I think my neighbor has forgiven me for shouting at him about the racist stuff. First he went to Walmart and bought a patch for my jeans because I was too lazy to do it for myself. Then he just up and bought me a new pair of jeans.

I feel overwhelmed on a variety of levels. How kind. How thoughtful. How loving. I’m aware he is on a very fixed income (he can rattle off what he spends down to the penny every month) so this feels like a huge deal.

People surprise me all the time. I really appreciate that he did this. The jeans don’t fit me well but they will work fine over leggings with a belt. That’s how I go through the winter when I’m too cheap to go buy more flannel lined jeans. (I haven’t had any since pre-pregnancy.)

I would die in real weather.

It is weird to me how some people drift into your life and just kind of stay. And they become important. I see every sign that this gentleman may live another ten years in his current state. He’s in good health and he’s pretty vigorous. I may get to know him for more than fifteen years. That’s a long spell. We talk a lot.

I’m glad I started talking to him years ago. I’m blurty, like I am, so he knows I have issues but I haven’t been specific about what. My kids are always standing there. But he knows I struggle with feeling like I have worth.

This feels like a big deal. He’s trying to say it is nothing. But it isn’t nothing.

I feel weird about my neighbors all thinking I’m poor. I don’t mention that I have spent $19,000 this month and it isn’t a big deal. I can afford it. (That includes the IRA and college fund and other stuff like that where I’m transferring money more than I’m “spending” money but my heart palpitations only see my main checking account going down.)

Sometimes it is hard to fully see that I am becoming who I want to be. I am creating a place in a community. People have known me for quite a while now. I have lived in one house for 7.5 years. That is the longest stretch of my whole life. Twice as long as the runner up.

I see neighbors coming and going. I give Christmas presents. I help people with things they are doing. They help me.

Now if I could get my emotions to reflect my reality more then maybe I would stop having panic attacks. I wish I didn’t feel so scared all the time. I wish I wasn’t always looking for who is going to do what terrible thing next.

I don’t trust people. Not individuals and not collectively. But I do. I am an incredibly trusting person.

I’m just conflicted. I’m told that is one of the reasons I am a survivor. Living in that place of tension with opposite beliefs is part of what makes me able to adapt so quickly to new situations and new people.

I can always go find a new place. I’m like a cat with millions of lives. But I can’t go back to places I’ve tried before. There is always too much baggage.

I’m starting to worry about Dickens. I always see one of my rapists. It is very hard to behave “appropriately” with my kids. I try to mostly stay away from that side of the Fair. I know it is my problem. But it hurts. It hurts knowing that he is a vital and integral person for a lot of people and I’m just not so I can go away if I have a problem.

I have a hard time fully trusting people. I don’t trust my neighbor more (uhm partially because he is severely racist) and partially because I think that he would take the side of a random man over me in a dispute. That’s my basic assumption. I think I will always be the only person on my side.

What about Noah? Would he be on my side? Maybe. Mostly. If he’s not busy. I fight my own battles. He has no interest in going places with me. If I have difficulty it is my own to handle. Either I can manage it or I can’t and that is that.

Wow. I don’t have to have multiple identities. People split me for me. (That needs context.) A friend just told me that when she talks about me to her mother she has split the conversations into being about two people. One real me and she has made up a friend named Alice (like in Wonderland) who has a tragic background.

I feel….

Wow.

Yeah. That’s just how it is when you are me. My life is so unbelievable that people make up a person to ascribe it to.

Yeah. Ok. Time to go write 5500 more words on Outrunning so I can be done with the rough draft.

Feelings. Feelings. Feelings.