One thing that I haven’t been able to do well is explore memories of the past. For probably obvious reasons. (For those new to the blog, I have PTSD due to what I refer to as my hilariously abusive childhood/teenagehood/college years, but it wasn’t really hilarious on an objective scale. Also, there was a time when… but you can read more about it.)
I’m not about to go spelunking into the past—that tends to have bad effects, like partial flashbacks. So I guess this is a bit more wussy, thinking about the past five years, which are the only years I’ve considered to actually be semi-good in my life.
But first, an Overherd update. ((New to the Overherd? Here’s more about them.))
Overherd was deployed in the usual positions last night, although I seem to have tossed and turned about rather more, because I’d knocked both LRC and Cozy Cow off the bed. Overcow and Ike ended up on opposite sides of me. I tried to gather everybody in and sleep a little longer, but that didn’t work out so well. I think I had generic nightmares (rather than nightmares involving my parents hunting me down and killing me slowly with, say, axes, or strangling me on the porch) but when I woke up I couldn’t think of them. Usually I can think of them, which isn’t a great thing, but hugging any part of the Overherd seems to overwrite them.
And now, a shallow look at the past.
Despite the past in general being abusive as all hell, I’m not a person who adapts to change all that readily. Thus when my office picked up and moved away from our satellite offices to home office (there has been an awful lot of that going on lately), and the commute got weirder for me. I commute in a car, despite going onto the ferry, because it feels more secure, and security is worth a lot to me (precisely, it’s worth staying on a hella expensive island and driving every day across the Sound, back and forth, in a hella expensive ferry, and then paying for hella expensive parking. And just another reason why I will never have children).
I’m nostalgic for the old offices. The old places to eat. The actual availability of shopping. And cozy shopping at that. I was actually thrilled yesterday to discover—thanks to my GPS thingywhatsis—a new going-home route that went by my old office. This means it takes longer to get to the ferry, but on the other hand, during rush hour, it just about makes no difference, and this route is saner in many ways.
And the old office only feels like home to me because I’ve been there for over five years. In point of fact, I have actually chosen to stay with teams that stay in the old offices, partly out of fortunate overlap of interests, and partly because of location. And now I’m not there anymore, and it hurts a little.
Which perhaps should tell you about how traumatic leaving college was. I had, after all, been there for over a decade, the last half of which was spent under the sheltering wings of the University, because my parents were so threatening that this was considered a required safety measure, at the very least.
Perhaps a desire for an anchored location is the result of effectively not having a home for a few years after University, because I had to flee with the clothes on my back, and not having a job or a permanent place to roost tends to affect one’s view of the world negatively. Certainly the safety of home was not a strong point with my parents; at college I was never homesick. When home is where you get tortured with desk drawers—and believe me, fingers are really quite sensitive—and get boiling water poured over your hands for not preparing dinner correctly, it is not really home.
These days I’m home on the island. I don’t ever want to leave. Which is why my parents will find me a sitting duck whenever they do find me. They’re not old enough, sadly, to leave me alone, but on the other hand, they didn’t believe in the Internet (and probably still don’t; they’re extremely set in their ways). One day, when they are 80, I perhaps will feel safe, but my family is known to persist into the 90s. It’s unfortunate my parents had me while they were young.
Anyways, enough of the far past; the recent past is a safer place to be. And the present is honestly the safest place to be, even with the threat of discovery.
Now, if I could only explain this to my PTSD, I could actually live my life without a constant background noise of fear.
The Overherd seems to help a lot in that respect.
And now I’m going to go into the city early, so as to have a short wander around a place I used to call my second home.
