Love Letter – HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!

Can the worst four years of your life also be the best four years of your life?

I would have said NO… if I hadn’t lived MY life. If I hadn’t been me. And if you hadn’t been you.

These past four years have been a dream and a nightmare. They have been both heaven and hell, a hell-ride and a joy-ride.

So many things have happened, to both of us. I moved three times in three years, which was very stressful to say the least. I cut all ties with people who had abused me, injured me, manipulated me and betrayed me all my life. I left my old life behind, and became someone I didn’t know I could be – someone free, someone happy, someone healthy. That was very difficult. I had to leave behind all my comfort zones and become an adult.

And you were there.

Through it all, through the fear, and the tears, and the uncertainty, you were there. My one ray of light. My hope. My love. My strength.

You were there for me every step of the way. Just as I was there for you when your dad died, and then again when your mum died, just six months later. Just as I will always be there, no matter what.

4 difficult years, but also 4 years of discovering what being in love really meant. 4 years of enjoying your company, 4 years of loving you and having fun with you. 4 years of experiencing new things with you. 4 years of living daily with you and knowing you as no one else does. 4 years of you knowing me, the new me, the real me.

Oh and there were also 2 work-related promotions, and a myriad of writing commissions  – PAID commissions ofc (started earning money as a freelance 3 yrs ago). Not to mention the orgasmic joy when we purchased our house, decorated it, and settled in it, to name but a few. And what about all the fabulous holidays, experiences and adventures together? So much to mention… too much for it to fit in here. Hehe…

4 years – it seems like so much time has passed, and yet, the feeling of looking forward to seeing you, the fluttery excited charge in my heart each time you smile that sweet naughty smile at me, the way my heart bursts whenever I look into your eyes… are still the same as the feelings I felt 4 years ago.

And they will never change.

Am I being Sexually Harassed?

Where is the line between ‘just a bit of a joke’ and sexual harassment? When are we allowed to finally admit that something is making us feel uncomfortable, or that we feel threatened, without appearing ‘party-poopers’ or ‘milksops’ who do not know ‘how to take a joke’?

Seriously, can someone explain it to me please?

Yesterday, something happened at the office, which made me feel quite uncomfortable and which I did not like one bit. Someone behaved quite inappropriately towards me and the way he talked was also vulgar and out of place. This person works in my same department, however I rarely see him (thankfully), as he is in another building. He is also married and knows I have a partner whom I have a home with. Moreover, his wife herself also works in our same department too! (In a third building). Could this make his flirting and overt sexual advances any more inappropriate!??

Anyways, after this episode, I talked to my director and she kind of said it was quite out of place, but to take no notice of it. Fine. This morning, at 7.30am (I was still half asleep), the same guy came over to my office, he closed the door after him, came right up in my face, and tried to kiss me. Now, how’s that for ‘a joke’?

I was quite firm at that point and even raised my voice a bit, yet he went out slowly after I had signed for something, and continued to talk to me with a weird smile on his face, as though nothing untoward had happened… wow wtf. Is it just me? Am I a stick in the mud? Was it just a joke or does this guy seriously think I would have kissed him??

And before someone points any fingers, no I was not wearing anything skimpy or revealing – NOT THAT THAT GIVES ANYONE THE RIGHT TO TRY TO FEEL ME UP!

Now I’m feeling really uncomfortable. Somewhere where I generally spend 6-9 hours of my time every day no longer feels safe, and this is totally unfair. I don’t want to escalate it because first of all, this guy knows ‘people’ and wont get fired or moved for sure, and secondly because if I said anything, I would be the one appearing in a bad light, because I would be a ‘bitch’ who didn’t know how to ‘take a joke’…

Heh… I just hope this guy does’nt come over to our building again and that I won’t see him again any time soon…

Last Night, I was Abused. And it was Terrible.

It is terrifying, having your personal space violated. Feeling so helpless and powerless. Unable to do anything.

What’s worse, is knowing that you can be violated and abused again and again. Suddenly and without your consent.

This is what happened to me yesterday, and what, I am afraid, will happen again.

It was 11.30pm and I was reading in bed. My bedside table glowed over the page, as with the main character of my epic fantasy novel, I journeyed through a wasteland learning about love and magic. I was at peace. I was comfortable and felt loved and protected. My boyfriend was asleep next to me, snoring softly. His body heat a dear reminder of his boyish laugh and strong presence. I was happy.

Then, suddenly, everything was corrupted.

I saw something dark fluttering at the corner of my vision. At first I thought nothing of it, being engrossed in my book. The fluttering came again, and I faintly thought that a moth must have gotten in. Half a minute later, I chanced to look down… and I froze in terror.

It was an overwhelmingly large and violently red cockroach.

Hideous in its smug predatorial harvesting, it scurried towards my semi-naked cleavage, which was exposed over the bedsheets. I was petrified. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t scream.

I must have made some small sound of fear however, because the cadaverous monster backtracked a bit, falling down to my stomach. With a low voice, chilling in its urgency, I called my boyfriend, waking him up. He jumped panicked, thinking there was a burglar or intruder who had gotten into the house.

It was worse. It was a rapist.

One definition of a rapist is someone who exerts power over you, in order to violate you against your will. That is how it felt. The hideous creature had invaded my personal space, had actually THE CHEEK to crawl on my skin, while I wasn’t even asleep!!! Who knew where it had come from? Who knew what else had or COULD happen during the night?! Had cockroaches been crawling and smearing their squinty legs all over my body while I had been asleep night after night?

Feeling my partner shift in the bed, the being crawled down the bedsheet to the floor. I sprung out on the other side of the bed while my bf went after it, yet it disappeared. I was in a panic, hyperventilating and crying. We searched for the terrible beast but could not find it. I knew I couldn’t fall asleep in that bed again, not if we did not find it, and hardly after, since I knew I was not safe there.

We shifted furniture and bags. We banged on the headboard and the wall. Finally, after 20 minutes, it crawled out.

My love, my dearest one, my soul mate, killed the vile thing. Squashed it under his foot like so much jell-o. Yet it was not enough.

For hours, I lay in terror. Imagining every itch was another disgusting thing squirreling its way towards me. Alternately banging on the headboard and scanning the room, trying to see if there was a blot, a patch of darker blackness, creeping towards me in the night.

In the morning, I sprinkled cockroach powder everywhere. I do not know what I will find when I get home today, but I hope it’s a cemetery – a horrifying space full of decaying bloated bodies, thin curling legs pawing futilely at the air.

I hope they all die