheless, you informed him of your well being. And you took the chance to explain your absence by suggesting to only see each other once you finally move out. You definitely did not inform him of Maggie’s awareness, for you did not want to make it an issue. For there was enough drama caused already.

You slowly began to experience certain changes physically due to the pregnancy. The usual changes during the First Trimester. In order to avoid your mother’s suspicion, you wore loose clothing around the house. You were thankful your belly had not shown much yet. A part of you badly longed to tell her. Who would not prefer their mother’s assistance? But you just could not. Especially not in this situation.

Classes at University grew more and more difficult to follow. It drove you to greater frustrations than you were already were. Besides it did not help when you were stressed as well.Concerned about your sister’s unknown intentions. Frustrated about missing Freddie for almost two months. Your body seemed to go mad without his touch, your heart was equally mad without a sense of his love nearby. All this, all this were what your heart was not prepared for.Suddenly university felt like a stranger to you.

The longer Freddie could not see you, the more anxious he grew in convincing you to move out. And one fine day, upon his insistent phone call, you decided to finally take the step.

For a normal person, moving out would involve the assistance of one’s family and friends , making the process a warm and sentimental one. But in your situation, you were not so blessed. Your moving out was cold and discreet. Though your family insisted many a times to help, you had to reluctantly refuse. You had to play a role. The role of an adolescent unwilling of their company. But in secret, you would have loved their help more than anything else in the world. One of Freddie’s henchman was the only person who could help you. He literally helped with moving of your goods. As you expected, it was not a grand transition. But it finally happened. And there you were, finally moved in to a beautiful little place by the end of the 11th week.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(End of Week 12)

You had finally moved out and now living on your own. Yet, you did not see Freddie for a while. And it worried you.

As much as the inconspicuous behavior was appreciated, now there clearly was no need for it. For you were finally free. Not hearing anything from him was not a good sign.

Contemplating on it, you stepped out for class one particular morning.You gasped in surprise.

You felt a sense of completion when you saw Freddie standing there, leaning against his car. Sparks of excitement surging inside, you did not know how to respond. But you were a lady, thus you walked to him like one wearing a smile. When you got closer, you wondered what he would do or say. After all, you were both finally seeing each other after a long time.

“Let me drop you off…going to class right?”

Freddie said, as he got into the car. You were taken back. With no acknowledgment of anything else, he just said that. No passionate statement of how much he missed you, or even a symbolic display of his physical desire ,nor his frustration expressed in anger. Nothing. Embarrassed, you nodded as you joined him.

The quiet drive seemed obvious, for you were too busy trying to figure out what on earth was going on. Could it be that he was torturing you the same way you supposedly tortured him? Truthfully, you did not mean it. You were merely being careful. Why must you suffer for that? Or was there another problem in his mind?

Regardless, you missed him, you ached for him, your heart and your body both. In every way. Just being in his presence was enough.

“That’s a cute lookin top, innit?”

Suddenly, Freddie began.

Finally, the man spoke once more. Pleased, you looked at him.

“You think so?” You asked with enthusiasm. “Yeah…”

“I’m glad.” You said, looking down at your outfit. Finally being on your own, you were able to wear the clothes you preferred. So you treated yourself. The treat came in the form of a short sleeved turtle neck, tucked inside a high waisted flowing skirt, “The material of this top is really nice too. Very comfortable” you said.

“Really?” He asked, his tone still very casual. “Yeah, it’s just amazing.You should feel it” you said, grabbing the sleeve to show him. Desperation was high to make him notice you, to make him talk to you as before. But his eyes were still on the road. He did not seem to bother looking your way. You grew insecure. Could it be he met someone else already? Giving up, you looked ahead.

Until he took action.

Extending his hand towards you, he finally felt the material of your top. But instead of grabbing the short sleeve, he surprised you when his hand grabbed one of your breasts. A rush came over you, something you have not felt in weeks. Giving it a light squeeze, he quickly took his hand away.

“Oh yeah it’s nice”

He murmured, “Nice and… really soft” your eyes caught him lick his lips slowly. What a tease, you thought. It was something he was always good at: Driving women insane. If it were a normal day, you would have chuckled, you would have slapped him on the shoulder in a playful manner, calling him a cheeky pervert. But today, something as simple as a grab, lit that frustrating fire within you. And it made everything worse. From that moment onwards, there was nothing you could focus on but one. Clenching your fists, you swore you were about to implode.

“So what time is the class-”

“You know what?” You cut him off, “I suddenly don’t feel like going to class”

You looked over to him. When your eyes drenched with need, you were relieved to see to his own were drenched with lust rich enough to overpower you.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

With the car parked in the midst of the quiet seclusion, right in the middle of nowhere, only nature witnessed the two lovers, reunited finally to indulge one’s passions and their bodies once again. This time, you were the primary object of Freddie’s affections and desires.

Laid across the backseat of the car, you were more than comfortable as Freddie lay on his side, kissing you with passion. Your legs were spread open, just enough for you to drown in ecstasy while his fingers gingerly stroked over your panties, drawing various shapes, literally anything over your clothed opening, just so you could writhe and moan.

“Ah…” you cried, wincing, “Oh Freddie…Mmmm” you moaned into his lips. Watching you, Freddie let out a chuckle of fascination.

“Shit…” he said, “I forgot this was the best time”

He was right. When the first trimester of your pregnancy was coming to a close, along came the increased sexual appetite, which provided the extra sensitivity in your genitals. No wonder his grab and light squeeze caused you such effect earlier. You were highly doused in a mixture of desperation and frustration the moment you felt him pull your top out of your skirt. Volunteering quickly, you peeled your top out of your body. Going even further, your fingers unhooked your soft lace bra, tossing both garments away for you to finally be comfortable on the leather seat and to be drowning in his lustful gaze. You felt quite naked.

“Oh…hello hello” Freddie purred, “...the twins have certainly grown up, haven’t they?” He said, as his eyes were glued to your breasts, that have grown two sizes bigger than average. And you were absolutely certain they were equally happy to be under his gaze as well, “Just looking at them makes me so happy…with the shitty day I went through yesterday” he added dreamily. As much as the compliment was flattering, your eyebrows furrowed.

“What do you mean shitty day?” “Mmm?”

“What happened?” You asked, “Is everything okay?”

Still focused on your delectable bosom, Freddie merely shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it…” “No! Please tell me…i have a feeling its not good”

“Maggie came to see me…”

“She did? Ah!” A gasp left you the moment Freddie began to play with your breasts, casually running his fingers over them like they were a map. An old map that needed tracing and careful observation on every inch.

“Sorry…” he apologized playfully. You blushed.

“No it’s alright…”

“You like it?” He purred, his fingers still unmoved from their previous position, making you blush harder. “Yeah…” you admitted bravely. Pleased, he kissed you on the lips, before his fingers proceeded to play.

“Why did Maggie come?” You asked again, stomach clenched to suppress the pleasure.

“Bloody woman is mad…Coming to my club…telling me to stay away from you and the family”

“She did? When was this?” “Oh...She came by several times…”

“What? Did she say anything specific? Mmm…” your moans distracted you from your own burning question. Especially when you felt him casually place kisses on one breast while his fingers proceeded to encircle both nipples until they were erect. Clearly he was not making things easy for you. Raising his head from your chest, he looked at you.

“No…but she had no fucking right. Coming into my place of work...and embarrassing me like that, right?” Though he sounded casual, he seemed angry.

“You’re right…” you breathed, moaning as he lightly pulled your erect nipples.

“I wonder whether she knows about us…”

“I dont know…” you lied weakly.

Sensitivity off the charts, you were knee deep, “Maybe…” you began, “..maybe I should talk to her. Talk her down. See what’s going on”

Eyes widened, Freddie gave you hopeful look.

“Would you really?” He asked. To which you nodded instantly, immersed in arousal.

“Of course Freddie…” you breathed. He smiled.

“Aww you’re the best, Y/N…” he said, kissing you, “Now where was I?” he added seductively.Taking one hand away from your awakened bosom, he resumed his exploration over your panties, stroking your slit with intensity. Except this time, he watched your instant responses, all the while leisurely latching on to one of your erect buds.

Frustrated without his presence for too long, you were finally at peace as you indulged on his loving. But during all that, you were also conflicted. Why would Maggie do that? What was she unto? Was she going to destroy your happiness and ruin everything? What were her intentions? You had to know.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(13th Week)

Monday Morning

This time it was you who knocked incessantly on Maggie’s door.

You knocked without care, you made sure it was endless until the door was finally opened. Maggie opened it with a look of annoyance which quick changed the moment she saw you.

“Y/N….” She said softly. Which contrasted from your cold expression.

“Maggie…” you replied, bitter cold. Her eyes moved down.

“Your belly…” she began, “its starting to show a bit…” , Her eyes grew warmer with affection as she spoke.It was true. You were undergoing more small changes. And your belly finally began to show a bit. Being your sister, it was easier for her to notice. Not even Freddie noticed the last time he met you. And it made you wonder sometimes.

Freddie.

Shaking those sentimental thoughts away, you entered the house in a brisk fashion.

“Why would you do that?” You said, turning back to Maggie as she closed the door. You noticed her confusion.

“Why would you threaten Freddie like that? So many times?” You yelled angrily, “...telling him to stay away from me?” You scoffed, “What are you even trying to do?”

“What I’m trying to do?”

Maggie replied in an equally angry tone, “I’m trying to protect you” she continued, as she walked up to you ,“That man was never good for this family…I even told Jackie to leave him, cause she would never be the mess she is now if it wasn’t for him” she said, “He’s dangerous, Y/N!”

“You’re wrong! He’s not” you yelled back stubbornly, “He’s different with me. He’s good to me. He’s so good to me, you have no clue”

Now it was Maggie’s turn to scoff. Shaking her head, she marveled at the idiocy her sister was displaying.

“Y/N…” she began softly, as she took a deep breath, “That man basically…RUINED YOUR LIFE!” She yelled, “He made you fall for a married man, He made you almost fail in your studies…he made you so blind…he even got you fuckin’ pregnant!” She breathed heavily, “WHAT DO YOU THINK I WAS DOING?” She yelled out, waiting for your response.

“You’re ruining my happiness…”

And you finally did, cold and low.You did not believe her. You could not. You loved Freddie too much to even consider what she said.

Hearing that, Maggie’s eyes lost all sense of hope, the little hope she had in you. She was disappointed, she was betrayed. She was hurt.

But just as she was, so were you.

Maggie was the only sister you trusted in your family. She was the one you admired the most. You always thought she would stand up to you no matter what. But now it seemed like she was not. And she will not.

It crushed you.

“Just leave me alone, Maggie” you said, “It’s none of your business…” you added as you turned to leave.

“None of my business?” Maggie repeated, watching you leave her house, “Y/N…THIS IS MY BUSINESS!” She spat, “THIS IS MY FAMILY!!! I HAVE TO PROTECT MY FAMILY!”

Lips quivering with a mix of anger and hurt, you walked away, never looking back.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Monday Afternoon)

“You don’t have to look so worried, dear”

“Huh?”

Blinking, you woke up from your pondering. You were reminded that you were at the doctor’s office. Being the first doctor’s visit since you moved out, Freddie was free to accompany you. Given your expression, it was expected of the doctor and Freddie to assume you were worried. But all you did was ponder of what happened that morning, with your sister.

The whirring sound of the machines kept going as the doctor moved the transducer over your belly.

“You’re young…” the doctor said, “…and good news! the baby is perfectly healthy”

She said, pointing at the screen. You gasped as you finally caught a glimpse of your baby.Though it was small as a plum, it was formed. You smiled involuntarily, as the flowers within bloomed with happiness. That life, it was your precious one. The life you created with Freddie. And you were even more joyous to see him reacting so happily.

“Isn’t that lovely babe?…” he said, looking at you as he held your hands. “So…what happens next doctor?”

He was keen. His enthusiasm was evident as he asked a million questions from the doctor, listening to each answer with attention and focus like never before. All the while never letting go of your hand. You felt precious yourself, you felt important. You were right, he was different with you. You could never imagine him being dangerous with you. For he was your safety.

“And don’t worry you lovebirds…” the doctor chuckled, spotting your love struck look, “It’s perfectly safe to have sex now…” she said, making Freddie wink at you. Face turning beet red, you chuckled loudly, converting your face shyly. Good to know, you thought in secret.

On the drive home, Freddie was in good spirits. He was joyfully happy about the baby. And you were glad to see that.

“Right, did you talk to Maggie?”

And just like that, your mood shot down the dumps once again. It took you back to that morning. That horrid morning. You cleared your throat.

“Yeah…actually…” You muttered. Sensing your unsatisfied tone, Freddie attempted to match yours with a lower voice. “And?”

“Freddie…” you began, “She saw us that night at the bar…” you muttered hopelessly, “When I confronted her, she kept insisting how you are not good for me, telling me to leave you” you continued, “She said you were dangerous”

“And do you believe her?”

“What? Of course not!” You looked at him like he was muttering nonsense. “This is just ludicrous” you scoffed, “I just…” you sighed heavily, “I don’t know why she’s so hellbent on trying to tear us apart.” Lowering your head, you covered your face with your hands. You felt hopeless, “I wish…she could just leave me alone for good. She’s driving me crazy. This is so hard…” It was true. This was too much to handle. With your breath quickening, you felt like you were almost going to have a panic attack, “This is just so-”

“Hey hey…calm down, babe…”

Freddie cooed. Luckily the car managed to halt at a stoplight, allowing him to lean over.

He gently stroked your back, “It’s alright…everything’s going to be fine. Trust your Freddie and all will be fucking smooth sailing…” his voice turned soft as velvet with each word as he comforted you.

You chuckled.

“I wish I could believe you” you said.

“You can…”

Looking up at him, you sighed.

You’re wonderful, you know. Only you realized you never said those words out loud. Leaning forward, you expressed it openly by tenderly kissing him on the lips.

But the moment your lips touched his, you felt a spark being created. A spark that did not wish to burn so short so soon. You willingly contributed as his lips begged you to kiss him again, turning sweetness into immensely heated and intense passion.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Few minutes later)

The strength of the bed at your new house was never really tested. Until this particular day.

With that sweet kiss that turned intense, the doctor would be pleased to know the couple had taken her advise and suggestion to heart well enough, it was exercised a few minutes later.

For there you were, you and Freddie, making love after many, many weeks. Which truthfully seemed like forever. Given the frequency it was done before.

Naked bodies connected, passionate sweat fused together with the clash of each other’s bodies. You straddled him firmly as you both moved together.

As sensitive as you were now, the pleasure you experienced grew tenfolds. You were in bliss.

“Do you love me?”

Freddie grunted. Throwing that question right back at you. The very question you asked him a while back.

“Fuck yes!” You said breathlessly. For it was certainly true. Your cries were loud as he thrusted harder.

“No matter what happens…do you love me?” He repeated it, with some embellishments.

“Yes…” you agreed, as you kept bouncing, “I love you…no matter what happens I’m yours…Ah!…” you three your head back the moment you felt him greedily guzzle on every inch of your now-heavier breasts, “Oh god!…I love you…I will never let you go, Freddie I swear…” you kept crying out.

“Really?” He growled, his eyes watching you, though his face was still nestled on your bosom. The fireworks inside you did not stop and with each blow a new sense of satisfaction was discovered within you. It was more than you could handle.

“Yes…yes…”

You cried out, “You’re the only one that matters. It was you…it was always you” the box of inner truth was suddenly unlocked and you could not stop revealing. Cupping his face, you kissed him roughly, “I want you all to myself…No other woman can you…” you stressed with gritted teeth. His eyes glinted with joy.

“Not even Jackie?” He asked.

“ESPECIALLY NOT JACKIE…” you finally admitted, “Oh! Freddie…ah!” You moaned with high volumes when his lips continued to feast on you and his body continued to ravish your own.

It was the truth, you did not want him shared. Ever since you laid eyes on him since childhood, he was your dream man. He was your only desire. No one else was able to stir your heart the way he did. Not even any celebrity.

Now, with him madly obsessed with you, with him in love with you, it was more than what you could have asked for. And you were surely not going to let him go. No matter what will happen. You were his and he was yours.

You were mad, yes. But at least you knew.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Saturday)

Missing their aunt for too long, your nieces were highly insistent you come over to see them. With their own exams coming up, you volunteered to help them with their studies.

When Jackie barely came out of her bedroom, you guessed she was either too high to show up.

But Freddie, he was there. He watched your interaction with the children quite intently. While sitting on the sofa, he truthfully could not keep his eyes of it. Most specifically you. The way he watched you teach and instruct them, brought you excitement, a feeling of pure joy. You hoped he was proud. You hoped to be a good mother to his child that was growing inside of you. Unfortunately you did not tell his other kids about your pregnancy. Truthfully you did not have the heart. For many questions will follow soon after, and informing them you will give birth to their half sibling was a nightmare. Thus, you were smart enough to wear loose clothing to hide the small belly of yours.

Jimmy announced his sudden arrival with a knock on the door. The way Freddie walked up to him, the way their conversation buzzed in the distance caught your attention. It was strange to see Jimmy looking this unhappy.

“Gimme a few minutes, will ya Jimmy?”

Freddie said, as he headed to the toilet. Giving the nieces a break, you slowly walked over to Jimmy. He waited by the door.

“Something bothering you, Jimmy?” With a wave, you asked him. Trying to smile out of politeness, he shook his head.

“No it’s all good” he said, but you could tell he was holding back. Sighing, he clicked his tongue, “I shouldn’t really say...I mean she’s your sister” he said still looking down. Your eyes furrowed.

“Something going on with Maggie?” You asked, folding your arms. Which suddenly gave him the opportunity to vent. Slowly he leaned over to you to whisper.

“Do you know if anything is wrong with her these days?” He asked desperately, “She’s just so different…” he continued, “She’s angry… and ready to snap any second” he added, scoffing “She keeps telling me I should stop trusting Freddie…all the bloody sudden”

“She what?” You asked.

So, could your problem be the catalyst that was causing the problems there? Rubbing his mouth with his palm, Jimmy looked at you with begging eyes.

“Y/N...I love Maggie. I love your sister. But Freddie …he is family to me. I trust him for life I can’t just let that go...you know that right?” He asked.

“Yeah I do...” You nodded, which was a stone cold lie. You could never agree to that when you were willing to choose Freddie over anyone else. You were a traitor, and you knew it.

“We had this huge fight and I had to leave it like that...”

“Why? You going somewhere?”

“Some business to take care of…Will be away for a few days” he said. You nodded, he meant Ozzie’s work. You wondered whether Freddie will be joining him. Jimmy sighed heavily once again.

“I’m just worried where this is going to head”

“Don’t worry about it…” you said, “…maybe a few days away will be good for both of you to clear your heads”

“Maybe…” Jimmy nodded in acknowledgment. Giving you a grateful nod for lending an ear, Jimmy left when Freddie joined him.

As you washed the dishes that evening at your place, your mind was quite occupied with many thoughts. A part of you wondered whether you should talk to Maggie, get her around to calming down in order to save her relationship with Jimmy. No matter the situation, they do have a promising future. But the moment you thought of the future, you realized how much she was trying to ruin your very own. How much she was threatening the man you love to leave you. How she was on an attempt to rid of all happiness that could exist in your life. And that made you sad, it made you angry all over again.

It’s her life, she will handle it. you thought.

Speaking of the man you love, you missed Freddie. The thought of not seeing him again for a few days, it saddened you. It made your heart heavy. You wished if you could have sent him off properly. You wished he kissed you before he left. Even it was for a day, you missed him. Right then, that was when you were reaffirmed again of how much your heart ached for that man.

“Why so blue, Cupcake?”

You gasped when Freddie’s voice filled your ears. He surprised you, by wrapping his arms around you from behind.

“Oh my goodness…” you clutched your chest, turning to him “You’re back!” You squealed in excitement as he tightly hugged you.

“Sorry I couldn’t tell you…” he said, rubbing your tiny belly, “ There was some..urgent business”

You nodded. Except your eyes suddenly squinted. Leaning forward, your eyes caught something odd.

“What-”

You began, pausing the moment you noticed a red stain on his collar. Given the color, it appeared to be a bloodstain.

Freddie was quiet, and so were you. With his eyes on you, your fingers rested on the stain. You knew what his work usually entailed. You knew what you were getting yourself into when you fell for him. Even from the start. Clearing your throat, you smiled. For you were glad he was alive and breathing.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?” You said, to watch him break into a smile as well.

“Only if you join me in the shower…” he winked, moving forward to kiss your neck. Feeling ticklish, you chuckled. But those chuckles were quickly quietened when those kisses reached your lips.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Monday Morning)

Just when the morning sun had touched the earth, You knocked on Maggie’s door. This time your knocks were different. They were calm and controlled.

It was quite unexpected of you to show up at her door so soon. But at one point it was expected. Because there was a sudden change of heart. You felt this stronger ever since Saturday night. With all the danger people deal with, the bargains made for life and death, you were truly grateful to be alive and happy. And that was when you realized, all these petty fights or misunderstandings were not worth it all. All you wanted were nothing close to hard feelings with your sister.

Your knocks received no answers.You knocked again.

Maybe she might expose your secret. Maybe you will be shamed. But at this point, you simply did not care. You loved Maggie enough to not care. Your mother might care, Jackie especially might. But Maggie was the only sister that mattered to you.

The fact that the door was still not answered bothered you.

“Maggie!” You said, “Are you at home?”

She surely must be, it was 7 in the morning. She would not leave for work until 8. Tapping your feet with impatience, you held on to the door knob.

Only to find the door opened without any issue.

But the fact it was not even locked, it frightened you. Has something happened? Your heart began to race as you slowly entered the house.

“Maggie?” You cried out, “Mags! It’s me…” you said walking inside. Nothing in the house seemed to be in distress. But you still did not hear from her. You scanned all the rooms in the house, possibly every inch of the place. But still you could not find her.

The racing of your poor heart did not slow down. Instead you panicked.

“Mags??”

You turned in a flash when you found Jimmy by the door. Holding a bouquet of flowers, his hopeful expression changed the moment he saw you.

“Y/N…” he began in a low tone, “Where’s Maggie?”

Speechless, you honestly wished you could answer that.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Monday Evening)

Where was Maggie?

That was all that you could think of. That was what you kept thinking when you called everyone you knew. Her workplace, her friends, no one had heard from her nor seen her since the weekend.

With every phone call you made , restlessness grew. Guilt was also nearby. Would she have been at home if you checked on her on the weekend? If you called her like you initially thought? Your mother and sister were mad worried. You wished you could have gone out and looked for her yourself. But Freddie did not allow it. For the sake of your baby, he insisted he would go with Jimmy instead.

With exams looming, you were supposed to study, but you did not have the heart. Instead, you found yourself slumped on the sofa, feeling empty with worry. The longer you slumped, the deeper you dove into old memories. Including one in particular:

It was a day you remembered so well. When you tagged along with your sister to her Hair Salon to watch her work. With the smell of hairspray and dyes still fresh in your memory, you remembered how you could not stop marveling at the way she did wonders with the hair of many customers.

“You’re so good at this...” you breathed, to which she chuckled.

“You say that every single time”

“Cause it’s true!”

You said. Letting out a dreamy sigh, you folded your arms, “I wish I was a Hairdresser”

“Don’t you dare say that!” Maggie said, “You’re going to do better than that” she added, looking at her customer who sat in front of the mirror, “Do you know my sister will start university tomorrow?” She said proudly, to which the lady looked so impressed.

“Well you must have worked really hard then, dear” The lady said. You smiled shyly. The other hairdressers even went far to applaud you. That proud look Maggie wore on her face was something you could not forget. It moved you.

“Only want what’s best for you, love” She said, patting your shoulder. You smiled.

“Thanks Maggie”

Tears were present in your eyes much faster than expected. By wiping them away, you wiped the memory away as well. This was not funny anymore, Maggie I miss you.

You jumped out of the Sofa when you heard the door open. It was Freddie. Except he did not look normal. Sadness was quite evident in his face. And the way he took long strides slow in pace frightened you. Running unto him, you were desperate.

“What’s going on Freddie?” You asked, “Any news-”

Before you could continue, you were pulled into a tight embrace.

“She’s left him...” he said, “Maggie…she left Jimmy”

Your eyes widened.

“What?” You said, pushing to face him“How is it even possible?” You said,“How do you even know?” You pressed. Looking downcast, Freddie seemed so different.

“A note...” he said, “She had left him a note”

This all sounded quite ludicrous.

“No...no this is not true”You began shaking you head as you backed away from him “This doesn’t sound like her at all...” You said with certainty, as you were trying to think. With clenched fists, you tried to make towards the door, “I want to see it...”

“No love...” He pulled you back “Jimmy’s not letting anyone see it...” His hold was so tight, it started to hurt you, “He’s in a bad place right now...”

“I just… can’t believe this...” you insisted, still with furrowed brows, “Maggie...just vanished?”

Because this was too ridiculous to even be perceived as the truth. Where would she had gone? Why leave the town? Why this? Or could it be something worst had happened?

“No! I really should go...” you said trying to pull away. Released from his grip, you were resolute to head towards the exit.

“You’re leaving me?”

You froze.

Turning back, you saw Freddie looking depressed. You were at a loss.

“What? No I-”

“Y/N…”He began, his lips quivered while he got down on his knees, “Please promise me…”He begged, “Promise me you won’t leave me like that…”

“Freddie?”

“You don’t know how Jimmy felt...”He pulled you with desperation until you knelt right with him “I just don’t want to feel The same...” you swore he almost broke down, “Promise me...”

“Freddie…” You began softly trying to sooth him. To which he held both your hands tighter. “Promise…” He breathed.

His eyes, they were truly desperate. They reminded you of the day he confessed his love to you. Not a minute have you seen him this broken down. The need was evident. The emotion was primal. You had never felt this loved.

“Freddie… there is nothing in the world I won’t promise you”You said, cupping his face, “I loved you for so long. I have loved you more than I have loved anyone else in my life. Even my family.” You said, loving stroking his face, “You make me alive. You help me make sense of life. You’re in my thoughts every waking moment. You’re my air. My heart, mind, my body is all yours.” You said placing one of his hands over your belly, “If I have to live in secret all my life I would still…because I love you” you said,

“And I will never leave you”

Seeing the joy in his face was all worth staying back. Freddie kissed you with great intensity. Kissing him back, all you wanted at that moment was be by his side.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Few months later)

Staring out through the window, you savored the evening sky. You took in a deep breath, as the hues of pink, purple and orange fell over the outskirts of London like a veil. It was quite the beautiful sight.

The sound of the crying baby made you turn back to the crib. Your eyes, they were certainly filled with love as you picked up the infant.

“There there...” you cooed, before you started to hum a lullaby. You hummed it soft, it was soothing enough. Pressing your nose against the little head, you placed tender kisses, sending the little baby off on a journey filled with slumber. With the infant safety on the crib, you exhaled deeply.

Changes, there had been many. So many, you could not believe.

Yes, as expected, you finally gave birth to a healthy baby boy a few weeks back. Freddie was ecstatic since he always wanted a son. And the fact he had one with you, sent him to the heavens.

Changes had applied to the other unsettled matters as well.

You did not hear from Maggie ever since. No matter how much and how longe all had searched for her, there was simply no trace. It was as if she never even existed. Jimmy, affected by this, he changed for good. And unfortunately, you never saw the joy in his eyes ever again. No matter how much time had passed, it always will be the mystery that will haunt you every night. You would rather have her around tormenting you about your life than being quiet for good. You missed her everyday.

You quit University soon after Maggie disappeared. With the looming pregnancy and your massive neglect in studies, it was expected. Needing of a job for your livelihood, you began to work at a bookstore nearby thanks to the little knowledge of you had of literature and history. Though you did not attend class anymore, you still managed to see Marcus and Heath around town. They would be polite, they would acknowledge. But all that was limited to nods and nothing more. A part of you always regretted not fighting for them more. A part of you will always be carved in pain. For it was not the same without them in your life.

Finally admitting the unhappy life she was living, Jackie decided to leave Freddie and agreed to his divorce. Unable to face mother and the entire town, she willfully moved into a place which was far away from everyone she knew. The daughters lived with her, but they managed to see their father often as they wished. And Jackie was free to live her own life.

Your mother however, was torn. Watching her entire family broken in some way, the announcement of your pregnancy was the last straw. She barely spoke to any of you afterwards. Which certainly did not make things easy for you and Freddie when it came to planning your future together.

“There you two are…” Freddie’s voice made you look up from the crib. Walking into the bedroom, he was full of smiles by the sight of his son.

“All’s well with the little lad, eh?” He whispered, to which you nodded.

“He’s strong and handsome like his daddy…” you murmured, making him wrap his arms around you.

“All thanks to me missus…” he purred, pressing his forehead against yours.

“When I wonder can I ever be that…” you said, placing your hands on his shoulders, “…to have a ring on my finger, proudly telling the world you’re mine…” you said sadly.

After all that have happened, you and Freddie longed to sort out and define this relationship. To be together publicly. How on earth will that transition take place? How will you tell the world? Would the world believe the story of a benevolent former brother in law spending time caring for the former sister-in-law who was a single mother? Where his kindness would lead up to romance? Would that be believable enough?

That was what you had so far. But in all fairness, who would accept it? Does it really matter?

Pulling you closer to an embrace, Freddie’s grip tightened.

“I’ll take care of it, don’t you worry babe”

He said, kissing your neck sweetly, “Freddie always takes care of things” he whispered in your ear.

Relieved, you savored his embrace gladly. You were glad. You were glad to face the troubles of the past, present and future with him by your side. Because in truth, your life was not exactly at it’s best at the moment. It did not turn out the way you have hoped. It had been the worst. Your family shattered into pieces. Your mother not in speaking terms. your sister’s marriage destroyed because of you. Your other sister vanished completely, possibly because of you. Some nights you’d wake up in cold sweats, deeply worried whether she was actually dead. You even gave birth out of wedlock without any family by your side for support. All that had happened to you was horrid.

All except Freddie.

For when you looked around and saw Freddie sleeping next to you, or when he held you or made passionate love to you, when you looked at the child he blessed you with, you forgot about all that was horrid and cruel. For all that was horrid could not compare to the joy and the victory you have achieved.

The joy and the victory of being truly in love.

——————————————————

Thank you so much for reading this! It was definitely a new writing challenge for me, given the decisions made by these characters. But it’s drama right? Thanks again for reading.

Tagged: @starlightmornings @rogerfxckingtaylor @daydreamerinadazedworld @courtney-thevixeniris @kimmietea @shigarakitomuraxxxdabi @tealaquinn @rach5ive

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#tom hardy #freddie jackson #freddie jackson x reader #freddie jackson imagine #tom hardy fanfiction #the take #the take 2009 #tom hardy character x reader

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independent-thot-blog · 5 years

Text

Having a really shitty day on this Trans Day of Remembrance.

I was already in a fragile mental state. I just got back from New York a few days ago, and had to go back to pretending to be a boy in public again after getting to really live fulltime as a woman in a place that I love, which has been a brutally hard adjustment.

Coming back from New York to a childhood home that’s been stripped and emptied. The lawn stripped bare by a hurricane, the house smelling of chemicals and mold. The lighting cold and bright, the furniture gone or sparse. A warped mockery of the house I grew up in. The house my grandparents owned across the street, that I loved, that I had so many positive memories of, where I started my transition as a woman, was sold while I was in New York. A new family has moved in, I will never set foot there again.

Today, specifically, on Trans Day of Remembrance, 4 days before my birthday, was the court date I got to finally legally change my name. I had been waiting on this for over a month, and finally got one right in the middle of when I said I wasn’t available. I tried so hard to be able to last second change my plans to make the court date, I wasted over $300 I can NOT afford to spend on tickets that I ended up not being able to use. It was just impossible to get transportation that close to Thanksgiving. There was nothing I could do.

I tried to send a request to reschedule but that didn’t even have time to get there yet, I only found out about the court date less than a week ago. So now I simply didn’t show up, for the court date to finally, FINALLY change my name and gender. I am so utterly terrified of how much harder the process might become now. This consumes my thoughts and I hate myself so much for letting this happen.

Today sucked outside of that. Went to meet with my mom’s friend and their family (I’m also friends with her daughter) with my mom. Had to sit next to her on the couch while she constantly deadnamed and misgendered me, only catching herself once or twice. My mom’s friend entire family got my name and pronouns right every time.

I hate how much this has strained my relationship with my mom. She’s the literal only person where coming out to them went worse than expected. She’s supportive, and sometimes seems to really see me as her daughter and be cool with it, but depending on what her mood is she can be very cold and impatient about it. I was so close to her before, I hate having lost this mother I was so close with, who was the nicest, most compassionate person I knew.

My dad accepted me, and had always been good about my name and pronouns, while my mom can never seem to remember. I didn’t hold it against her in the past, since she was surrounded by people I wasn’t out to, and it was understandably hard to switch back and forth. But now she has no cause to deadname me, and hasn’t for ages, and she continues to do so. Worse still, she’s made it harder for my dad, now HE’S slipping up constantly, when he never did before.

But I also hate that I complain about this, because almost every trans person I know has it worse than me. I still have the best parents of almost everyone I know, and I hate how much this bothers me. But I hate that my relationship with my parents is becoming more strained than ever before.

I got to meet and hang out with other transgender people in New York, as a fellow transwoman, which was a new experience. I’ve hung out with transgender friends, but it was cool to run into new people in public. I got to catch glimpses into these lives. But now it just eats at me. I’ve been getting more and more insecure about my appearance lately, and so many of these women looked amazing. Passing, not to mention stunningly attractive. I hate that seeing passing/attractive transwomen is such a source of dysphoria for me, it’s so stupid and bad and petty but I can’t help it. The entire trip to New York, I got this taste of this lifestyle that I so desperately need, but cannot have. It eats away at me so much.

Every day I feel more and more disgusted with my body. I hate how trapped I am in it, how I can never have the body I want, I can never have a body I would be comfortable in. I feel so conscious of my physical presence and how I look to others and it keeps making me naseaus. When I think too much about my body my thoughts go incoherent, blinded by this white noise of misery and hopeless despair.

I all too briefly got a taste of the life I need in New York, my identity. I have had all of that stripped away. No where feels like home, I feel deeply uncomfortable by both my parents house in North Carolina and my grandparent’s in New Hampshire. Both fill me with dread and isolation, thinking about either building makes me spiral downward.

My legal name and gender have slipped from my grasp and are harder than ever to change.

I cannot live as a woman in my living situation, and have absolutely no means of finding a living situation where I can do so safely or comfortably.

I have been getting hit with the most intense waves of dysphoria I can remember having, and am disgusted by my body and appearance. I hate how my body affects the life I can lead, every interaction I have with every person I meet.

I feel completely divorced from, and repulsed by my home, my body, my legal name and IDs, my family, my non-existent career path, everything. Everything that defines my identity is beyond my grasp, there is no aspect of my life right now that I can identify with. I feel like a prisoner of someone else’s life, I can express nothing that makes me me.

I have been having serious suicidal thoughts for the first time in years, something I never thought I would go through again.

I’m not a huge cryer, but I have weeping uncontrollably so much over the past few days. I have never cried so much in my life.

Every time I think about myself, or almost any aspect of my situation, every thought in my head instantly falls apart and is disintegrated, my mind starts falling apart. I lose the ability to think as deafening screaming and furious static and bright whiteness tear apart, overwhelm, and drown out everything in my head.

I cannot picture the future anymore. I can not imagine the next few months. I cannot understand or visualize any way I can live any sort of life for the next few months. I do not know how to cope with this. I am not okay.

#personal #vent #decent chance I'll delete this when I'm more calm #text post #op #transgender #Trans Day of Rememberance #dysphoria

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onkey-bedtime-stories · 6 years

Text

Tremble (3/3)

WINTER

EQUINOX

SPRING

***

“I’m started questioning for what you had your studio for and bought it with such a fortune if you’re pretty much splattered on the floor of my house almost every day like this.”

Kibum kicked his leg on the way to drop himself on his favorite couch. He has lots of paperwork on his hands, round glasses hanging on the bridge of his nose.

“There’s no food there.”

“Delivery reached that area too. And that studio is literally two hundred meters away from a sushi restaurant!”

Never during his career Kibum sold a place without doing a research of the pro-cons from the neighborhood. Taemin stirred and moved to Kibum’s kitchen to prove him that he’s there only for food. But the words came out from him later said differently.

“It’s just lonely over there. Woke up there, worked there, then spent the whole evening editing pictures or sketching some concept for the next photo session. I feel trapped.”

“Wasn’t that the exact reason why you wanted that building at the first place? To save time not to drive back and forth from your apartment and work place?”

“Hah,” he gulped the strawberry’s milk he found in one shot, must be Gwiboon’s, he thought “I never knew it would be that lonely. Guess it’s just a stupid ambition I had to show the world that I’m finally here, at the very top of my career in such young age, after so many objections I faced in the past?”

Kibum torn his eyes from the paper before him, “Honey, your ambition is not stupid. Everyone has a dream and it worth to fight for even if merely a simple one.”

“So you don’t mind if I stop by your place anytime?”

He shrugged, “You’re my only friend, Tae, if I kicked out the last person who can deal my stubbornness, then who’d stay to take care of me on the days I decided to weep?”

“Lots of people want to take care of you but you pushed them away and whose fault is that? You can just literally point your finger and those men and women would voluntarily crawl toward you!”

“Stop it right there or I’d really kick you out of my house. We started with your issue how come you dodged the bullet so easily?”

“Trying to be a secret lover and you'd have thousand tricks to not get caught in an awkward situation.”

“Wow. That’s huge coming from you. Leave him then, and go find another one! You deserve so much better!”

“You sound like Jinki just now. So annoying.”

“Ah. Talking about that friend of yours, is he still pestering you asking for my number?”

“Nope. He stopped about a week ago. I thought it was because he already got your number somehow from other place.”

“I would attack you first if that happened, knowing you’re the only human chain linking us. He might just get tired.”

“Hmm, that would be possible. He tried to get you but you are more slippery than eel, so yeah.”

“Did you just compare me to a water creature?!”

This time is Taemin’s turn to shrug, “What else should I compare you? Jinki was there hot skin and flesh and you just washed him hard with your cold treatment with a simple sentence ‘I need to call my daughter’? Weren’t you just being sneaky?”

“You don’t know how it feels to be me at that time, Lee Taemin.”

Kibum and Soyu were best friends back in college. Both are free spirited and love to run against the world circling around them. One day they met during lunch break, two years after they graduated and already worked and were climbing into steady career. Soyu blurted out that she wanted to have baby. Kibum was jokingly suggesting her to go to the sperm bank and get the donor. What he didn’t expect was she suddenly asked him to be the donor instead since she already knew him and claimed that Kibum has everything she needed for the good qualities for the baby.

He was dumbfounded for a while but then without hesitation, he agreed to the request. The following months, they went to the hospital and learned about all the procedure and got it done on their fourth visit. Soyu said she would raise the baby by herself, she didn’t ask anything from Kibum besides to be present on the labor for the moral support.

However, Kibum couldn’t find him detaching from them. He loved Soyu and their daughter. He stood by their side the whole time and when Gwiboon turned two, there was nothing on the way stopping Kibum to ask her to marry him. Soyu herself, didn’t find anything to turn the request down as she loved him as well.

Their wedding day was the cutest, it was a simple ceremony, with the closest family and friends, with little Gwiboon waked her mother down the aisle. Taemin spent four of his precious roll films to capture the moment and proudly said up until these days that those were one of his best works so far.

The marriage was their beautiful sanctuary for the three of them. It was actually pleasing, physically, mentally, sexually. Until one day, they realized they loved each other not more than best friends. The fight came more often, the buried dreams reappeared to the surface, and they blamed each other more easily than worked out the obstacles together.

Kibum stopped trying and Soyu stopped caring. Being a wife was never been her dream and Kibum started to get scare with the idea of him only forcing his dream to have a family to someone he cared the most who had a very different goal in life. He still loved her as best friend, as his daughter’s mother, but she cannot fill the hole gapping inside Kibum’s heart.

He turned his priority to Gwiboon and Gwiboon only. Moreover after their decision to end the getting unhealthy marriage. He focused his mind and devoted his time for the soon to turn six years old girl. The smile of the love of his life was enough to mend the wound he has. It was hard a little bit when the court gave the custody of the girl to Soyu. But they talked about it and Soyu job’s in Paris turned out requires her to travel more often so secretly, since a month ago, they’re preparing all the paperwork for the kid to be able to move back with her father and started her school here instead in Paris.

Then came Jinki, out of nowhere, confiscated Kibum’s mind with his blinding smile, putting him in the middle of the scale with Gwiboon and him in each side. He needs him to concentrate with his life and Gwiboon’s at this very moment. But he cannot lie to himself that he wants Jinki to be part of it. It’s super silly and ridiculous, he thought, how can a man ruin his composure just with a kiss? How can he be lured just with something that looked like a remedy for his lust?

“No. I wouldn’t know. But don’t be scared. Who knows he might be the answer of everything?”

“I’m currently not asking, I don’t need an answer.”

“Kim Kibum, you know what I mean.”

“Then tell me. Tell me how you sit down an innocent little girl and said that her father already has someone he likes and that person is not a woman like her mother but a very handsome and charming chef she met at the supermarket instead? How you can tell your own daughter that you’re bisexual?”

***

Jinki’s driving his truck back to the city after traveled east to get some goodies for his new recipe. He rolled down the window and poked his elbow out, enjoying the breeze blowing his side, gently reminds him that spring’s finally here.

Ah, spring.

He almost forgot that he hates spring. It was spring when Donghae dropped the bomb in the middle of heartfelt reunited dinner, asking him to stop seeing each other, after three weeks of break since their biggest fight ever. Having his expectation already high in the air when he called Jinki telling him that he missed him and wanted to meet, of course the question was a perfect jab on his chest.

Jinki remembered how he was stammering asking the reason why and apologizing to Donghae continuously for forcing his ambition to actually start a family together with him. However, behind his tears he could see how Donghae didn’t budge at all and stayed stern, indicating that was his final request to Jinki.

He said he loved Jinki but the relationship getting harder because Donghae thought at that point, they supposed to already know each other by heart but he still found the needs to try and try harder to please or at least understand Jinki.

Jinki knew it was bullshit but he couldn’t do anything. He’s exhausted to force himself and chase Donghae who kept insisting running to the directions pole apart with him. Donghae was his first and longest serious relationship. The empty space he left swallowed him hard. Jonghyun had to nurse him the whole next month after the breakup to prevent Jinki harming himself. He even took a break from the restaurant to heal himself before realized that the more he became busier, the faster he would forget the man he used to dream to have a family with.

When the packed-restaurant’s schedule didn’t help, the news of Donghae’s engagement that reached him three months after the dreadful evening did. The pain slowly became hatred. And when the hatred piled up in each corner of his mind, he had the urge to wash it off with alcohol and series of one night stand. Once the person he spent the night with left, the pain started to grow back and his only escape is repeating the same pattern again and again.

Months and years passed by, and he doesn’t care about spring anymore. It was back to be just a season until Kibum and his sinful lips dragged him into the new cycle of sleepless night. Never in life after Donghae he waited for something. He was done waiting. It was dreading and disappointing. But here he is, expecting his phone to ring and show him unknown number with that cheery voice entailed behind if he picked it up.

We burned and we bled We try to forget But the memories left Are still haunting The walls that we built From bottles and pills We swallow until We're not talking

He turned up the volume of his stereo when the new song from the radio started playing. Blasting the music helped him back then, might as well give it another try this time.

I I am a man on fire You A violent desire What a dangerous night to fall in love Don't know why we still hide what we've become Do you want to cross the line? We're running out of time A dangerous night to fall in love

Jinki slammed the steer wheel. The possibility meeting a new person after Donghae was never passed his mind. Let alone developing a crush to them. Call it miracle, but Kibum did flick the switch inside him so easily, forcing him to forget whatever he believed about soulmate and stuff before.

He wished he was in a fairy-tale where he everything can just have magically have happy ending at the finish line. The hope though, just evaporated to the thin air when he faced the reality laid before him. Kibum is a father and Jinki understands very well that blood is thicker than anything. If he couldn’t compete with a woman from another rich family to marry his high school sweetheart, how on earth he would be able to win the heart of a man who already gave his life to the cutest girl he ever met?

Started a stranger A lover in danger The edge of a knife The face of an angel The heart of a ghost Was it a dream? He was stranger. Kibum was stranger. Jinki thought the latter would prefer that way. Three weeks into the spring and Jinki’s about to believe that way. He slowed the speed of his truck when he arrived to the neighborhood of his restaurant. If people said everyone would have the one that got away, maybe for him, Kibum is that one.

Jinki jumped off and slammed the door, unaware, or choosing to ignore his surrounding, he doesn’t care that the sound startled some people who shared the small street next to his kitchen back door. He unloads one by one, the wooden cart carried the fresh ingredient he acquired this morning. Usually, Jinki only did the buying in the beginning of the week. He went on Friday morning just because he couldn’t sleep well these past three days and Jonghyun suggested him to take some air and go check the farm knowing that his best friend loves it so much.

Jonghyun was right, Jinki hates to admit but that man is always right. Though it doesn’t completely cure him, at least he feels all the burden tad lighter. Strangely, the weather is warmer today, making him nonchalantly rolled his oversized white t-shirt sleeves up his shoulder causing two women walking by almost tripped their own heels.

He chortled, smirk’s evident in his face knowing he still got it after beaten up quite hard by the reality.

“If you told me before you have that cute mole on your bicep, I wouldn’t have waited until spring.”

How unreal it is, hearing the voice he could only imagined these past days. Holy shit, he couldn’t breathe, he actually kept his promise. Kim Kibum’s standing there, at the sidewalk across where Jinki parked his truck, looking more astonishing now when he’s under the sun instead of moonlight. The pair of bow lips curved beautifully, speeding up Jinki’s heartbeat with the sight.

“Well, someone forgot to tell me he has some kind mole fetish last time we met, I guess.”

Now that he saw Kibum giggling and walking closer to the side of the street where he is, only Jinki can start believe his own eyes. The pink tint is crystal clear adorning his cheeks, prominently shading the fine sculpted bones underneath. If before he said Kibum was already beautiful, this time Jinki honestly doesn’t know how the man who stepped closer to his side manages to be even more mesmerizing.

“Did I keep you waiting for too long?”

“Since it’s 21st century already, I was expecting a phone call. Or at least text message. This.. this is something beyond any scenario I ever think about.”

“I don’t do anything mainstream,” Kibum ran his hand toward Jinki’s forehead to wipe the sweat that makes his bangs stuck on it and the tingling grazing his fingertips are still the same, “So you think about me a lot?”

“More than I was planning to if I may say.”

“Good. Because I would be very disappointed if you said any different.”

“It was very flattering, but I’m actually the one who has the right to be disappointed.”

“How could so?”

“Spring started three weeks ago yet you only appeared today when I’m putting the ugliest outfit out of any day?”

Kibum looked at Jinki, he wears his plain white shirt with old washed jeans, blue plaid shirt tied around his waist with old converse covering his feet, he then burst into huge laughter that ringing like a Sanctus to Jinki’s ears, “Seriously, I would jump you right away with this outfit if we’re not surrounded by two grannies over there and group of kids exploring the neighborhood near my car.”

With that, Jinki’s sold. He slid his hand over Kibum’s waist and captured the pink flesh under his nose he’s been longing. As if it was automatically, Kibum wrapped his hands on the nape of Jinki’s neck, pressing their mouths as close as possible.

All the anxiety clouding Jinki’s mind slowly wiped out with every bites Kibum left on his lower lip. Their tongue tied to each other, trying to match the shape of imaginary puzzle they kept in it and lock it forever.

“So this is it?”

They rest their forehead to each other’s, nose brushing lightly, and Kibum hands secure Jinki’s face by his cheeks, hesitantly detached their lips just because they realized they still are human who needs some air to proceed.

“I kept my promise, didn’t I?”

“Appreciate that a lot,” Jinki pecked Kibum’s lips quickly making the other blushed once again, “Worth the wait.”

“Then.. care to continue where we left before?”

“I finished working tonight by ten.”

Kibum pouted immediately and Jinki couldn’t help to laugh, “What about fifteen minutes quickie in my car?”

“Honey, I’m afraid if it’s involving me you need at least one hour.”

“It takes that long to get it up?”

“No, it takes that long to get it down.”

Kibum whined, chewing his inner cheek, “Great, now I need to buy iron trunks to restrain myself until ten.”

Jinki cracks on the spot and deep kissing Kibum once again, doesn’t even care his lips already slightly swollen after his moves.

“You would look godly good in it, I bet.”

“I leave it in your imagination.”

“Damn, now I need to buy those trunks as well!” Kibum threw his head back laughing at the curse, Jinki didn’t miss a chance mouthing the adam apples on the his exposed neck, “My place or your place?”

“Mine. My daughter’s staying at her Nana’s house.”

“Fine with that. But what would be my guarantee that you’re not going to vanish after this?”

Kibum found Jinki being possessively anxious cute. He pulled out his phone and pressed some number, “Let’s have some fun.”

He put it in the speakerphone mode. Jinki still has no idea until someone shrieked from the other line.

“You better have a fuckin’ good reason disturbing me during my work.”

“Lovely to hear you scream. Can you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Can you give me Jinki’s number?”

They can hear Taemin choked so hard, both need to suppress the laughter that almost spoiled the fun.

“Can I give you what? Did you take some drug? Did you crash into some—oh, dear Lord! Are you okay?! You’re not in an accident, are you?!”

“Chill, Lee Taemin.. I just think, since Gwiboon will stay at my Mom’s place until weekend.. Why not inviting him you know.. to fool around and maybe have some sexy time.. who knows?”

“Shit! Kim Kibum! As much as I want you to stop pushing away people around you, doesn’t mean you can being a cheap jerk like this! Jinki’s my friend and if you’re going to hurt him even a millimeter, I won’t allow it with all my might bec—“

Kibum nudged Jinki’s sides and he took the clue so well.

“Taem, just give him my number. I don’t think I can hold it anymore since Kibum learned a new move with his tongue and I want it somewhere else.”

“Wait. Who is th—WHAT THE HECK! LEE JINKI?!”

***

“You’re right. You have the best bed in the world,” Kibum mumbled, cheek pressed to Jinki’s chest, his arm secured on Jinki’s naked waist.

“It’s just because it has me on it,” he said sleepily, his palm tracing Kibum’s back. He can’t get enough touching his smooth skin.

“Oh, aren’t you cocky?”

“Of course I am.. I have a really good one down there.”

Kibum slapped his tummy affectionately, “You’re by far, the most perverted person I’ve ever been with.”

“Should I be happy or should I be sad?”

Instead of answering, Kibum lifted his limb and start peppering Jinki’s navel with the kiss, going straight up passing his chest and collar bones before finally devouring his plump lips.

“I still wonder sometimes how could I betrayed myself and made you wait more than I intended.”

“I was this close to sell my goodies since you seemed uninterested.”

“Hmm,” Kibum slipped his hand under the blanket and rubbing his length just like the way Jinki likes it, “You’d get lots of money with this size, though.”

“Are you willing to trade it?”

“After almost every night have it? Not a chance,” he pecked his nose, making Jinki beamed into huge grin. He lowered his hand to Kibum’s ass and when he grabbed handful of the flesh, the latter voluntarily pressed himself closer to his side.

“You’re so beautiful, Jinki.”

“You’re more beautiful.”

“That I know.”

Jinki chuckled before he pulled Kibum’s chin closer to catch his lips, marking the bow lips as his, again and again.

“I want you to meet someone.”

“Who is that?”

“My daughter,” Kibum smiled nervously, and Jinki caressed his cheeks to ease his mind, letting him know that he’s completely find with the fact that Kibum is a father.

“I don’t know if you know this, but I sort of have met your girl before.”

“I know, she told me. And that brat never stops whining to me ever since she wanted to meet his Mr. Handsome Prince again. She even cut your face from that article in the magazine and put it on her wardrobe. I never imagined before that I need to compete with my own daughter.”

Jinki smiles remembered the sudden nickname he got after helping her with her yoghurt.

“If I need to confess, I was very worried before how you would still give me chance if your entire being already own by that little girl.”

“Well, that kid is already an obstacle in such a young age. I wonder what she would grow up into.”

“She already has your look, at the first place.”

“Even her mother complained she has no trace at all on her.”

They talked about Kibum and Soyu situation since their second date. Jinki’s very mature handling it all but Kibum still worried to death he brought more than burden to Jinki with his baggage. On the other hand, Jinki already came up clear with Kibum that even though they started everything slowly, he’d take every step seriously and wished he would try as hard as Jinki.

“Let her be, she still has a very long way to go.”

“You sure you never had kid before?”

“You think I’d be still chasing you if I already had a daughter?”

The shocking expressions on Kibum’s face giving a wave of laughter once again to Jinki. He’s one that hid his feeling very personal to himself, it’s still fascinating for him to see Kibum just put everything up on his face.

“Just kidding, Honey.. So, when do you want me to stop by your house?”

“Err, tomorrow?”

“Is nine too early for her?”

Kibum kissed him again excitedly, “She woke up at five and nags at me to make her pancake.”

It will be hard to explain to her about their relationship but Kibum wants to dismiss at least one of his worry by getting them familiar to each other first. What happened after, he’ll let the future Kibum deal with it.

“Ah. So she likes pancake? Then tell them her Handsome Prince will make her ones.”

“Stop making me jealous already,” Kibum pouted cutely and Jinki needs to control himself not to turn their position and ruined that mouth again.

“Do you want me to prove myself again?”

“Try.”

“Well, I know you’re tired, but can we have another one before we go for lunch?”

“Are you a machine or what? Trying to destroy my ass, huh?”

Truthfully, Kibum’s been waiting for those words came out his lips. But play hard to get once in a while won’t hurt.

“It’s because you kept me waiting for too long!”

“Why you kept bringing that up? I already admitted it was a mistake!”

“Because that stupid trick wasted my time. Wasted our time. I need to catch up the amount of sex we should have had if we hit it off right away.”

“God, Jinki!”

“What?!”

“You’re such a dork, you know that?”

“I don’t mind.. You like me anyway.”

“Jonghyun would complain once we exited that door.”

“Let’s just say this is me getting revenge. Hundred days I spent sleeping with my earphones plugged and woke up with the sore in both ears because Jonghyun and Minho were beyond what you can call loud.”

Kibum ducked his head and lapped Jinki’s collar bone painstakingly slow. When he raised his head up, a mischievous smirk spreads all over his face.

“So what are you waiting for?”

Jinki’s never been so aroused in such early morning.

***

“Mr. Handsome Prince!!!”

“Gwiboon be careful!”

She’s too excited she has no time to listen to her father and just ran to Jinki’s open arms. Once she’s in his reach, he wrapped her so tight and swept her from the ground.

Kibum secretly rubbing his back, afraid to upset the little girl if he just sprung and kissed him, “I thought today was supposed to be our date.”

That’s how they planned it one week ago. But the last minute, Jinki texted him to bring Gwiboon as well to join their lunch.

“This is a date,” Jinki whispered in between rambles the little girl kept making since the first second she saw him.

They headed to the table Jinki already reserved, this time as well, Gwiboon refused to sit next to Kibum as well and glued to Jinki. Even when the waiter came to take their order, she only listen to Jinki’s suggestion, completely ignore Kibum’s offer.

“Oh here we go again,” Kibum rolled his eyes but Gwiboon’s busy telling Jinki about how her week’s going, “Ya! Kim Gwiboon. Aren’t you too young to make me jealous? I’m your father!”

“I know, Daddy,” she spat her respond very fast before turned her head back to Jinki, “Nana said, I need to eat carrot but it tastes weird.”

“Look at you, the exact carbon copy of your Daddy.”

“That’s what Nana said!” she screeched enthusiastically , “What is carbon copy, anyway?”

“It means, you’re exactly like me, Honey.”

Her eyes rounded to a pair of crystal ball, “Really?! I looked like Daddy? I’m cool like Daddy?!”

“Gwiboon, Honey.. You’re waaayyy cooler and more beautiful than me.”

“Nooo, Daddy is more beautiful,” she turned into a ball of glee, eyes almost swallowed by her puffy cheeks.

“Now that I agree,” Jinki winked and pleased with the bashful smile arose on the other man’s face.

“So, Mr. Handsome Prince, why are we here today?”

Gwiboon folded her arms together in front of her buffed chest, “Daddy! That’s my nickname!”

“I can’t call him Mr. Handsome Prince?”

“No!”

“So what should I call him?”

“I don’t know.”

Jinki saw the gap for him to slide in, “Can Daddy call me ‘Honey’ then?”

Kibum almost choked to death, how dare he say such things? Quickly he wiped his mouth and glance to the little girl who’s now knitted her brows together and pursed her lips, put her best effort to concentrate as if it’s a sudden death question, not even aware that her father’s nervously waiting for the next thing spilled out from her mouth.

“Umm, okay, he can. As long as he’s not calling you Mr. Handsome Prince.”

Both men relieved in unison, however, Jinki hasn’t convinced yet. He’s about to ask further but their food came, he had to wait after the waiter the waiter finished serving all their order and left.

“Kim Gwiboon, do you know why we are here?” Jinki’s back to his initial talk.

“To eat lunch?” she answered innocently, leaving Kibum shaking his head, still amused with everything she managed to compose with that little copy of his own bow lips.

“Besides that?”

“Umm, no? Is it Mr. Handsome Prince birthday?”

“No, it’s not my birthday,” he fixed the uneven bangs on her forehead, “We have lunch today, because I need Gwiboon’s permission.”

“My permission?”

Questioning looks not only washed over her face, but also Kibum’s who’s totally clueless where this conversation heading to.

“Yes. I want to ask Gwiboon, can I be your Daddy’s boyfriend?”

Kibum doesn’t know where Jinki found such gut to bring this up. At the moment he’s torn to the idea of runaway and kick Jinki’s ball under the table. Strangely, Gwiboon doesn’t seem to be bothered at all. He hoped Jinki would turn his way so he could ask some explanation or at least moral support because the little girl might explode to the fact that he’s dating her idol.

Far from anyone expectation, she quietly scoped the cream pasta in front of her and nods slowly while savoring her lunch.

“Aren’t you already?”

Kibum’s eyes almost escaped his skull. His heart beats rapidly and he can feel blood rushing all over his head. Gwiboon continues telling some random stories on what happened to her during her stay at her grandmother’s house and about their puppies who’s getting smarter day by day, while eyes focusing on her favorite pasta dish, her little hand struggle to handle the weight of each strand of the fettuccine, but refused the help from Jinki, proving to the world once again that she’s the daughter of Kim Kibum.

Contented with the rhetorical question, Jinki’s finally lifted his head to Kibum who’s about to shoot hundreds curses and questions. Before he’s able to open his mouth, Jinki stretched his hand across the table, with the palm facing the air, inviting Kibum to reach it.

No need more words, he took one deep breath, and wrapped Jinki’s hand in his. Their eyes talking silently, making a beautiful melody only they could listen to.

To Kibum, out of all the times their eyes caught each other’s smile, Jinki beams the brightest today. His heart trembled once again, remind him to the first night their world clashed together. And with that, Kibum knows, he entrusted his heart in the right hand.

***

corrected a bit from the initial post in my AFF, typo wise only, so didn’t change anything. written in an alternate universe where people can love anyone they want and show it to the world as they pleased because love is beautiful. happy pride month! :)

#onkey #jinkibum #onkey scenario #jinkibum scenario #onkey fanfic #onkey fiction #happy pride month #shinee fanfic #shinee fiction

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almassadlive · 3 years

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How To Start and Run a Successful Lifestyle Business Online

A Personal Insight

Congratulations! You have chosen a really rewarding option into how your business and life will coexist happily ever after." That was a little note to myself when I chose the lifestyle business option, quite a far cry from a traditional start-up that I was running in the entertainment and events industry after quitting my 9-5 job. The latter required me to be in a specific physical location of course so as to reach and serve my clients.

Today, I run a digital business model and all I need is a laptop handy and an Internet connection. I then choose when I want to do some work and where I want to get that work done. And that my friend is what I call a perfect match! My life meets my business everywhere I go, anywhere I am. The general business rules remain pretty similar and herein I will share my own golden rules that new entrepreneurs will particularly find informative... But first... if you are about to quit your job, you are probably wondering

Can Starting A Lifestyle Business Change Your Life?

No more dreadful Monday morning train commutes to work and staring into a stranger's face seated across from me wearing sunnies on a cold morning, perhaps a subtle attempt to numb the pain of the lifeless surrounding. They are having the same thoughts as me. "Friday cannot come quick enough". Then I start thinking about my email box and that Monday morning meeting that I have not prepared for. I have to fill in my boss on the current project status before he can go into another meeting with more important people than me to tell them what I just told him!

I remember having those thoughts and it just makes me queasy as I write this. I know you get the drift. I remember suffering temporary amnesia as I walked out of the house, holding car keys and looking for them all over the kitchen and lounge. I had spent a whole hour pre-occupied in thought on how I will handle the stress that was about to unfold for the next 5 days of my life.

The Road Ahead

As exciting as this new journey is about to be you want to get a few things in order straight away in your new 'house' to make this transition process as smooth as you possibly can. That business idea is looking great, you have done lots of research, consulted a few souls preferably smarter than you. You have also been making some new friends. I really hope none of them is still working where you just quit! I soon found out that these friendships only flourished over the years because of shared interests such as office politics that tended to specially thrive on Friday night at the bar when we didn't have to whisper about overwhelming love for senior management.

The reality now is, you are in an elevated consciousness phase of your life, one that these friendships cannot exist. Your mindset needs to be fed with new insights and nurtured with refreshing thoughts about living a fulfilled life. You have some money saved up in the bank and probably have an actionable step-by-step business plan. There is something of value that you have to share and a strategy to get customers lined up ready to give your 'something' a warm welcome into this new world order.

But that is the easy part. I shall be completely honest here; apart from some money that I had saved up at the point of quitting, I really didn't have much more than a rough idea of what I was going to do. I was risking it all. When I left my day job some years ago, I was at a point where it was either that or I lose my mind.

7 Golden Rules

A New MIND-set:

As with all things new, your mind is the first guy you want to put in check. Let him know there is a new sheriff in town. If you are like me, you have been spending the better part of the last 6 - 12 months buried deep in business books and ripping them apart in your spare time. At some point, you found personal development material captivating. Eventually, you started finding out why that constant nagging feeling of life and lack of fulfilment was. As an example, I had read books like Richdad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and listened to the audio version of the same in case something was lost in translation! I had also read Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People among others.

This is an activity that you will not want to let slip into the overflowing 'good habits to continue when I get time bucket'. I had one like that and needed no motivation adding more stock completely in autopilot. Mind food is paramount in this journey. You want to stay inspired a good chunk of the time because this is where the sowing is happening. The thing is as abstract as some of the ideas in this material may seem at this point; I found that with time, it all starts to fall into place as the journey progresses. So do not sweat any concepts that are not clear yet. Keeping the reading habit going is all you need. These books are not really designed for reading cover to cover. Think of them like the SAT NAV system your car or as you own version of a personal SIRI.

It is a known fact that our minds don't like disruption. Whether that disruption is good for us or not, it is not very welcome without some whip cracking. The mind has got everything figured out. It is a very well trained machine with thoughts and habits that shape your life and works even when you are sleeping, doing the 'regular chores around the house'.

The 9-5 routine mindset is still at this point deeply wired into your system. It's advisable to start setting up ground rules so that YOU and the MIND are both on the same page. This takes a while and certainly took me the better part of 2 years. Don't stress just know there are changes you will need to work on consistently in this area. Oh, remember when I mentioned who your new friends cannot be a little earlier?

Breaking The Bad:

I made the mistake of trying to keep a regular 9-5-like routine when I first started my entrepreneurial journey. Big mistake. What tends to happen as a result is, the mind in these early days of business life, is still largely unaware of the 'new life in construction progress'. It actively runs the old familiar version of 'code' from its 9-5 days in the background in stealth mode. You might know what happens when you try to run a new version of Microsoft Windows on old PC hardware? Yes, exactly right!

All sorts of weird compatibility issues are not unheard of.

I did not understand this myself. The mindset driving my routine was still stuck in the old version. The correct term for this is the subconscious mind. So your poor conscious mind, which is pretty much what we operate on until new ways are 'learned' runs into a constant battle. It really wants to change the world for you, it's ready to work hard, promising to cut the Friday night binge that serves no purpose other than a regular headache which eats away the Saturday morning and pinky swears to cut down on addictive TV shows.

Someone, please explain why my favourite big screen stars are also hanging out in these TV shows... like really?

The Deal With Time Management:

As a new entrepreneur what quickly comes into awareness I would say is the time management beast and what seems to be like an endless stream of unmanageable distractions. In a lifestyle business that is run from home, the park, at the beach, the airport lounge or while on safari at The Mara, this can be a constant battle. Don't get too hang up on being perfect day one with this one. The more I tried to fight it the more I stressed about it. Stress did not improve my time management skills and only added to unfinished tasks that needed more worrying about... I thought! The time drama continued until I put measures to progressively learn how to improve time management.

Keep educating yourself on what works for your schedule and what sorts of distractions are overpowering you. I can tell you now it's going to be technology related!

It didn't matter that I was an early riser who wouldn't go to bed until my eyeballs were literally unlocking themselves from my sockets in protest. Occasionally I got the odd finger in this scuffle! And sometimes I still wouldn't give up. Now, this does not necessarily equate to being productive. The actual real result was a constant feeling of exhaustion, elevated stress levels, and anxiety.

Why You Need To Design A Routine That Works Around Your Lifestyle Business

I hadn't changed my routine so my mind would expect the usual treatment, 9 am we are active at work and then at 5 pm it expects that we are on the 'winding up for the day phase'. I, on the other hand, had with all good intent, added extra hours in front of the 9 and after the 5. Now you can see where the problem was once I kept this up for a while. Insane!!! Create a new routine and optimise around what works for you.

Decide When You Want To Work... Create A Routine... Then Follow It With Military Discipline

Perfecting this phase when you start a lifestyle business, which means your physical surroundings change constantly, it can feel daunting. However, with a well mapped out daily, and weekly routine that you have the discipline to stick with, you will start to see results. In no time, this will end up running on autopilot.

There's going to be a lot of 10 to 12 hour days, maybe longer but they don't and shouldn't be in your constant daily routine. After all, it's business around your lifestyle. I have 3-hour blocks and generally leave my 'heavy lifting work' for when I get into a state of flow, usually after midnight.

Understanding Your Personal Power and Peak Performance State:

This state starts becoming more regular with practice and awareness. Understand your highs (i.e. peak energy state), lows (this is no time to do the books and usually a good time to choose pizza toppings and make big decisions like thin or thick crust?) and my personal favourite flow state (this is creation mode and a good time to change the World). Pick a block of hours that works for you. Once new habits in your routine become solid you will have an easier time telling these states apart.

It's not unusual for me to get into flow while at the shops looking at apples and kiwi fruit fresh deals of the day. This state for me comes through an insightful thought or sometimes as a series of thoughts back to back, so please keep a hardcover notebook at all times for these moments. You might just stumble on your best business idea yet!

Time management and productivity is a continuous optimisation process. All you have to do is decide how many hours you want to work. Pay attention to your body clock and maximise for times when you are at peak energy states. Then learn to induce these states through rewarding practices like meditation.

Schedule Fun Times on Tuesdays:

Although it's not how I started off, I am lucky thus far to be working on businesses that allow me lots of flexibility as to when and where I actually work. If this tickles your fancy you are on the right track here. In my case, all I need is my mac book pro and decent wifi. Tip: When I am in a location where the menu has an under $10 dollar price tag frenzy going on, I move on swiftly.

About Tuesdays

Move all the things you used to do for fun on Saturday to this day. The Keyword here is FUN guys so if mowing the lawn is fun! Okay, you get my point. It doesn't matter what the activity is but I recommend you do it in the early days of your journey. The feeling is absolutely incredible. For me, it was reading the paper and a coffee down the road.

Do you guys wonder why we still print newspapers today?

So, usually, one or two local Moms will swing by the coffee shop and that is all the action there is. The rest of the 'real' world folks are at work. This is my opinion but what I found with being Mr Tuesday is that it gives me a boost of confidence and that sense of freedom where I feel, "yeah that's right, I can do what I want when I want".

I will point out here that this has nothing to do with money. I have done this even when the reality at that time was 'cash-flow challenges!'. I am not advocating that you should smile and be happy when you are broke, no no no. When you think about it, this is when you need your mind at a 100% and if all it takes is a series of 3-dollar coffees down the road, so be it. While on this topic, my ideal Tuesday day is on a yacht surrounded by endless views of blue seas at exactly 11 am and a safety vest in close proximity! Unwanted swimming lessons are not part of this plan.

What does your ideal Tuesday day look like?

Your Inner Circle... Your Players CLUB:

This is an interesting one because if you think about your ideal Tuesday above, how many people do you know today can do that? Initially, you will probably be alone or maybe with someone close to you like a partner, wife, girlfriend or somebody else who probably does what you do, or benefits directly from what you do. I found out that the friends I used to hang out with on Saturdays and Sundays in my previous life no longer fitted in the new life I was creating. It's a delicate balance but I had to make some changes. For the same reason, of course, the folks at your old job will probably not take Tuesday off to hang out at your newly found happy place to share happy coffee with you.

I could go on and on about this inner circle area of the new life but what I realised and accepted was, I needed to decide as part of the journey, to be alone for a little while as more new quality friendships developed. This is still an ongoing process. As an example, a couple of months ago I was in HongKong for a week just by myself. I had a blast but would it have been nicer to share that escapade with someone familiar?

I met new people on that trip and did things I had never done before. I love travelling and it is one of the reasons why starting a lifestyle business was a brilliant model. The thing is, if I can make friends who also have time to be lazy on Tuesdays for happy coffee and random sun baking escapades, that is probably a good 'new friend barometer' check right there! Oh and hopefully of course what they do for money is generally not frowned upon by law!

On the real, though, I personally don't have many of these friends but I found that this is a good time for me to reflect inwards and to focus on my personal growth. If you are new into this game, this could be a good time to spend with a business mentor, perhaps meet other like-minded people in your local community, go deep into nature or maybe just hang out on social media platforms and engage and find out the latest buzz like who got a cat! Seriously the point here is, have a lot of choices in your back pocket that you can go crazy with and if you have bucket list ideas all figured out, check them off weekly without fail.

Family:

Family is very dear to me and I would imagine it's the same for you too. Perhaps, much so that you are making this decision to escape the 9-5 and really start learning new ways to make money outside the voluntary solitary confinement space (also known as office cubicle). One of my reasons for choosing this journey was my family. To be more available to them and to enhance my own life experiences. To fill those experiences with what I really want anytime I wanted it. The one thing I encountered and you probably might as well, those we love and care for dearly may not understand the new you. These moments may not be as dramatic such as waving placards in protest but you will see it vividly.

Remember how our minds don't like change?

It's not their fault and they are probably coming from a place of love for you. Embrace the response you get with love and remember your bigger mission. I had lots of strange conversations with people I love and would have like to be speaking a foreign language at the time. That way being misunderstood would have been spot on. Then one day I realised, they weren't really saying they disliked my new outlook on life and crazy ideas like giving up a six-figure income.

They were just saying, "We don't understand how to process this new information". Please show us how. You might also take consolation in the fact that how well you manage this close relationship is a reflection of how you will do 'out there' where the World is short of people like you and me, people who are lost in self-indulgence and totally unconscious of their daily actions will not understand you either!

Remember, training takes time. That's what it took for me until they somewhat understood. If you are lucky enough to get the all in response from them, great, if not, give them time and if need be, add the space element to it as well. Be kind to yourself.

At the time, I was on a roller coaster going through a myriad of changes both personal and business that required me to be very present. My first business was in an industry I did not know at all, the physical surroundings were not very familiar (I will discuss this in a later post) and a pending divorce as a result of a strained long-distance relationship. Now, this was a lot of action in one headspace!

In Summary

Your circumstances may be a little different from mine for wanting to come this way and choosing this journey. As you go along, it's reasonable to expect moments where you will be tried and tested by fate. Things will happen that will be out of your comfort zone or out of your control and sometimes both.

In the end, I find that clarity on my why I do what I do sails me through choppy waters. I embrace whatever comes my way with love. Answers to what I don't know come in the right time. I keep the bigger mission clear in my mind. Creating a life where I can live on my own terms is not free, there's a price to be paid.

Another really important thing to have a solid business system. I found my answer with the six-figure mentors. They have a step-by-step business system that shows you how to leverage the Internet and start your very own online business. What's, even more, is that if your goal is to start your own business say around your passion, the business skills you will learn are second to none. From experience with my first 2 ventures as a newbie without a mentor, I would recommend every new entrepreneur make getting a mentor, their number one priority. Looking at how I started my entrepreneurial journey, this was my single most expensive mistake up until today as I write this.

Final Thought

Along the way somewhere, I realised that I needed to give up the idea of perfection and get cosy with uncertainty about what will be tomorrow and experience some discomfort today because of the things that I don't know yet. I experience more growth as I continue to operate in that mental space. All I have to do TODAY is take to take the next best action. This post is unusually long so if you are still reading, I sincerely thank you. I hope you found some value in there. Feel free to share this post with someone else who will enjoy reading through the ideas and insights I have shared.

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allyinthekeyofx · 7 years

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Fading light -Part 2- 5/6

PART ONE - Chapters 1-6

PART TWO - Chapter one Chapter two Chapter three Chapter four

PART TWO

CHAPTER FIVE

I am so much later than I wanted to be and guilt prickles at me as I make my way along one of the endless corridors that leads to Scully’s room. If it weren’t for the numbers on the doors, there would be absolutely no way of differentiating one floor from the next. My hand is throbbing sickeningly beneath the piss poor attempt I have made to dress and bandage it with the one fully functioning hand I have at my disposal. First aid isn’t exactly my strong point, because after all, Scully is the doctor in this partnership and I’ve lost count of the amount of times she has had cause to patch me up over the years when I’ve fallen headlong in to one dangerous situation after another.

Mostly though, the injuries have either been caused by the actions of another or by my own occasional blindness to the risks surrounding me as I jump my size tens straight in to danger.

Self-inflicted injury is rare. Although not unheard of for me when the pressure builds inside and demands release. Oh yeah, I’ve punched a few walls in my time and in the battle between man and solid object, solid object has usually prevailed; but I’ve generally been able to hide it from Scully. Who wants to admit to their partner that they have lost control just enough to make bruising their knuckles preferable to the kind of mental castigation I had become so adept in meting out to myself? That the prospect of physical pain was far, far less damaging than its mental counterpart?

But smashing a mirror with my bare hand? That’s a new one on me and I was actually taken aback by how much it fucking hurt. And as I thrust my bleeding hand under the cold tap in Scully’s bathroom, the sight of the blood from the deep cuts mingling and swirling with the water as it circled down the drain caused me to almost lose the precarious hold my stomach had on the crappy hospital food I had shovelled down earlier in the day.

I was exhausted, emotionally and physically from the events not just of the previous day, but of the weeks and months that came before and perhaps for the first time I admitted to myself that I was precariously balancing on the edge of reason. That at any point I would come crashing down and God knows who I might bring down with me. I had already proven today that my thought process was pretty screwed, first with that cancer ridden bastard and more crucially, with Scully’s Mother. I should have at least tried to justify Scully’s need to protect her from the worst that this disease could bring. To make her understand that this is Scully's attempt in some way to preserve a memory of her that wasn’t tainted by blood and pain and the desperate fear of death.

For Scully I should have made her understand.

But instead I had just stood there and said nothing. Not one fucking word of comfort did I offer a woman who, like her child, has remained allied to me even in the face of so much heartbreak.

Bill Jr once stood before me and called me a sorry son of a bitch; and I hadn’t found any good reason before or since to disagree with him, least of all today.

But despite the dread I feel at facing Scully, who, sick or not will surely require an explanation as to why my battered knuckles are swathed in a loosely tied bandage that the blood had continued to seep slowly through to bloom like a red rose on the cloth surface, there is one small light on my horizon, a light as always that came straight from her.

A call as I was engaged in trying to pack a bag for her. News that she was being moved out of the ICU and in to a general ward. Her vitals were all good. Oxygen saturation levels back within normal range. And while she still felt tired and nauseous, a few hours sleep had more or less returned her back to normal. Or at least whatever passed for normal these days.

But it was good news. The best news I could have hoped for given the circumstances and I had grabbed hold of it and held on, because it meant we were one step closer to her coming home. That this time, the darkness had been held at bay and whether we held it back for a week or a month or a year, each small victory was precious and to be quietly celebrated; small battles to be won even if we would eventually lose the war. And I would take each of those battles and store them away so we might draw strength from them the next time. Because, while I’m unsure of some things, I do know with a certainty that almost swallows me whole, that there will be a next time. That the battles will keep on coming until eventually the fight becomes too great and the battle too exhausting.

But for now, for now, we are winning.

And I will hold on to that.

I’m so deep in thought that I walk straight past Scully’s room and have to backtrack a few feet. The door is slightly ajar but I still tap lightly to alert her to my presence. I think I expected her to be sleeping, or at the very least resting atop the bed. But in fact, she is standing at the window, forehead resting against the cool glass, as she observes the hustle and bustle of the grounds beneath her. The room is bathed in weak winter sunshine and it surrounds her body like a halo, blending the lines of her body in to an aura of white light; a perfect living silhouette against the bright light behind the glass. The effect is mesmerising, almost angelic. And I am quite literally rooted to the spot.

Scully is a deeply spiritual person. She holds her faith before her like a protective force and while i don’t share her belief I can appreciate what it means to her; to be able to draw on that same faith in much the same way I have always found my own particular faith in the truth. But just for a moment, I can appreciate what having Scully’s faith might mean; that even in the midst of so much darkness, the brightness of light will always prevail.

Dana Scully

My guiding light

And then she turns, smiling as she realises it’s me. She is perhaps the only person on this earth who has ever smiled at me like that when she sees me, a smile that affirms every single time I see it that I am wanted. That I am still worthy enough for someone to be pleased I am there with them.

I dump the holdall on the bed and cross the short distance that separates us, scrutinising her face carefully even as I cup my hands either side and drop a gentle kiss on her lips. She still looks tired, frighteningly pale, the billowing hospital gown she wears serving to make her look so much more fragile than she really is. And of course she is shoe-less. The thin hospital issue socks on her feet add nothing to her height and I try to force back the realisation of just how weakened she looks. But her eyes are clear. Those beautiful blue eyes that on occasion, have almost severed my head from my body when I’ve got myself in to a stupid situation; eyes that can change from blue steel to soft velvet dependent on her moods. Scully’s eyes, the windows to her soul and like me, the only part of herself that cannot lie, which is probably why in the past we have turned away from each other so many times. To hide truths from each other not ready to be spoken.

But today, now, I see nothing within them to mar their clear beauty. Her mind is peaceful. She isn’t in pain. I don’t need anything else.

But then as my lips track upwards, lingering for a moment on her forehead before I rest my chin on the crown of her head, dropping my hands to her waist as I tighten my grip on her, drawing her against me, I feel a subtle shift in her focus.

“Mulder your hand..”

Busted.

“It’s okay. It’s nothing.”

But she won’t be deflected, stepping out of the embrace as she catches hold of my wrist, brow furrowing as she takes in the blood soaked bandage, her doctors training, her need to nurture, to protect immediately rising to the fore and not for the first time I can’t help but think what an amazing Mother she would have made. But that chance has been taken from her. Like so many other hopes and dreams have before.

I once told Scully that I had never seen her as a Mother before.

But now that she can’t have it, sometimes it’s all I see.

She guides me to the bed and pushes me gently in to a seated position, her deft fingers unwrapping the bandage that has loosened since my clumsy application. And she frowns as it becomes obvious that with each layer she removes, the more blood is apparent. Until finally the bandage is off, discarded carelessly on to the floor below and I can’t help a strangled hiss as her fingers press around the edges of the deepest wound. An inch long, deep cut that starts at the base of my index finger and curves its way in a near perfect half moon around the knuckle of my middle finger. The skin at the top of the knuckle is missing and I am suddenly struck by the way it resembles a question mark.

“Mulder this needs stitching. What did you do?”

I refuse to look at her, ashamed suddenly that in the midst of everything she is fighting; her focus is for me and me alone.

“Would you believe me if I told you your bathroom cabinet fell on to my fist?”

I try to keep my voice light but obviously my pathetic attempt doesn’t fool her for a second because her eyes are suddenly so filled with sorrow I could scream.

I allow her to draw me towards her, feel her hand cool on the back of my neck tracing circles with her thumb, and even though I am aware always of that tiny ridge of scar tissue, she doesn’t notice. And for that I am infinitely thankful.

“I’m sorry Mulder.”

Her admission is unexpected because I can’t think of a single thing she has to be sorry for. Until....

“My Mom came by. She told me what happened.”

And then I understand.

“I shouldn’t have put you in that position. I’m sorry.”

I nod, keeping my eyes closed as I rest my face against the soft pillow of her breast. I am so tired I just want to remain there forever. Safe, protected, fulfilled in the arms of the woman who makes the very universe make sense to me. She doesn’t mention my other visitor and I can only assume that Maggie had more important things to discuss with her.

Maybe I will tell her later.

Probably I won’t.

“It’s okay Scully.” I say, even though nothing is really okay right now.

I feel her lips press in to the crown of my head and she remains there for a few seconds, breathing in the scent of my recently washed hair. And I’m not surprised by her whispered entreaty.

“Lets go home Mulder. I just want to go home.”

XXXX

Despite Dr Zuckerman’s protestations to the contrary, Scully had refused to be deflected. I could have told him he was wasting his time even as he quietly laid down all the reasons why it would be better for her to remain in the hospital just for one more night. One more night to ensure she was strong enough to return home.

He obviously had no concept as to just how strong this woman really is. And while I know Scully holds him in great regard, both as her Doctor and as a human being, she had made up her mind. Eventually though, she had reached a small compromise – she would remain resting in her room for as long as it took me to be processed through the ER and to receive treatment on my injured hand. He had raised his eyebrows questioningly when faced with the jagged mess of cuts and bruises that criss- crossed my bloodied knuckles and I had almost snorted out loud when Scully explained that the damn bathroom cabinet had fallen off the wall. Sometimes, just sometimes, she is so damn adorable I could cry with laughter at some of the things she says. It was one of the reasons I fell in love with her I think. Her ability to deliver the most outrageous reasoning while maintaining a perfectly straight face.

So I had obediently made my way down to the ER and tried to patiently wait it out as I was put through the rigours of the system; triage, X-Rays, stitches and a further wait at the hospital pharmacy to collect antibiotics to stave off infection. And it was over 4 hours before we were finally able to leave.

Scully refused point blank to leave in a wheelchair. She was perfectly capable of walking she insisted and the harried nurse finally shrugged in a ‘suit yourself’ kind of way and left us to it.

As we left the main building, I glanced at our reflections in the window. Scully was dressed now in the clothes I had brought from home for her; dark blue jeans, a soft cream turtleneck sweater and her brown suede jacket. And just for a second, I could pretend she wasn’t sick at all. The holdall was slung over my shoulder, held lightly in place by my injured hand. It hurts like hell but it means my other hand is free to entwine fingers with Scully. Her hand feels warm in my palm and it’s a good feeling.

We stop briefly outside the doors, breathing in the chill air, our breaths turning to vapour, mingling together for just an instant before disappearing up in to the darkness of night and as her fingers tighten slightly I stop and look down at her.

“You okay?”

She smiles at me then, and it’s a smile that is tinged with sadness, because we both know she isn’t okay. Not really.

But then her expression clears, her eyes catching the light from the lamps that border the hospital entrance.

“You promised me cake right?”

I laugh.

“Yeah. I promised you cake. And candles. Lots of candles.”

“And ice cream?”

“Sure if you want.”

Scully nods, considering my words.

“Cake makes everything okay Mulder”

And I think that tonight at least, she might just be right.

Continued chapter 6

#Fading light my fic #cancer #msr #brace yourselves for chapter six #it's coming

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dwestfieldblog · 5 years

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LIE BACK AND THINK OF...ENGLAND

Hello...Back once more from a jolly jaunt to the motherland, various weeks of mental and physical bad health interspersed with bursts of good humour and rabid hypo-mania. So nice to be trapped in my mind when alcohol free. So of course started smoking because I need some kind of pacifier. Back to Prague for blood tests again. Another temporary reprieve today, collapsing into coherence as all good systems should. Augmented chords are mysterious, the diminished are tension...unlike some sequences I could mention. Shame the owners of this site have used an algorithm to delete various pictures on my blog which involve nipples, regardless of whether they are actually from classical paintings. Art is being censored...Anyway...enjoying my middle aged adolescence, planning ahead for obsolescence...greetings to the readers from Canes Ventaci, why so Sirius? Smiling is healthy...

Who is the one who is living me now? Da Free John

Religious news/olds...The pope says the church must never again hush up any abuse from its priests (in 2019, that's about (count them) one thousand, nine hundred and something days since the Church was founded with the help of a corrupt Emperor Constantine. Seems like a long time for a Christian group to get to show actual kindness, openness and morality huh? )Well Spotlight fans, it's a start eh? Compassion for your enemies and redemption for all. Or not.

Only found out last month that the word Guru literally means heavy. As in serious. Hmm...or OM AH HUM if you prefer. Well Buddha looks quite hefty eh?

Asshat in Syria appears to have won and sees no shame in having started a war in which hundreds of thousands of his own people have been murdered and/or 'vanished', all for the sake of putting shopkeepers and students who protested for more freedom in their place. Chemical weapons, mass genocide and now a puppet state of Iran and Russia. Well, otherwise it would have been beholden to the USA and that is never a good thing either, ask Britain. Perhaps we can leave America after Europe and become the proud third world prison island to which we have been heading for the last few decades. Oh I am in a good mood this evening.

WOOL..a nice little village in England...received a letter from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) politely suggesting/demanding that they change their name, as the way in which wool is sheared from sheep is aggressive and cruel. Etc. As if being under attack from the Far Left and Right is not enough, the vegans and snowflakes are rising fast to destroy the last vestigial tails of sanity. 1984 meets the Matrix and Kafka and Huxley have a love/hate-child. For the record, I despise tally ho 'good sport' fox hunting as much as I do animal liberation maniacs. (Yes, I do like animals,...wolves, hawks, black panthers, butterflies, intelligent dogs and dolphins. And Krtek.) Wool will keep their name. So far. Amen. Oh Man...

Gender neutral EU parliament...most words with 'man' in them have all been replaced with less 'specific' terms. When I was a boy and I heard the term Mankind, I never thought of men, I thought of people all over the world. Shame so many adults cannot do this too...but wait, the EU...they have substituted mankind with Humanity. (Doesn't that have man in it too?) I would LOVE to be present at one of these meetings where such semantically diseased people meet to waste life with such pointless new guidelines and turn a psychic death ray on them.

At some point, one hopes that folk will swing back away from these extremes and find the middle path of balance. But I don't think it is likely. People will always have ideas because they have brains of varying types and according to nature or nurture and their egos, can make the most mind screwingly dumb thoughts into reality...but for this to happen in a widespread way, requires someone at the end of the process, who, when presented with such, has to approve of, validate, wave it on as a new legally accepted norm. These are some of the people with whom I would most like to have 'a word'. Know what I mean?

Meanwhile new buzz phrases abound...'I self identify as a'...fill in the blank. Choose your gender, you don't even have to have an operation or hormone replacement, just announce it to the universe and be free. However, an opinion is not a truth. (of course I include my own writings in this) If you KNOW you are in the wrong body, CHANGE your body. Hands up (in the air) all those who can remember a time when 'Gender fluid' just meant... fill in the blank again.

Reminds me that Israel is still trying to push the fallacy (into a new globally accepted law) that criticising its government or latest in a line of corrupt leaders equates with racist anti Semitism. It isn't. No more than saying something critical of Angela Merkel for her immigration policy would mean the speaker is a sexist/misogynist. Or a hater of Germans. Same way that mentioning a self identifying sportswoman with a penis who has not yet had the op or hormone therapy is still a man until they commit fully to the sex they feel and know they are and is perhaps not ok to compete with other women while testosterone is in their blood...is not 'transphobic', just stating the obvious. And...

Lesbians who refuse to sleep with a self identifying woman with a penis are also not transphobic, they are making a choice about who and what they will sleep with. If one is not turned on by another human being, then they are not turned on by them. Of course, this is just an opinion and therefore quite possibly not a truth. But it seems reasonable and inoffensive eh? Unless you are a radical transpansexual. In which case my truthful opinion is that all radicals are mentally unstable dangerous lunatics to be avoided. Or try beetroot and carrot juice to eliminate the free radicals....

(That all said, I recall reading some years ago that one of the ultimate forms of humanity/was to be both sexes as one. So who knows? Not me, I never lost control, ha ha. Face to face with the womb man who sold the world. Would bring a whole new meaning to 'go f yourself'. Hermaphrodites come together in the end, alpha/ omega...)

'Nine months to get out, he said, and the rest of our fool lives trying to get back in'.

Perhaps this could be wonderful, with all identities blending into one understanding of life on this planet, were it not for the surplus of those types who will use every opportunity to mislead and manipulate for profit and power. At a school in Brighton (of course) in England, plans have been approved to teach children that all genders can menstruate. Yes, really. Why should 'girls' have all the fun eh? This is where we seem to be heading at greater and greater speed. Absolute bollocks/ovaries being taught as factual lessons. (Hmmm...a brief look with a third eye at history and stories accepted as fact and it can be seen that this is not all that new.)

Putin's evil genius plan to continue being president after his term runs out (under current constitutional rules) is to absorb Belorusssia. Russia thus becoming a new federation which will need a new constitution and to hold an election which he will win. When that runs out, no doubt he will take over/invade/absorb Ukraine etc totally and go on until he is dead. Or everyone else is. Alpha males, huh?

Speaking of which...More hours of CNN and their seemingly accurate reportage of all the utter, dreadful bullcrap from the useful idiot (for Moscow) Trump. Gleefully dissecting every nonsense statement from the blonde succubus's poison mouth. January 23rd, America remains in shutdown as he plays chicken with his entire country. Who will blink first? Reptiles can go for a long time without this. 'Waves of inquiries' look set to begin against the madman. 'Impeach the mother......' indeed. But after such a concentrated amount of watching and reading the news and the colossal amount of negative light, ah do believe I have had enuff again.

'I am He that was and is and shall be'. Apparently, Beethoven had this written down by his own hand on his desk from Egyptian Book of the Dead. 'Serenity is a problem when you've been this close to Heaven.'

('....thus, while the tangible has advantages, it is the intangible that makes it useful' Tao te Ching. Perhaps I will (or should) leave more blanks in this. Does every void need to be filled? China is now on the dark side of the moon, that just asks for a song to be written. Feel safe? Huawei, ha ha ha to everyone who bought their stuff.)

The Czech Republic (while still Czechoslovakia) had a Velvet Revolution, Russia has Pussy Riot and Britain has...? The old cliché true for the greater part was that in the First World War, the common soldiery were 'lions led by donkeys'. These days the majority of the 'common' folk seem like donkeys being led by the greedy into a knackers yard to be slaughtered for meat and glue. Here comes Brexit on a wave of misplaced expectation of regaining control over our destiny. Seems unlikely when the group mind of my country has sunk so deep into entropy, but that is just an opinion. Arf. 'Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way'.Roger Waters.

The young are still in favour of Corbybn and his highly dubious vision, regardless of the radical Momentum behind him who are very likely being supported financially by the Kremlin. Goddess bless our proud snowflake youth! Not going to be many 'safe spaces' available kids if he wins...Socialism with an inhuman face. Students in the West have yet to learn how evil this stuff is. For decades they have demonstrated against fascists real and imaginary, Conservative Thatcher policy, Republican reactionary hogwash etc. Perhaps they need to experience at first hand just what their student brethren in the East did from the end of the second world war to 1989. And beyond. The far Left sucks as hard as the far Right. Not all revolutionaries are as cool as Che Guevara. Kids, study China, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and other Socialist paradises, (if only for one hot hour) their governments kill a considerable amount more of their own people than do the democratic Western governments. There is a reason for this. All governments seek to control the narrative of what is taught in schools but not all of them kill you for questioning the story.

Perhaps we deserve it, Britain has been coasting along, running on empty for a very long time now. The two faced 'civilised' Christian moral vacuum is being filled with many other equally unpleasant qualities. Optimism becomes a serious challenge when you are aware that some times various fires must run their course in order to burn out. Like Man. Just hope that the scorched earth policy of most of the global mode of thinking allows a spring to appear in the future. Or get the world leaders to an Alice in Wonderland party for mushroom tea. That might very well speed up the process of illumination before the Rubicon is crossed. Perhaps it has been.

'Intelligence is the capacity to receive, decode and transmit information efficiently.' So how well are we all doing as a race? Call Pleaides 666 023 093...

True communication only possible between equals....all on different circuits...

Meow she said. Woof, he replied.

Love from the dog star.

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argotmagazine-blog · 6 years

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Dear Worrier Princess: Exes, Exes Everywhere

Dear Worrier Princess is a queer advice column based off The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend Is My Girlfriend, the viral queer advice zine by Maddy Court (a.k.a @xenaworrierprincess on Instagram).

In her inaugural column for Argot, Maddy considers heartbreak and queer love in the age of Instagram. How do you find closure and space when your ex is constantly popping up on your feed? What does it mean to emotionally block someone? Why are queer women so determined to stay friends, and how does this cultural tic translate to the internet?

Queery #1: I went through this really brutal breakup a little over a year ago (my first love cheated on me and dumped me in a phone call from her new girl’s apartment). This was really rough on my psyche and I spent a lot of time dwelling on her/insta-stalking her/going to therapy about her. I thought all of that would end when I got a new girlfriend, but I am now several months into a new relationship (with someone I LOVE who is WONDERFUL TO ME) and I still catch myself thinking about my ex and checking up on her social media. I don’t want her back, but I crave her approval and her interest so much and I don’t know how to turn it off and move on! Help!

Heartbreak in the age of Instagram is unreasonably cruel. The human brain can barely distinguish between cold and wet sensations. It can’t register the coolest kinds of light, or maintain relationships with more than 200 people at once. It’s not equipped to process that the woman who broke your heart via a phone call from her new girl’s apartment is creating a multimedia, real-time documentary about her life and it’s available 24/7, for free, from literally anywhere. In 1990 or whatever, people divvied up their CDs and lost touch. They ripped up photographs. The sad and brokenhearted could scab over, forget the sound of their ex’s laugh, buy some chunky necklaces and move on. Today, physical space isn’t enough to heal from a break-up. You must unlearn the muscle memory and masochism that compels you to check your ex’s social media. On top of that, you’re contending with algorithms that track your every click and position your ex-girlfriend at the top of your feed. You cannot rip up your ex’s Instagram.

There’s also the fact that queer communities are insular, online and off. Queer women, especially, place a huge premium on staying friends, on keeping some semblance of solidarity and peace throughout a breakup. Use this to your advantage. When you feel rejected or overlooked, throwing your own party is a powerful experience. Flood your Instagram with golden hour selfies, nature shots of you hiking with a three-legged rescue dog, and artfully arranged photobooth print-outs that scream, I HAVE SO MANY HOT ZANY FRIENDS AND THEY ALL WANNA BE CLOSE TO ME IN THIS TINY SPACE. By projecting that you don’t care about your ex, you might tap into some genuine, unburdened energy.

Like Doritos for dinner, checking your ex-girlfriend’s Instagram is instant gratification. Try leaving your phone at home. You can start small: a bike ride, trip to the grocery store, or dinner with friends. Pay attention to when you feel the urge to open Instagram. What’s your emotional state? Is it when you’re bored and waiting in line? Is it when you’re alone and is seems that everyone except you showed up to the park with a picnic blanket of friends? Maybe you’ll find that you feel neutral, and checking her Instagram is just an old habit.

I know this is all very mindfulness-from-a-can. It really works though, I promise. Also, stash your phone across the room when you go to bed. This helps avoid late night/early morning Instagram sinkholes. Make a tally every time you go 6 hours without looking at her stuff and see how long you last.

The obvious solution is to just block her, but blocking is political and invites confrontation. There are too many workarounds. Instead, re-think blocking as a ritual. Using a pen and paper, make a list of all the times your ex-girlfriend was crass and thoughtless with your heart. What red flags, boundaries, and lessons did she teach you? If you’d never loved her, would you appreciate your current girlfriend in the same way? Put the list in a safe place in case you need to re-visit it. Then, wash all your bedding in hot water and wipe down your floors with vinegar. Center yourself and set an intention to disconnect emotionally from your ex-girlfriend. Her approval is worthless to you. Her likes and comments roll off of you like water off a duck’s back. Her Instagram is just another entity floating around, it no longer drains your emotional energy. She is emotionally blocked. This won’t happen overnight. It takes time. But it will get easier.

Queery #2: My ex is a prominent member of my local queer scene and has a public presence across various arts practices. It annoys me that I see them all the time on social media - their own and others' - being both social and promoting their projects. It also annoys me that I am likely to run into them at any given event that I go to, especially because they are a social butterfly and I am an awkward shy girl liable to freeze at any given moment. Please offer your soundest advice for dealing with famous exes.

When I meet someone new, I describe her hair to my friends. I notice the shirts she wears and try to discern which one is her favorite. I worry the entree I ordered was boring, the story I told was boring, my apartment was boring. I am a seagull pecking old bread and she is an actual star. But my girlfriends are most famous in that shady, painful patch when they’re becoming exes. I drift through Anthropologie, picking up candles and smelling them and sighing and putting them back. I call my friends at midnight. I dread running into her, but I also want to run into her. Why? Because every ex is a famous ex.

It’s been said before, but it bears repeating: breakups would be much easier if your ex disappeared. But they don’t. They shop at the Target by your house. They post longform Instagram stories. They show up at your best friend’s barbecue with sweet corn. They’re here, they’re queer, they’re 100% going to the art show this weekend. All you can do is enlist friends to act as buffers and practice polite conversation-enders like “it was nice seeing you” or “I’m going to go look at the art now.”

There’s also the matter that your ex is famous. I’d be worried if your letter contained lingering admiration. I’m sensing that you no longer subscribe to your ex’s queer celebrity mystique and that’s healthy. You understand that having a big social media presence is a job, not a status. Like being a cruise director or a theatre person, it’s a skill-set that usually aligns with an extroverted personality. The next time you see your ex spilling across your feed, remind yourself that what you’re seeing is deliberate and a little fabricated.

I’m going to end my response with some validation: the annoyance you feel is understandable—your ex approaches their life in a way that clashes and brushes up against your own. This doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with your ex, you’re just [essential] oil and water. Emotionally block them (see Queery 1 for a definition and instructions). Don’t wait. Call today.

Are you in a pickle regarding your love life? Do you have a crush you can't figure out how to talk to, an ex you'd like to reconnect with but don't know if it's appropriate or the right time?

Shoot an email to [email protected] or fill out the form below.

Maddy Court is an artist and writer based in Madison, WI. Keep up with her on Twitter @worrierprincess, or on instagram @xenaworrierprincess.

#dear worrier princess #advice column #sidney champagne #maddy court #Maddy Court

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backbenchershq · 6 years

Text

How To Start and Run a Successful Lifestyle Business Online

A Personal Insight

Congratulations! You have chosen a really rewarding option into how your business and life will coexist happily ever after.” That was a little note to myself when I chose the lifestyle business option, quite a far cry from a traditional start-up that I was running in the entertainment and events industry after quitting my 9-5 job. The latter required me to be in a specific physical location of course so as to reach and serve my clients.

Today, I run a digital business model and all I need is a laptop handy and an Internet connection. I then choose when I want to do some work and where I want to get that work done. And that my friend is what I call a perfect match! My life meets my business everywhere I go, anywhere I am. The general business rules remain pretty similar and herein I will share my own golden rules that new entrepreneurs will particularly find informative… But first… if you are about to quit your job, you are probably wondering

Can Starting A Lifestyle Business Change Your Life?

No more dreadful Monday morning train commutes to work and staring into a stranger’s face seated across from me wearing sunnies on a cold morning, perhaps a subtle attempt to numb the pain of the lifeless surrounding. They are having the same thoughts as me. “Friday cannot come quick enough”. Then I start thinking about my email box and that Monday morning meeting that I have not prepared for. I have to fill in my boss on the current project status before he can go into another meeting with more important people than me to tell them what I just told him!

The Road Ahead

As exciting as this new journey is about to be you want to get a few things in order straight away in your new ‘house’ to make this transition process as smooth as you possibly can. That business idea is looking great, you have done lots of research, consulted a few souls preferably smarter than you. You have also been making some new friends. I really hope none of them is still working where you just quit! I soon found out that these friendships only flourished over the years because of shared interests such as office politics that tended to specially thrive on Friday night at the bar when we didn’t have to whisper about overwhelming love for senior management.

The reality now is, you are in an elevated consciousness phase of your life, one that these friendships cannot exist. Your mindset needs to be fed with new insights and nurtured with refreshing thoughts about living a fulfilled life. You have some money saved up in the bank and probably have an actionable step-by-step business plan. There is something of value that you have to share and a strategy to get customers lined up ready to give your ‘something’ a warm welcome into this new world order.

But that is the easy part. I shall be completely honest here; apart from some money that I had saved up at the point of quitting, I really didn’t have much more than a rough idea of what I was going to do. I was risking it all. When I left my day job some years ago, I was at a point where it was either that or I lose my mind.

7 Golden Rules

A New MIND-set:

As with all things new, your mind is the first guy you want to put in check. Let him know there is a new sheriff in town. If you are like me, you have been spending the better part of the last 6 – 12 months buried deep in business books and ripping them apart in your spare time. At some point, you found personal development material captivating. Eventually, you started finding out why that constant nagging feeling of life and lack of fulfilment was. As an example, I had read books like Richdad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and listened to the audio version of the same in case something was lost in translation! I had also read Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People among others.

This is an activity that you will not want to let slip into the overflowing ‘good habits to continue when I get time bucket’. I had one like that and needed no motivation adding more stock completely in autopilot. Mind food is paramount in this journey. You want to stay inspired a good chunk of the time because this is where the sowing is happening. The thing is as abstract as some of the ideas in this material may seem at this point; I found that with time, it all starts to fall into place as the journey progresses. So do not sweat any concepts that are not clear yet. Keeping the reading habit going is all you need. These books are not really designed for reading cover to cover. Think of them like the SAT NAV system your car or as you own version of a personal SIRI.

It is a known fact that our minds don’t like disruption. Whether that disruption is good for us or not, it is not very welcome without some whip cracking. The mind has got everything figured out. It is a very well trained machine with thoughts and habits that shape your life and works even when you are sleeping, doing the ‘regular chores around the house’.

The 9-5 routine mindset is still at this point deeply wired into your system. It’s advisable to start setting up ground rules so that YOU and the MIND are both on the same page. This takes a while and certainly took me the better part of 2 years. Don’t stress just know there are changes you will need to work on consistently in this area. Oh, remember when I mentioned who your new friends cannot be a little earlier?

Breaking The Bad:

I made the mistake of trying to keep a regular 9-5-like routine when I first started my entrepreneurial journey. Big mistake. What tends to happen as a result is, the mind in these early days of business life, is still largely unaware of the ‘new life in construction progress’. It actively runs the old familiar version of ‘code’ from its 9-5 days in the background in stealth mode. You might know what happens when you try to run a new version of Microsoft Windows on old PC hardware? Yes, exactly right!

All sorts of weird compatibility issues are not unheard of.

I did not understand this myself. The mindset driving my routine was still stuck in the old version. The correct term for this is the subconscious mind. So your poor conscious mind, which is pretty much what we operate on until new ways are ‘learned’ runs into a constant battle. It really wants to change the world for you, it’s ready to work hard, promising to cut the Friday night binge that serves no purpose other than a regular headache which eats away the Saturday morning and pinky swears to cut down on addictive TV shows.

Someone, please explain why my favourite big screen stars are also hanging out in these TV shows… like really?

The Deal With Time Management:

As a new entrepreneur what quickly comes into awareness I would say is the time management beast and what seems to be like an endless stream of unmanageable distractions. In a lifestyle business that is run from home, the park, at the beach, the airport lounge or while on safari at The Mara, this can be a constant battle. Don’t get too hang up on being perfect day one with this one. The more I tried to fight it the more I stressed about it. Stress did not improve my time management skills and only added to unfinished tasks that needed more worrying about… I thought! The time drama continued until I put measures to progressively learn how to improve time management.

Keep educating yourself on what works for your schedule and what sorts of distractions are overpowering you. I can tell you now it’s going to be technology related!

It didn’t matter that I was an early riser who wouldn’t go to bed until my eyeballs were literally unlocking themselves from my sockets in protest. Occasionally I got the odd finger in this scuffle! And sometimes I still wouldn’t give up. Now, this does not necessarily equate to being productive. The actual real result was a constant feeling of exhaustion, elevated stress levels, and anxiety.

Why You Need To Design A Routine That Works Around Your Lifestyle Business

I hadn’t changed my routine so my mind would expect the usual treatment, 9 am we are active at work and then at 5 pm it expects that we are on the ‘winding up for the day phase’. I, on the other hand, had with all good intent, added extra hours in front of the 9 and after the 5. Now you can see where the problem was once I kept this up for a while. Insane!!! Create a new routine and optimise around what works for you.

Decide When You Want To Work… Create A Routine… Then Follow It With Military Discipline

There’s going to be a lot of 10 to 12 hour days, maybe longer but they don’t and shouldn’t be in your constant daily routine. After all, it’s business around your lifestyle. I have 3-hour blocks and generally leave my ‘heavy lifting work’ for when I get into a state of flow, usually after midnight.

Understanding Your Personal Power and Peak Performance State:

It’s not unusual for me to get into flow while at the shops looking at apples and kiwi fruit fresh deals of the day. This state for me comes through an insightful thought or sometimes as a series of thoughts back to back, so please keep a hardcover notebook at all times for these moments. You might just stumble on your best business idea yet!

Schedule Fun Times on Tuesdays:

Although it’s not how I started off, I am lucky thus far to be working on businesses that allow me lots of flexibility as to when and where I actually work. If this tickles your fancy you are on the right track here. In my case, all I need is my mac book pro and decent wifi. Tip: When I am in a location where the menu has an under $10 dollar price tag frenzy going on, I move on swiftly.

About Tuesdays

Move all the things you used to do for fun on Saturday to this day. The Keyword here is FUN guys so if mowing the lawn is fun! Okay, you get my point. It doesn’t matter what the activity is but I recommend you do it in the early days of your journey. The feeling is absolutely incredible. For me, it was reading the paper and a coffee down the road.

Do you guys wonder why we still print newspapers today?

So, usually, one or two local Moms will swing by the coffee shop and that is all the action there is. The rest of the ‘real’ world folks are at work. This is my opinion but what I found with being Mr Tuesday is that it gives me a boost of confidence and that sense of freedom where I feel, “yeah that’s right, I can do what I want when I want”.

I will point out here that this has nothing to do with money. I have done this even when the reality at that time was ‘cash-flow challenges!’. I am not advocating that you should smile and be happy when you are broke, no no no. When you think about it, this is when you need your mind at a 100% and if all it takes is a series of 3-dollar coffees down the road, so be it. While on this topic, my ideal Tuesday day is on a yacht surrounded by endless views of blue seas at exactly 11 am and a safety vest in close proximity! Unwanted swimming lessons are not part of this plan.

What does your ideal Tuesday day look like?

Your Inner Circle… Your Players CLUB:

This is an interesting one because if you think about your ideal Tuesday above, how many people do you know today can do that? Initially, you will probably be alone or maybe with someone close to you like a partner, wife, girlfriend or somebody else who probably does what you do, or benefits directly from what you do. I found out that the friends I used to hang out with on Saturdays and Sundays in my previous life no longer fitted in the new life I was creating. It’s a delicate balance but I had to make some changes. For the same reason, of course, the folks at your old job will probably not take Tuesday off to hang out at your newly found happy place to share happy coffee with you.

I met new people on that trip and did things I had never done before. I love travelling and it is one of the reasons why starting a lifestyle business was a brilliant model. The thing is, if I can make friends who also have time to be lazy on Tuesdays for happy coffee and random sun baking escapades, that is probably a good ‘new friend barometer’ check right there! Oh and hopefully of course what they do for money is generally not frowned upon by law!

On the real, though, I personally don’t have many of these friends but I found that this is a good time for me to reflect inwards and to focus on my personal growth. If you are new into this game, this could be a good time to spend with a business mentor, perhaps meet other like-minded people in your local community, go deep into nature or maybe just hang out on social media platforms and engage and find out the latest buzz like who got a cat! Seriously the point here is, have a lot of choices in your back pocket that you can go crazy with and if you have bucket list ideas all figured out, check them off weekly without fail.

Family:

Family is very dear to me and I would imagine it’s the same for you too. Perhaps, much so that you are making this decision to escape the 9-5 and really start learning new ways to make money outside the voluntary solitary confinement space (also known as office cubicle). One of my reasons for choosing this journey was my family. To be more available to them and to enhance my own life experiences. To fill those experiences with what I really want anytime I wanted it. The one thing I encountered and you probably might as well, those we love and care for dearly may not understand the new you. These moments may not be as dramatic such as waving placards in protest but you will see it vividly.

Remember how our minds don’t like change?

It’s not their fault and they are probably coming from a place of love for you. Embrace the response you get with love and remember your bigger mission. I had lots of strange conversations with people I love and would have like to be speaking a foreign language at the time. That way being misunderstood would have been spot on. Then one day I realised, they weren’t really saying they disliked my new outlook on life and crazy ideas like giving up a six-figure income.

They were just saying, “We don’t understand how to process this new information”. Please show us how. You might also take consolation in the fact that how well you manage this close relationship is a reflection of how you will do ‘out there’ where the World is short of people like you and me, people who are lost in self-indulgence and totally unconscious of their daily actions will not understand you either!

Remember, training takes time. That’s what it took for me until they somewhat understood. If you are lucky enough to get the all in response from them, great, if not, give them time and if need be, add the space element to it as well. Be kind to yourself.

In Summary

Your circumstances may be a little different from mine for wanting to come this way and choosing this journey. As you go along, it’s reasonable to expect moments where you will be tried and tested by fate. Things will happen that will be out of your comfort zone or out of your control and sometimes both.

In the end, I find that clarity on my why I do what I do sails me through choppy waters. I embrace whatever comes my way with love. Answers to what I don’t know come in the right time. I keep the bigger mission clear in my mind. Creating a life where I can live on my own terms is not free, there’s a price to be paid.

Another really important thing to have a solid business system. I found my answer with the six-figure mentors. They have a step-by-step business system that shows you how to leverage the Internet and start your very own online business. What’s, even more, is that if your goal is to start your own business say around your passion, the business skills you will learn are second to none. From experience with my first 2 ventures as a newbie without a mentor, I would recommend every new entrepreneur make getting a mentor, their number one priority. Looking at how I started my entrepreneurial journey, this was my single most expensive mistake up until today as I write this.

Final Thought

Along the way somewhere, I realised that I needed to give up the idea of perfection and get cosy with uncertainty about what will be tomorrow and experience some discomfort today because of the things that I don’t know yet. I experience more growth as I continue to operate in that mental space. All I have to do TODAY is take to take the next best action. This post is unusually long so if you are still reading, I sincerely thank you. I hope you found some value in there. Feel free to share this post with someone else who will enjoy reading through the ideas and insights I have shared.

The post How To Start and Run a Successful Lifestyle Business Online appeared first on The Backbenchers.

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wittesworldtravelblog · 6 years

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Hated my picture taken…can you tell.

The year was 2010, the place was Yellowstone National Park, the feelings were;

irate, mad, annoyed!

Yes, I was angry. I couldn’t do anything, I felt my body had failed me, but I had failed my body. Getting up in the morning was a chore, my husband would wake early in the morning, start a campfire, eat breakfast, and read his book. I laid in the tent, sleeping, or just laying there, dreading the time I stepped out of the tent. Stepping out meant I had to pretend to be a “Happy Camper”.

Spending a lot of time in the Tent

Ugh, I could barely buckle the seat belt

In truth the only time I was truly happy was when I was just sitting and observing the beauty. That sounds great, but when you have an active husband, it is depressing. Walking the paths in the park was pure torture, especially the ones that required steps. I felt so depressed about my insufficient engagement in the experience. My handsome, wonderful husband played along and pretended he was okay with my insufficient energy, but in truth I knew he was secretly disappointed.

Just before I started my journey to weight loss surgery

Returning home was not much better. I was teaching at the time and it was in July, summer break was a nightmare. Still, not wanting to get out of bed, still disappointing my husband, kids, grandkids. Living was a strain. I couldn’t go up and down stairs without pain and heavy breathing. I weighed in at 298 pounds, I was considered, “Class 3 – Obese”. My BMI was way over the 40 point. I was a mess!

I am not even sure where the idea came from, but one day I decided to call my insurance to see if they would pay for gastric surgery. They would, but you had to be on a strict, doctor monitored diet to qualify for coverage. Quickly, I set up an appointment with my doctor and explained my situation. She agreed to monitor my weight loss. I explained that I wanted to try the Fit for Life plan to lose weight. She read the plan and agreed it would be a great way to lose weight as it promotes high protein, low carbohydrates, six small meals a day, with gradual addition of exercise.

The hardest

PART

Was

Telling my family!

Telling my family meant after all these years of lying about being happy, I would have to admit, I hate myself. I hate I let myself down. I hate I let my husband down. I hate I let my kids down, I hate I let my grandkids down. I just hated I had to go through this to lose weight! Of course, everyone would say, you are fine the way you are, you don’t need to do this…but they all would end up saying, if you do this, we will support you. That is what I needed, support! Lots and Lots of support!

The Weight Loss Center

The realization that this is happening

The scariest place to be

The happiest place to be

The only place for me

I researched and researched for a weight loss centers in the area that would perform weight loss surgery. I was lucky! There was a surgeon in our area that specializes in weight loss surgery and was and affiliate with the hospital/doctors on my insurance plan. I found out they had an informational meeting at a hospital near me the following week. My husband and I attended the meeting. It was informative. I signed the papers to allow them to contact my insurance and my doctor. It was the scariest thing I have ever done. Weight loss surgery is, at the least, going to change my internal being for the remainder of my life.

Once done, it is

irreversible,

permanent,

Indefinite.

120 on my wedding day

298 pounds in 2010

A few days later the call came in…we talked to your insurance, they will cover the costs if you do the three month diet and prove you can lose weight. I laughed…my problem never was losing weight. Sure I could lose, and then gain it back with another ten pounds added on. I went from a 120 pound 18 year old to a 298 pound 40 year old. Yo Yo dieting was a way of life for me. The insurance clerk laughed and said, the next step would be to do the three months diet, come in for a consult, and when the diet is over, submit the results to the insurance company for the surgery approval. Sounds easy, right?!? Since I already knew about the diet and started with the diet a few weeks early I set up the consultation appoint.

Who Knew?

I had no idea there were so many weight loss surgeries. Each surgery has its pros and cons. Each aids in weight loss, each changes your internal structures, each is permanent, each had side effects. Did you know that someone that has had gastric bypass will get physically ill if they eat sweets? Sweets were never a problem for me. The surgeon took my medical history, eating habits, exercising habits, and lifestyle into account and recommended I have Lapband surgery.

LAPBAND? Why?

Lapband is the least invasive surgery that treats obesity through the slower consumption of food, thus reducing the amount you eat. The surgery consists laproscopically placing a silicon gastric band around the entrance to the stomach, the tube is also attached to a port used to “fill” the silicon tube. The gastric band constricts the stomach making the entrance into the of the stomach smaller and allows you to feel full with less food and then the food takes longer to digest with the constriction. You are literally eating small portions, feeling full longer, and losing weight. However, you are not changing your internal organs permanently. The lapband is permanent, you will always have the port, but your internal organs are not changed in any way.

Readying the body for the day of reckoning

Dietary Changes

Eliminate – bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, crackers, chips, pretzels, cookies, cakes, pies, candy, sugar sweetened food, sweetened drinks, full strength fruit juice, processed food, fried food, breaded and saucy foods

Prepare your body:

Cut food into small pieces, chew thoroughly, eat slow, eliminate distractions, stop drinking 30 minutes before a meal and wait 30 minutes after a meal, start an exercise program for at least 10 minutes a day

Changing Eating Habits:

Eat protein first, unlimited vegetables, fruit at least once a day, three meals a day, no snacks, limit carbs to 20-30 a day, drink much water, avoid alcohol, take a multivitamin, keep a log of foods

Three weeks before surgery change to a soft diet

Two weeks before surgery change to a full liquid diet

Three days before surgery change to a liquid diet

Six months and 28 pounds lighter

Time to go

February 15, 2011 – The day that will live in infamy

Surgery took about an hour under general anesthesia. Recover takes about four hours. You cannot leave until you can keep down fluids and pudding.

Recovery is quick, within a few days you are at full activity level. You need to slowly introduce regular food again. The gastric band is in place and has limited constriction at first. It is at your two week check up they complete your first “Fill”. I will never forget that first fill! The pain was intense. I thought I would never do it again. You will get a “Fill” every two weeks until you reach your goal weight or you can’t keep food down.

Lapband surgery is the slowest in seeing results. With Gastric Bypass you can lose 50-100 pounds in a few short months. With Lapband you will lose slowly and steadily for about a year to two years.

The pros –

I lost weight steadily – going from 280 pounds at surgery time to 168 pounds in August of 2013. I enjoyed most of the foods I love and still lost weight. I went from a size 26 to a size 10! I felt great, no more knee pain, can get out of bed every morning with energy. Life was better, house was cleaner, everyone was happy! I learned how to eat healthy and that the amount wasn’t what counted, but what your body needed to survive is what mattered.

Almost there

There

Looking good

Awesome!

Started riding horses again!

Comfortable with myself again

The cons –

Limited foods you can eat, no carbonation at all, frustration, vomiting, never feeling satisfied, and depression increases especially if you are like me and stress eat.

This summer – gained a few pounds, but still looking good!

I am not going to lie! It was hard and remains hard to this day. I have gained some weight back, I currently weigh 185 pounds and I went from a size 10 back to a 14. How did I do this…I went back to my old habits. I became frustrated with not being able to eat, physically it was painful most of the time and I would often vomit if I ate too much. The most irritating is the build up of gastric fluids when you are eating and they need to be expelled by vomiting. I would cry for just a normal meal, a cheeseburger, steak, any normal food. I was tired of ground meat, soup, mashed potatoes, and literally feeling hungry all the time. I started to eat “slider foods”. These are called slider foods because they slip right through the gastric band without constriction. Of course these are the bad choices we make, cookies, ice cream, chips, candy, cakes, pies…pretty much anything bad for you.

I am asked all the time – Would you do it again if you could go back? The answer is simple, YES! I am so much healthier and in the long run, happier. I look at myself now and think that yes, I have gained some weight back, but I am also still 100 pounds lighter today than I was in 2010. I still get frustrated, I hate the vomiting, I miss my beer, but I am so much better off than I was back then. I haven’t had a fill in two years and thus I can eat steak, potatoes, rice, chicken and most meals now, but there are days that I cannot eat these foods physically. I have learned to read my body and what it needs. I still eat a lot of soup

My goals and why I am blogging about this part of my life:

Be HONEST with you

Help those with weight issues

Help those who may seek gastric surgery for weight loss

Share reviews of restaurants based on my dietary needs

Share my vacation from a different perspective

Ask for support from my followers when needed

If you have questions or need support please contact me!

I Live a Soupy Life – My Story of Weight Loss Surgery The year was 2010, the place was Yellowstone National Park, the feelings were; irate, mad, annoyed!

#fromskinnytofattoperfect #gastricsurgery #lapband #lovinglifeagain #weightloss

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xottzot · 6 years

Text

2017-11(NOV)-20th---Monday (night)--my internet is so slow its useless.

My internet is so slow its useless.

It's been going at bits per second......NOT bytes per second.......and THAT'S SLOWER.

8 bits makes up a byte, or don't you know that? THAT'S HOW SLOW.

And that's my 'download rate' speed. The speed that webpages load and display at. (IF they do because quite often they're just blank and timeout.)

Things that normally take anyone else seconds, takes half and hour or MANY hours for me. And most of the time they do NOT even make it. They they'll give up displaying after showing a few parts or just stop dead in their tracks.

I've long been forced to read text-only versions of NEWS sites, local, Australian, and overseas, and they barely are able to load and be read.

And THIS text is written offline, and after it's written I copy & paste the text file. That has been my routine forced upon me for YEARS now. That's why there's so many typing errors because there's nothing to catch and correct them. AND my hands and arms are still injured from dog attacks, and one of my thumbs has a great loss of feel to it after being crushed TWICE in a car door that CLOSED completely upon my thumb and I had to open it to extract my thumb out. That happened twice in a week or so. The doctor who attended me thought I was doing it on purpose I think but of course I was not doing not on purpose. But he did a good job. Months later, that entire thumbnail came off. (I still have it in a little plastic box for proof). I actually had to VERY painfully rip it off myself because it was hanging VERY painfully by strands of my bloodied flesh attached underneath and was giving me sheer hell because ANYTHING would give me agony if it touched my finger, even the slight wind from a fan. - I had my hand and finger(s) bandaged up, then covered in bandaids for many months. Nobody believed me about any of it if I told them about it, not than hardly anyone did. Consequently I learned not to tell anyone. The same for the many terrible scars on my hands and arms. They'll be upon my dead body and nobody will know why they are there.

NOBODY belives me about ANYTHING about dear Fliss I have tried to tell anyone either despite it all being the truth. So I have long given up ever trying. It's totally beyond their comprehension of understanding of the situation. A situation that even I DO NOT UNDERSTAND BECAUSE FLISS HAS NOT TALKED OR CONTACTED ME FOR A OVER TWO YEARS NOW AS I TYPE THIS. - That coming from the dear woman I love with all my heart and soul and who said to me by voice and PROMISED we would be together again soon. And now she has vanished off the face of the planet it seems. And NOBODY we knew such as our friend dear Cath in Queensland will communicate with me. Everyone else has forgoten dear Fliss ever existed. But dear Sam and dear Max have not forgotten Fliss......

If after I am dead, anyone dares to try to speak about or for me, then I can assure you they are LYING. Because NOBODY knows the horror and hell I am in, much less anything else. Nobody cares. Absolutely NOBODY.

And you wonder why I have nightmares......

And you wonder why dear Sam and dear Max have nightmares.....

And you wonder why I cannot (and have never before) stand to bear anyone cry or be in pain of any kind, emotional or physical.....

That thumbnail of mine on my hand has finally grown back but is deformed and may still take months for the deformations to grow along to the end, and hopefully I can trim them away. Or maybe they'll stay with me for life and to my death, I have no idea.

Poor Max one of Fliss's dear dogs and mine is sleeping on the bed and loudly snoring. (but not as loud as Fliss snored). So is his brother Sam and he is having nightmares...AGAIN. They are HUGE dogs and they protect me. I cannot sleep the scant amount of terribly broken nightmare of my own that fills my sleep that I struggle with EVERY 'night'.

I often speak in this blog about my nigtmares but I never write about them. Nobody would understand in any case. Well here's another little taste of one.......share a tiny snippet, a very mild and gentle piece of the hell of my dreams......

In my dream I was at a bus terminal (East Perth?) awaiting a bus that was bringing dear Fliss to me from New South Wales who I was so VERY anxious to come back and join me. My dear much-loved (deceased) mother was with me. (Fliss in real life often said she would have loved to have met my mother). And my mother and I were waiting there for dear Fliss. My mother asked about Fliss and I was telling Mum about all the good things Fliss does and Mum eagerly wanted to meet her and become her friend. - The bus arrived. All the many passengers got off, collected their luggage from underneath it and spent a great deal of time doing it all. But dear Fliss was not on the bus. She never was. And she was on no other bus. Mum and I checked each one and waited for them all to come in until the bus station closed down and turned off all the lights. And then my dear mother was somehow gone and I had no idea where she was. And despite me having driven us there, I had no way of getting 'home'. The car I had (Fliss's new car) was gone. - I was more terrible than alone. It was VERY cold. I began walking and NOBODY helped me. All about I could hear people in their houses I passed being gently happy and eating their dinners that I could smell. And on and on I walked getting more cold. Alone. I woke up in real life and just lay there in shock. I tried to get back to sleep but it was impossible. I fed dear Sam & dear Max very early about 1am I think, and went back to bed and lay down. I think I got another 2 hours sleep before dawn but it wasn't a real sleep, just broken pieces and fragments of sleep as always.

In real life, more than a decade ago, I caught a bus from that place in my dream late at night and it was to travel RIGHT ACROSS AUSTRALIA and go to Queensland and meet dear Fliss for the first time. (My dear mother had been deceased for some time before that time.)- I had no idea what lay ahead of me, and all I knew was that dear Fliss was in terrible trouble and needed my help and so I had rushed to go to her using the only tiny amount of money I had (the very last and even a few coins) and travelled with no sleep for 2.5 days or so day and night and next to nothing to eat all the way because I had no money. - Fliss knows all about that. I told her all about that when we met. But Fliss doesn't know the absolute sheer physical agony I was in on that trip that I tried to cover up and hide with painkillers just so I could continue the trip to her to save her. I knew the trip was going to be agony for me. But I love dear Fliss and so I did it for her and us. -- Just rememeber all that when I'm dead. And even then you don't know anything. And you will have lied to yourself and tried to convince yourself ANYTHING than to believe me about ANYTHING.

'Nights' have no meaning to me. It's just a brief period of darkness where the criminals lurk about and prowl about outside at this hellhole area.

As I write this, it's nearly midnight. - I cannot sleep. - And everytime I ever dare to ask the doctors to give me sleeping pills, they try to deny me and most often do. Perhaps they think I am going to suicide with them and they'll get blamed? So I take other shit to try to stun my mind and body into collapsing ito unconsciousness, to try at least to get an hour or so of sleep. It hardly ever works. Most of the time I get no sleep.

I dread sleep. I once used to enjoy sleep. But all my sleep totally stopped in late 2015 when dear Fliss had a mental/physical breakdown and she fled in imagined terror in her head and left me here to suffer worse than if I had been thrown into the deepest pit in any ancient jail. - Instead, all there is here is hell.

The 'new' neighbours have found that out for themselves I think.

In the afternoon of today, one woman was mowing her yards grass with a lawnmower. (being houseproud perhaps). It took quite awhile. After which she went away into the yard or house. But what she DID NOT SEE was the criminal aboriginals on the streets outside, and one of them went INTO her yard and stayed here in amongst the hedge growth, the yard she had just previously mowed and walked away from. - THAT is how blatant criminal they are. - I don't know what happened afterwards.

But afterwards at night, the front porch/verandah light has been left on for their security. AND one of the inhabitants was using a flashlight to inspect all about one of their vehicles, and under it. - The place does not have a fence around it (not that the abo criminals care in any case about fences), but the place is literally just across the road from the road for the 'main' criminal household, and one house away from another criminal aboriginal household, and 2 houses away from another abo criminal household....and abo criminals all day and night walk past their house and even enter their yard. The innocent inabitants don't know that. I'm sure they wouldn't believe me if I tried to tell them. - They're just going to have to experience this hellhole for themselves to know and believe it all despite them only living there for a few weeks now after they moved in so happy and joyous and full of hope I'm sure.

THIS HELLHOLE AREA IS THE PLACE WHERE DREAMS AND HOPES AND TRUST AND FAITH ARE KILLED AND MURDERED.

AND PLANES FLY OVERHAD ALL THE DAMN TIME AND YOU CAN'T CATCH ONE AND GO AWAY FROM THIS HELLHOLE AND MAKE IT DISAPPEAR.

----------------------------------------------------

I love you dear Fliss and so want to be with you. - When I am dead I will be with my mother and father and all our pets that you and I have had as our much-loved friends and protectors and companions. - I love you dear Fliss and so want to be with you. You promised. You promised that to me.

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allyinthekeyofx · 7 years

Text

Fading Light 11/24

Fading Light

AllyinthekeyofX

Chapters 1-10 can be found here

PART TWO

CHAPTER FIVE

Mostly though, the injuries have either been caused by the actions of another or by my own occasional blindness to the risks surrounding me as I jump my size tens straight in to danger.

Self-inflicted injury is rare. Although not unheard of for me when the pressure builds inside me and demands release. Oh yeah, I’ve punched a few walls in my time and in the battle between man and solid object, solid object has usually prevailed; but I’ve generally been able to hide it from Scully. Who wants to admit to their partner that they have lost control just enough to make bruising their knuckles preferable to the kind of mental castigation I had become so adept in meting out to myself? That the prospect of physical pain was far, far less damaging than its mental counterpart?

I was exhausted, emotionally and physically from the events not just of the previous day, but of the weeks and months that came before and perhaps for the first time I admitted to myself that I was precariously balancing on the edge of reason. That at any point I would come crashing down and God knows who I might bring down with me. I had already proven today that my thought process was pretty screwed, first with that cancer ridden bastard and more crucially, with Scully’s Mother. I should have at least tried to justify Scully’s need to protect her from the worst that this disease could bring. To make her understand that this is Scullys attempt in some way to preserve a memory of her that wasn’t tainted by blood and pain and the desperate fear of death.

For Scully I should have made her understand.

But instead I had just stood there and said nothing. Not one fucking word of comfort did I offer a woman who, like her child, has remained allied to me even in the face of so much heartbreak.

Bill Jr once stood before me and called me a sorry son of a bitch; and I hadn’t found any good reason before or since to disagree with him, least of all today.

But despite the dread I feel at facing Scully, who, sick or not will surely require an explanation as to why my battered knuckles are swathed in a loosely tied bandage that the blood had continue to seep slowly through to bloom like a red rose on the cloth surface, there is one small light on my horizon, a light as always that came straight from her.

But for now, for now, we are winning.

And I will hold on to that.

Dana Scully

My guiding light

But today, now, I see nothing within them to mar their clear beauty. Her mind is peaceful. She isn’t in pain. I don’t need anything else.

“Mulder your hand..”

Busted.

“It’s okay. It’s nothing.”

I once told Scully that I had never seen her as a Mother before.

But now that she can’t have it, sometimes it’s all I see.

“Mulder this needs stitching. What did you do?”

I refuse to look at her, ashamed suddenly that in the midst of everything she is fighting; her focus is for me and me alone.

“Would you believe me if I told you your bathroom cabinet fell on to my fist?” I try to keep my voice light but obviously my pathetic attempt doesn’t fool her for a second because her eyes are suddenly so filled with sorrow I could scream.

“I’m sorry Mulder.”

Her admission is unexpected because I can’t think of a single thing she has to be sorry for. Until....

“My Mom came by. She told me what happened.”

And then I understand.

“I shouldn’t have put you in that position. I’m sorry.”

Maybe I will tell her later.

Probably I won’t.

“It’s okay Scully.” I say, even though nothing is really okay right now.

I feel her lips press in to the crown of my head and she remains there for a few seconds, breathing in the scent of my recently washed hair. And I’m not surprised by her whispered entreaty.

“Lets go home Mulder. I just want to go home.”

XXXX

Scully refused point blank to leave in a wheelchair. She was perfectly capable of walking she insisted and the harried nurse finally shrugged in a ‘suit yourself’ kind of way and left us to it.

“You okay?”

She smiles at me then, and it’s a smile that is tinged with sadness, because we both know she isn’t okay. Not really.

But then her expression clears, her eyes catching the light from the lamps that border the hospital entrance.

“You promised me cake right?”

I laugh.

“Yeah. I promised you cake. And candles. Lots of candles.”

“And ice cream?”

“Sure if you want.”

Scully nods, considering my words.

“Cake makes everything okay Mulder”

And I think that tonight at least, she might just be right.

Continued Chapter 12

#fading light my fic x files

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