Quote from my book: Hawthorne:
“Master Track mentioned that, sometimes, you want the asshole to stick around.”
She snorted.
“It got me thinking about why. If it were me, I’d want someone honest.”
“Honesty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“What?”
Jules about pissed her pants, with his expression. “Think of it as a different version of garlic juice. Sure, it’s healthy for you. But you put that on a wound…”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay.”
I mentioned the other day that I am happier. This is a good thing. Weird, but good.
It’s something I am not used to being- happy. Oh, I’m not saying I haven’t had moments. I have.
This is underlying happy. Building on itself. Bridging gaps over all those PTSD holes.
Part of why I write Smashed Potatoes. For other people who have social awkward or PTSD. It’s a huge deal for me.
I think that having those “come to jesus” moments and being as honest as garlic on a wound are two different things. I think that “being raw” or “being real” falls more into the garlic on a wound category. Odd, coming from me. Most of my close family would look at me cross-eyed. I am not “known for being tactful.”
It’s been a misunderstanding for a long time. Massive gap, especially between me and my mother that never healed before she passed. I understood that her gentler ways meant as much to her as they did to me. But she didn’t fully get the damage she had done, inadvertently, with them and the sheer number of messes I had to clean up in her wake, and that I was basically getting emotionally slapped around for being her hammer. Or… garlic, as the case may be.
Forgiveness for that is… difficult.
“I didn’t mean it” doesn’t mean there isn’t still hurt, mess, damage, and mistrust to deal with. It doesn’t fix any of that.
For me, I guess, it’s what comes after those words. Which is usually nothing and nothing changes.
I’m mentioning those things for a reason, obviously, or I wouldn’t be putting this down on paper. Even electronic paper.
My family picked at my so-called flaws so much, I basically had nothing but garlic juice going on in my head. The good from them rarely got through, because I was waiting around for another shot of stinging pain. I even had those same people tell me, quite frequently, that they were “doing it for my own good, so I would know how to act properly.” What they thought were those “come to jesus” moments, but were really a difference of opinion and they couldn’t handle it.
I have two sets of PTSD. One emotional, from my family. One physical, from… well, you can guess. The physical kind is actually a lot easier to deal with. I have things I can touch, see, and smell, to get myself out of the memory hell.
It’s the other I have so much trouble with. And that is why I am mentioning that I am happy. Why I am happy with this so called crush and why I am happy with my cooking and the space in my kitchen. Those are spaces in my head now. Good spaces. Happy spaces. Along with my sweater, my cats, my writing that I never gave up on. Those spaces where I never gave up on myself. Instead of therapizing them, I am making them. Letting them come in and build a wall. A good wall. Between me and the garlic.