moved to lavender-aquarius

hearing about this, i was immediately paranoid about reblogging literally anything from anyone i don’t talk to on a regular basis.

how about this: when i was 9 and my stepdad beat me until i passed out and i told my friends at school, my teacher over heard and i was interviewed by cps. they also went to my house when i was at school. when i got home, my step father was waiting on the couch, and told me who visited him that day. he told me if i ever snitched again he would beat me to within an inch of my life.

how about this: my mother locked me out of the house when i was 14 and when i cried so loud the neighbors called the cops, the cop told me i should have been respectful of my mother who was trying to sleep.

how about this. the demon you know is less scary than the demon you don’t.

children in abused households are raised to fear the idea of being taken away. children in abusive households see that help makes things worse.

⚪️ man ⚪️ woman 🔘 guardian    ⚪️ other

Looking for:

My aunt is over sixty, never married, and never, so far as I am aware, ever even had a great romance.  She dated a lot, but never clicked and now seems to have given up.  My mentor is over seventy, divorced her asshole husband more than half her life ago and has never found anyone since.

We all know women (and men) like these.  And because we know them, we know that “one day you will find someone,” is just … hogwash.  Because sometimes you just … don’t.  Or sometimes you do, but he turns out to be a cad.  Or you do and the universe rips you apart in the most unfair way possible.  And because society has us so fixated on finding “our other half” or whatever, we view these women as cautionary tales.

But … 

My aunt trains dogs.  Her schipperke is the national champion for his breed.  She spent so much of her life as a librarian, nurturing the love of books in kids, myself among them.  I ride horses because of her, and it’s one of the very few things I do that makes my soul feel at peace.

My mentor is one of the best criminal defense attorneys in her state.  She has devoted her life to fighting to ensure that everyone gets a vigorous defense.  Because of her countless people have had the opportunity to turn their lives around.  Because of her, they’ve had a life to turn around.  Because of her, the prosecution and the police in her jurisdiction are forced to behave ethically and adhere to the rule of law.  She’s still, even now fighting to abolish the death penalty.  It’s because of her that I am pursuing the life I am.

These women’s lives are not nothing.  In fact they are a whole lot of something, and it makes my heart hurt that I ever, in my dark 3 am’s, thought of their lives as something to be avoided at all costs.

So love your family, your friends, your pets, your gardens.  Love your job or your hobby or your raison d’ etre, whatever it is.  Love sunsets and the smell of rain and yourself, and don’t love these as something to do as a placeholder until the buzzing, romantic love comes, but love these as things worth loving all in themselves.