It all started when my darling noodle dragon boyfriend the Mad Scientist Construction Worker casually mentioned (a month ago now good god.) that the electricity rental bill was on the kitchen counter. Stopped me in my tracks.
Now I knew , in theory, that electricity isn’t actually used by your gear. It runs through your stuff and minus any wastage goes right back to the grid. Yes you use it. But you give it back. And pay for it. Through the nose. Every bloody month.

Now I can’t truly explain why this freaked me out. Perhaps the wording. Perhaps I was in the throes of a hormonal imbalance and took it personally. But let me tell you this. By the next morning I was mad. Nay. Furious. At Life and Stuff in general.

Paying three times the amount your home is worth by the time you own it due to interest. Credit cards with 30% interest when you’re late for the first time. Making too much money to qualify for college financial aid but not making enough to actually go. Random things that I just accepted as being The Way Things Are. It started in the financial realm of my life but soon jumped the firebreak and swept into the rest of my life.

Frankly my life was FULL of things I did just because people told me I had to. And I had seen fit to let them do so. Aye there’s the rub you see. I let them. Why? Because I’m a Good Girl. Keep your parents happy. Be Successful. Keep Up With the Joneses. Or Smiths. Fill in the Blank. Now why did I see fit to allow other people and society as a whole to boss moi around? Because I did not see myself as worthy of My Own Path. Egad why, you ask? Because I’m ugly.

Yep that’s the real reason Ive been a professional victim all of my life. Cause I dont look like the rest of the Good People. How amazingly pathetique is that?? What a great reason to major in something you don’t like. Wear clothes you hate. Stay home lest you offend the sight of the beautiful people. Let boyfriends smack you around. God the list goes on and on. “No no really. Its ok. I’m ugly. Thanks for reminding me. I forgot for a second. But I’m better now. ” I’ve been that way since I can remember. Head down, shoulders slumped trying desperately not to be seen or heard. Never finishing anything I wanted to do because I’d do for others first. Wanting to die because there was no point in living if all I am is an embarrassment to my family and society as a whole.

All because I’m ugly.

I don’t claim that it makes sense. Or is even valid. It simply is.

Was.

It’s not All Better now. My finances are still shot. I’m still recovering from old injuries mental and physical. I still can go from happy and smiling to scared and trying to hide in 3 seconds flat. But at least now I can try.

I don’t think I’m pretty or even just plain. Let there be no mistake. I look in the mirror and still see a pasty faced Jabba the Hut. I still feel like a water retaining water buffalo around “normal” women. I can’t go shopping for clothes without breaking out in hives and having panic attacks in the parking lot. If I do find something I like I can’t simply buy it. I need someone to give me a reason to. I don’t trust my own opinions. But maybe the mirror doesn’t know everything. Maybe what “they” think isn’t the truth. Maybe I have worth apart from what I look like. And maybe what I look like isn’t that bad after all.

Now to my boyfriend and girlfriend, I’m ” the hotness”. ( I still think they may be the victims of a tragic thing called blindness.) To them I’m a walking renaissance painting. Freya, Aphrodite, Flora. Pick a goddess. They’ll tell you without missing a beat that : Yea. Verily, it is I. ” Desire Incarnate”. See? Told ya. Nutbars both of them.
They’ve been putting me back together for a year now. One little emotional bit at a time. And I have freaked out on them routinely. They’ve literally had to hold me down when I would have left them because I just flat out felt I didn’t deserve them and they’d be better off without me. I resisted everything they said on a unilateral basis until that one phrase made sense.

Renting electricity: letting go of your own core values, your own Way to make others happy. Accepting what Those Who Know say in fashion, or love, or life as -your- truth. Under developing or neglecting your own unique abilities and talents because “they” wouldn’t understand or appreciate them. Doing what everyone else does regarding life decisions because its “normal”. Paying in emotional coin for the use and abuse of others month after month when you’ve done nothing to pay for. Accepting things that don’t make sense for you as valid just because you “should”. Letting the fact that you’re not like the others make you somehow -less- than they.

I’m 36. And I look back on my life and see a wasteland. I don’t see myself. I see a misfit trying to avoid detection. Trying to stay hidden. An attitude of : I’ll do anything you say. Just don’t hurt me. I’m tired of it. I’m worn to nothing. No possessions. No money. Nothing to show for 36 years of life except bills and injuries.
…
Maybe not. I have a fabulous child, The Goobaby Goobear. I have my boyfriend and girlfriend. I have my cats. I have a dog. And I have love. They love me and I them and who gives a -damn- what anyone else thinks? Who gives them the right to say who I am or what I should do? There is only one person that can do that.

Me.

And I say no more.

Life is too short to rent electricity.

3-Satans little annoyances.Im tryin gto get bakc on the bible study track

or to pull out my lace pillow and toss my bobbins.

Is it just me, or does that sound like a euphemism for something delightfully dirty? ;)

For me, life is too short to:
1. Try to have a spotless house like my mother’s.
2. Hold grudges.
3. Say yes to social engagements I’d rather forgo.
4. Turn down opportunities to travel, even if I have to put the whole thing on my credit card.
5. Put up with disrespect.

Making finicky cookies.

Knitting

To live with a song in the wrong key

To have bad sex