… it’s just a ride
It’s just a ride
And you’ve got the choice to get off anytime that you like
It’s just a ride
It’s just a ride
The alternative is nothingness
We might as well give it a try
The Ride, Amanda Palmer

I let him touch me.
Okay hey, i used to let anyone, everyone touch me. But that was by rote.
I am nothing if not a good girl.

Wait. I think that i might not actually be a good girl anymore.
Wait.
Holy shit.
I have believed for nearly the entirety of my life that to be good is all.
I was told to think that.
One day, not long enough ago, i realised they didn’t care what was good. “Good” was a dog whistle; merely a means of control. They would have what they wanted, regardless of the cost.

Oh wait.
I should specify.
Regardless of the cost to anyone save them.

It is not hard to know what good is, and it is sososo easy to not be good.
This seems to me a contradiction.

Wait, though. Hold on. I am a good girl, i was always a good girl.
First, i was good because their definition was all i knew, and i twisted and bent and remade myself to fit their requirements.
Not just for survival.
Not just because there was no other choice.
Because love.
Because goodness.

Then i had a baby, and i knew that they’d lied.
I didn’t know what good was. You would think it would be easy.
And okay, it kind of is.
But when you’re told that no is yes and wrong is right, and if you want something to eat and a bed to sleep in you need to subvert your intellect and your instincts or you will be alone and you will die…
You become the bestest girl ever.

But i had a baby and i looked at him and he set me free. He saved my life. I knew the things they’d told me were good and right were actually bad and wrong, but i had no template for goodness.

Religion failed.
Family failed.
Classes failed.
Books failed.

I tried and i tried and i tried so hard. If you are reading this i want you to know that, although i have failed my child in multiple and terrible ways – i loved him. I started working on being better because he came out of me and when i looked at him, i suddenly knew that i could be good.

And even if i couldn’t, that he was worth every effort.

I love Rupaul’s Drag Race, but when he asks for an “amen up in here”, while i understand the concept and believe it has merit, i cannot amen it, because it wasn’t until i had my wee baby boy that i wanted to love in the best way i could, and knew that there was work for me to do before i was able.

I could not love myself until i truly loved someone else.
And because he opened me up to want to love, and loving him never hurt me in the way that loving my progenitors did, i stumbled across an amazing, life-changing, just-for-me love one day.

And i had the sense, and the unmitigated gall, to pursue him without reservation.
I don’t know how. It is completely incongruous to the person i was raised to be.

But wait. I was raised, i know now, to be bad, evil, wrong… at the very least compliant.
Yet somehow, i am here, and i know what good is and i know that i am and i have finally, finally, let him touch me.

Think what you want, of course, and interpret it how you will, but i have figured out how to let him in and really touch me.

Things are tougher than they’ve been in years. There have been doctors and police and dangerous behaviours that i wished with my whole heart were long past. But i am who i am and i have done the absolute best i can with the cards i’ve been dealt.

He can now touch me, and i am not afraid.
I know how to be good; no one needs to tell me.
And if you think i’m not good, not only does it not matter, but my dear motherfucker – you are wrong.
And also, i’m not a girl anymore, i’m a woman.

I WIN.

NOTE: I’m sorry i stopped writing for so long. I’ve been struggling harder than i have in many years. But i knew it was coming, and i said so, didn’t i?
I’m back to writing through it, no matter what. I’m doing the best i can, and every day, my capacity gets a teensy, tiny bit bigger.

Thank you for sticking with me.

I hope what you read here is:
If i can get through it, maybe you can too.

Love Always,
~H~