I’m on my way out for lunch. I am just down in the dumps this morning because most of my Northern Virginia hits are missing. It won’t mean anything for a few weeks, because that’s how long it takes to decide if something is really changing. But I know for sure that Aada and her whole crew stalk my blog like exes, even though I haven’t dated any of them.
But they are my Board of Directors, the people I look to for direction. Even if they don’t speak directly, they speak through their actions. I am tired of being pathologized, so my work is to forget that Aada ever existed. Because I cannot say for sure, but usually when my NoVA hits disappear, I’ve said something they don’t like and they exit en masse….. for about two weeks. And the thing is, that could just be their reading style, but they have already primed me that they’re going to think:
- You shouldn’t have written that.
- The thing that I did that hurt you doesn’t matter now.
Oooh, people do not like accountability, and I’m not going to explain it how it didn’t go. I am surgical about it, because I won’t assign blame. I just won’t own what’s clearly not mine. What you do after you read is not my problem. And it just adds insult to injury when the blowback is anything more than “take it down.” Because that is something I can do something about. What I cannot do is get inside your head and see the crazy that you think is there.
Because I promise, it is, and it is very real. But at the same time, I take medication, I get outside, and I have a support team:
- Nurse Practitioner
- Therapist
- Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy, once a week on Zoom and once a week in person
I have coping mechanisms for neurodivergence and anxiety/depression stemming from it because I am not trying to treat myself. I am not sure I have ever felt more seen than when Aada told me that she was sorry she said not to say anything to a therapist. You’d just have to know how scared she was, but that’s not my story to tell. I can only have empathy for what she was going through without compromising my own story. No story comes without empathy here, they’re just not all in the same entry. Most of the time, it’s fair and balanced. When I’m really angry, let me have it out and come back tomorrow.
I’m not fighting with anyone, really. I’m fighting with God and you’re listening.
I know that Aada and I love each other- cognitively, creatively,….. But I do not know if everything we’ve been through in the past is enough to build something new after time and space has occurred. I know Aada, I don’t know “what’s her name in Virginia.” As in, I can tell you about Aada all day long, but it may or may not line up to the real person. Because we internet know each other.
That’s not nothing, but it’s not everything.
It makes me want to scream and cry, but I’ve done it so much that I’m kind of over it. There’s just this ache inside me that won’t go away, because we hurt each other.
I would like to make it right, and I’m sure she would, too. But she’s not there yet and may never be, because I do not want to be friends with the unhealed Aada. I will wait as long as it takes, but I won’t recreate a toxic dynamic. Maybe we’ll meet when she’s 80 and I’m 68. Maybe she’ll forget why she’s mad.
Here’s hoping.
The toxic part is that she wouldn’t tell me she was mad, she’d just change her tone completely and get irritated when I said, “is something wrong?” Just a simple example of not really having good communication and it feeling spiky at times because I did not react well to annoyance at my presence. I will get the message if you just tell me to go away. You do not have to attack my character when you do it.
But now I know that I am in love with the version of Aada I wish she was, and not who she is. In order for me to love that part of her, she would have to take off her coat and stay awhile.
But I do not want Aada to think that she cannot be who I need. The building blocks are there. What is missing is seeing each other as merely human, and not a hot shot blogger and a fan.
Stories That Are All True 