Opening back up.

yesterday morning, 13 July 2024, sunrise.

Sunday, July 14th, 2024.

1:54pm Made my Flickr photos public over the last day or so. Trying to open back up again. But how far do I go with that? I don't think I will ever return to how I was years ago - where I used to share every thought and opinion I had online - every feeling I had about anything and everyone - no, I don't think I could ever become that open again. But I do feel that I'm trying to emerge from my seclusion. Recently, I also made public most of my YouTube videos from my original channel. Hundreds of videos. The feeling of looking at one's self from decades ago, to see yourself through the lens of time having passed - it makes me feel a bit of compassion for myself. I wish I had been kinder and less self-critical. At the same time, I can see how I was difficult for some people and how I may have hurt them. I have learned a lot and thankfully, I have changed some, though some ways, I wish I hadn't. The main thing I want to do, in making public certain things again, aspects of my self-expression through writings and photography, is to return to that part of me that somehow saw more than I could have ever imagined. The person who, while mostly reclusive, managed to take photos or write about experiences that I am so grateful that I had and that now, I can look back and share with others. Maybe my life's work has been what I've written about in my paper journals, what I've documented online, what I've photographed and video'd. Not my entire life, but a key part of that is probably all I'll have to show for having been here. It's the work I've been telling myself to make. Maybe my life is my work, or, the expression of it.

I've started to make notes on my phone and it reminds me of how I used to write in my paper journal - wall to wall scrawl - but how, if I was thinking of something, if something was on my mind or something was happening, I would write it down - only now, I'm making a note of it. These notes have accumulated and the other day I finally took out my current paper journal (# 47) and I'm writing again, copying the Notes into my journal and deleting them off my phone. I'd like to get back to the point where I reach for my journal instead of making the notes or that I write them into my journal sooner than several weeks or months afterward. I can expand upon the quick thoughts and see where it takes me. I could do that with my typed entries as well. For now, I'm going to keep those notes for my handwritten journal as I'm still in the mode of preferring to keep some things more private. Although I started an online blog (after deleting my LiveJournal that was 20+ years old at the time) and have intentions to publish to it often, I'm in an in between place of reluctance and longing. Not an unfamiliar place for me, honestly.

I'm back on Facebook and I hate it. I wish people would connect with me off the site. It's not a place I want to be. I don't like seeing status updates. I don't like the curated feel of a feed. When something bad happens, it's very easy for me to press the deletion button on my account. Besides, that's not where I am anyway. I'm not my FB page. But I am human and I glanced at some people's pages - saw how some share certain things (or all the things) and have a style to their posts, sharing so much of themselves - and a part of me softened, knowing that I would have done the same years ago. When I was sharing so much, and someone took an interest in me, was there a knowing, older woman who looked on, thinking to herself that she could see why the person was intrigued, understanding the way humans can be. Bees to a flower. What are you if you're neither? A sun or the moon or maybe some distant star, burnt out but glimmering, fading. Is this why some aged people have that knowing look but have learned to not interfere, not to say anything, but notice and perhaps remember themselves? I'm not that old yet, I know, but I think about these things.

Speaking of old, my (ex)step-mother contacted me on Facebook. Let me tell you about it. I have to write about it because it's eating me up and if I don't get this stuff pinned down in a journal entry, it will remain heavy and unprocessed and I can't have that. First, as a backdrop to this, on one of the previous times of me having a temporary Facebook (which has been several times over the years) and I believe the most recent time, it was my Dad's birthday. I received a FB message from someone I didn't know. I can't recall if this was last year or this year. I honestly don't remember. Time has been strange in recent years especially for me, since my Dad's death, since the pandemic, since my intense isolation took over.

So, I heard from a man who of all things, asked me about Linda, my step-mother. She was my step-mother up until she and my dad separated and then divorced in the '90s. On the date of my dad's birthday, of all times, this man messages me to ask about Linda, the woman who beat me when I was a child. I hesitated to tell him but considering the person had the instinct to even reach out to me, it must have meant they had some doubts or some feeling that perhaps she may not be what she appears. No idea why she'd even tell the fellow that I was her step-daughter, but she did. He said that his daughter didn't like Linda and I said something about how maybe he should believe her if she has a feeling about her. I don't know. It was a weird exchange. He shared a lot with me about his background and a little about Linda being his friend and them both being widows (the man that Linda left my Dad for died a few years back) and so I indulged this person and while I did not go into any details, I said that she had hurt me when I was a child. Also, that I had felt dread when I heard that the man she was with had children. I felt guilt that she might hurt them too. I don't know if she ever did.

To be fair, I didn't know much about her in the years after she was out of our lives. She never once contacted me. There was a time that I had my step-siblings on my friends list (one of the previous times I had Facebook) and there was no mention of her anywhere on their pages. From all appearances, she was not part of their lives in any way at that time. She seemed to be estranged from their lives. To this day, I have no idea if she is or not. I didn't hear from her. I never once received an email or a message or anything. Nothing when my dad died either. No condolences. Nothing over the years - no apologies from her. I saw her once in public by accident at an A&W restaurant when I was there with my best friend at the time. Very thankful my friend was there. My behaviour was strange when I saw her in that restaurant with the man she married after my Dad. I think I greeted her in an overly friendly way. After my friend and I left, I broke down, crumbled into a panic attack episode, a trauma event, clearly. At that time, I had only made it out of Glencoe and to my hometown where I was starting to get some help after being out of the factory. I had therapy that put me through the paces of the memories of Linda. I was not able to work through it. I didn't have enough therapy or time. I had other things to get through.

After this man's messages, where he sincerely seemed to want some input - which was not my business but since he asked - and believe me, it was the first time anyone seemed to have asked me about Linda - I felt that maybe it was one of those moments where I may have helped. It was upsetting to hear from someone about Linda when I was mourning my Dad (something I will be doing for the rest of my life though, I think) and it was enough of a reason to delete my account again. I didn't want to be touched by anything like that.

Forward to present day. I'm minding my business. Trying not to hit the permanent account deletion button again. Beginning to open up slightly more and unprivate things. Trying to surface. I get a notification on my phone. Linda Marie has sent me a friend request. I know immediately who it is. There is no last name on her page. Just her first and middle name. No visible profile pic. The city she lives in and where she is from is displayed. It's correct. There is one friend that is public and I don't know who it is but I feel sorry for them. There is also a family member but it's not anyone I ever knew in my years growing up with her, and likely someone from her more recent family. This is the evening of June 28th, a Friday. It says that Linda is "in a relationship" and on her page, it says that started on the 1st of June. My ex-step-mother sent me a friend request so that she could show me that she got her man anyway and that nothing I said mattered or was believed. That's the only reason why I believe she would have sent me that request. I denied her request because I knew well enough that she did not actually want to befriend me. Only later did I realize that if I had confirmed the request, I would have gained access to see what she looked like and the other things she would have had on her FB wall. I'm actually relieved that I did not confirm it. Curious as I may have been over the years, it may be best that she is what she was. And likely, from that small act that she did, she has not changed at all. I think she was a couple of years older than my dad which places her in her '70s. In her '70s, she's reaching out to myself, the step-daughter, in the same way that she acted when she was so jealous of my Dad and I that she permanently affected our relationship.

My thoughts after she sent that request? That I should publish my diaries to show the truth of what she did to me. Also, that she had messed me up. I have been most unfortunate when it comes to the mothers in my life - my birth mother and my step-mother - and how they damaged me is obvious, each in their own ways.

It's sad that both of my dads are dead and those two continue on.

At the same time, I feel this twisted loss. I made excuses for both of them throughout my life. Both of my fathers failed to protect me because they couldn't protect themselves. Also, they both had their own responsibility and part in things, and while I gave my Dad's more grace, I was always aware that I didn't have a normal parental support system. I had selfish broken parents and I was aware of that on some level from a young age.

After I deleted the friend request from Linda, I hurt myself with food through the next day. I made the connection between my weight and my childhood years and years ago but it was clarified all the more as I saw myself spiral out, affected by a woman that hasn't laid a hand on me since I was a teenager.

What did this experience teach me, if I was to learn anything from this? It's that people don't change unless they want to change or are changed. She's likely the same person she was years ago. Same as my Mother, being very much who she is. Even if some things are different, the core of them is the same. My mother didn't tell me when my step-dad was dying, or when he died, a man that had entered my life when I was 5 years old. My step-mother didn't reach out to me until she felt strongly enough to throw herself back into the part of being the "no one believes you" evil step-mother role again - played for no one in particular because all the kings are dead now. I am better off not having either Mother in my life, though I will likely always feel their absence.

3:12pm I knew I'd have a lot to say. Over 2000 words into this and I didn't even dive in. I needed to write about it though. I will likely process it more in my paper journal, where I'm only starting to reconnect with myself through pen and paper. I knew that I had to make myself start writing again, that I need to write to save myself. The thing about changing applies to myself as well. I will not be changed unless I change myself. And the things about myself that I want to reconnect with, I must go back into myself to retrieve to bring it all back out into the world again.

Where am I at now? I'm in my book nook. I can see the city skyline out the window. A thunderstorm warning just ended. I'm aware of my body and how I slipped up in my progress of past months, how the recent emotional upset of things has made me have to confront an old wound, a deep rooted pain. I see that it won't be easy but that I must continue to bring myself out of the deep dark wherever I've been. That my grief will bury me alive if I don't come out of it. Reminder that I've never been healed but that I've always had ways to treat myself - writing and other ways of self-expression - my way to say that despite it all, I'm still here. So, knowing that I have a long way to go and not as much time as I did years ago, I'm going to face these things as they come up - I'll write it down.

I have not been okay. The deaths of many people in the past couple of years has been difficult for me. Only recently did I start to reconnect with people in real life, people who have reached out to me and tried to draw me out (of this apartment, out of myself) and I am grateful to those who did not forget me and those who haven't given up on me. There was a conversation with an old friend from my Beach/es life who reminded me of who I was and am, the person that he will always see when he thinks of me, the reason why some people liked me, even as I am, as I have been. I think it's important to have someone who tells you, even as you feel like you're lost, that you mean something to them, or meant something to them - even if it has to go through several layers of solid rock, if it can echo back to that place in your chest, it could make a difference.

I'm still not okay but I'm willing to work with that. Too much time is passing, too many moments that might have been are slipping through the days, the months, the years. I'm not rushing outside and into the street shouting to the world that I'm alive or anything. No, I'm pacing myself. It looks more like this: going through my yt and making public my vlogs, sorting through my Flickr and making public my photos and writing again to post to my online journal (blog). It's a start.

My birthday is fast approaching. It's on the 25th of July. I don't have plans. I wanted to go to the Beaches Jazz Streetfest but I had hoped to be outside before then. I'm feeling incredibly self-conscious and vulnerable at the moment. I think I've always felt this way but when I'm in this state of rawness and disconnect from my body, especially after I've put it through some stuff, I feel especially nervous about going outside, of being seen, being around people. Having seen all the photos I used to take, even if my outside adventures were minimal, has made me see just how much I managed to experience even with the limitations I've had. I'd like to think I could go outside and take more photos that I can look back on for this time period. I'm thankful that I've been able to read more lately, that I can read books and that I want to read more again. That was something I had missed very much about myself as well.

Funnily enough, the voice of my step-mother entered my mind. It's not in a bad way. It made me smile to myself, to remember the quote and to remember her and my Dad saying it - but also the way it applies to my life right now - "warriors, come out to play-ay!" I just rewatched the clip - classic.

It wasn't all bad, Linda, but fuck you. If you're lucky, I'll publish the diaries after you're dead.