Caterwauling

In the two decades (2001!) since I made Caterwauling my home, I’ve lived by only a few rules.

One, don’t blog in real time. Write about it when you’ve had some time to gain perspective.

Two, don’t feed the blogimals. If I don’t talk to you in real life, I won’t engage here.

Three, this is my house, and it’s an open house. Whether you’re laughing at or with me is up to you. If it’s “at,” then I ask you to reevaluate your life choices.

That said, I last stepped away from this space because I was so very over a malignant narcissist. And I last stepped away before that because of a paranoid narcissist. And recently, I’ve had not one but two MORE narcs looking for themselves in every blessed character I type. In two states!

To a narc, posting a song or a picture of a sunset or a steak will somehow trigger them into thinking you are firing a shot that must be returned with a spray of gunfire.

I am quite amused by it all. But I also get bored very easily because, Gemini.

My male Gemini twin (from many moons ago) used to say, “It’s pointless to play with an unarmed opponent.” I adapted it to say unworthy. Gotta be an original, even in this.

Either way, I remember playfully sparring with my Gem. It was exhilarating. Instead of feeling tired, we were stimulated by it all. Not in a “War of the Roses” way. Just, ready to light up a cigarette when it was done, and eager for Round 2.

In any event, as I watch the Russians monitor my social media along with those who wouldn’t rush for anyone or anything (and who cry foul and clutch their chest/pearls when they punch 20x and I punch back once), I realize it’s time to come back to the space where I’ve been paying rent.

I also realize that blowing the dust off the place will invite in some dark spirits.

But here’s the thing.

Since I’ve been gone, I’ve been developing my intuition. I’ve been communing with ancestral spirits. I’ve been learning white magic and casting spells and manifesting all kinds of cool shit. I have banishing spells and people to banish evil with.

My coven and I are powerful, powerful women who have recently remembered that we were witches. That’s the only explanation for how easily this is all coming to us.

And to be fair, I’ve done candle magic and protection spells for years. I just didn’t realize that the shit that popped into my head out of the blue was planted there generations ago.

In any event, if people are coming here to see themselves in my prose, maybe someday. Not today.

Right now, I’ve got cool shit to catch everyone else up on from the past few years. And once I get through all that, I won’t be so in my thoughts and feelings about the rest. If I even remember any of it.

But make no mistake, they are my feelings. My experiences. My story.

If you even think I’m not allowed to be online or have my own feelings or take on things, be my guest and don’t read them.

At the same time, I am under no obligation to receive yours. I’ve probably already read your tarot cards and know your truth, anyway.

By the fact that you are here, you are accepting the terms and conditions:

• I am the Goddess.
• You’re in my house, and it’s saged and smelling good.
• I can pray for you like I do for all the friends and strangers I do it for every single day. Or I can put a hex on your house.

Don’t try me on that one. I knock shit out of people’s hands with my mind when I’m mad. And I have plenty of witnesses to this creepy Carrie shit.

Just leave me alone to pray for rain in Australia. If you like, I’ll tell you how you can do it effectively, too.

You only get one life. Be still, listen to the universe, and earn the blessings it so desperately wants to give you.

So mote it be.

Still here.

Broken in pieces.

But now

Broken in peace

I don’t have enough to share

So I pray you

Find yours too

And give it

To those who most

Deserve it from you

I’m back! Never left, though. I’m guessing there’s a handful of you who didn’t leave, either. Thank you for being a friend. Or an unfriend. Or a block.

Since we last spoke, I had a pretty good 2018, minus losing my Kadie and having the landlord sell the condo out from under me. But I live in a nice, top-floor unit now. And I get to borrow kitties from the people in my ever-shrinking circle.

My newest love.

2019, I hate to write it off because it was filled with lots of joy until Aug. 3. But I went from having a wonderful person who couldn’t wait to wake up and see me every day to having a troll (not him) who can’t wait to wake up and see me from her 17 social media accounts. That I know of.

It’s OK. She says I was convenient. Easy. But I think she got it backward. I was the challenge, the conquest.

She likes to tell me I was nothing. That I am nothing. That I’ll never be anything. That she is everything and so much more. That now I HAVE nothing. And she’s SO SAD about that. Yawn.

I should share all the screenshots with two tweets, one of her claiming to be caring and compassionate about people who are alone, and the next calling me a delusional, lonely victim who is planning a Disney wedding that will never happen.

We know who’s the real delusional one here. I just hate that the precious few original words she has to offer the world are only crafted to poison herself and others against me.

So when I wonder how I could say and think cruel things, I look at all those screenshots.

And I forgive myself for responding characteristically to uncharacteristic insults.

I don’t think it was that I wasn’t enough. I think I was too much. He would have to move mountains for me, ultimately. Maybe he would have.

I don’t believe in bad timing. We make our own timing. Goldilocks here thinks what we had was just right.

We had a good run. I just wish it ended better.

I thank him for the friendship and all the heart-to-hearts and fun times we had. I’m sorry that I have to see all the details of that time splashed across 17 accounts. Well, sorry that he does nothing to muzzle her or protect me. Or himself. Her tweets and posts under her real name are more bonkers than the ones from the fake accounts.

Yes, I’ve cried oceans. Not over him and certainly not her.

I cried them for the girl who put her heart on the line. Cried for the man I saw beaming and grinning and frolicking with me.

I will always have a special place in my heart for him. For anyone who made me happier, better and stronger. Even if most of that strength wells from the tough times and not the better ones.

In any event, what I learned through all this was that I was stuck. Comfortable. The obstacles that used to annoy me in my path, I started to accept. Because I had someone who made life fun otherwise.

And I can live with rejection. We tried to stay friendly. I wanted him to see what he walked away from.

Then this particular troll dragged me to spiritual rock bottom.

I went against my values a lot in the last fiscal quarter and punched down as she punched up at me. It was easy. But not rewarding to walk in her shoes at all.

Belittling and gaslighting everyone she’s ever met is her sport. One I cannot compete at.

Coming up with witty comebacks or simply struggling to stay silent and watch her embarrass herself (and us) has drained the life out of me.

He picked that. I didn’t.

My 2019 was the best of times and the worst of times. My 2020 is set to see me hanging out with Gatsby-esque types and enjoying the good life.

I still have to work for it. But I’m looking forward to moving to a place where being alive doesn’t feel so much like work.

On this New Year’s Day, I shed my fear of what bullshit awaits. Today, I look eagerly toward what joys the world wants to send my way.

And I accept those joys with an open heart and open hands.

Trolls gonna troll. I’m gonna roll.

I invite you to watch me shine. Because, as sure as the sun rises each day, this Dawn is only going to become more brilliant.