2024 in review
“I have licked the fire and danced in the ashes of every bridge I ever burned. I fear no hell from you.‘
–Nicole Lyons
I am trying to live up to this quote going into 2025.
So let’s start with the two major bridges burned:
Bridge one; I started 2024 the day after telling Jobe to get lost, and blocking her everywhere. She has made no attempt to reach out in any way–the mail still works, as do burner phone numbers, and burner emails–which only confirms that her professions of love were–like everything else about her–a complete lie. I have now ended the year without speaking to her at all.
Has it been hard? Yes.
Via therapy and research I have been enlightened to the fact I have spent the last year battling a trauma bond that she set on me, this is not a magic spell, but it is a nasty form of psychological manipulation and abuse.
Am I free of the bond? Not totally, and it could take years of therapy and no contact with her to be fully free from it. I now mostly find issues when I am shopping, be it online or in person and I see something pretty, and it connects to a thought that she would look good in it…it’s a bummer but is getting less often as is the anger when I feel lonely about how she lied to me about moving in. I have to keep reminding myself that everything about her is a lie–and I do mean everything about her–that the person I fell in love with never existed.
I had the misfortune of accidentally finding an old email not moved to storage. I had sent her the email the morning of 12-31-2023, it was long, and it was heartfelt, her response was “I’m still processing…” basically a non-answer. I’m not depressed by it, I’m sort of numb, and irritated by it though, especially knowing that it explains her silence toward only me that day–that’s how narc’s punish you is with the silent treatment–as she was prolifically posting on twitter, and the silence is why I had to break everything off with her as I could no longer take that abuse from her.
I do hold on to the compliments she gave me; like being the only person to ever describe me as “hot” whether she was being honest or not, it gave me some confidence.
Bridge two; at the beginning of the year I was still legally married to my ex-wife. She physically left two and a half years ago after finally destroying the marriage with a massive string of lies that began eight years before–on top of the hundreds of lies, some minor and some really blatant and major during the course of our time together. She had slowly started checking out of the marriage in all possible ways 27 years ago, and leaving our bed two years before she left–there was nothing there to salvage.
In February the divorce was final–after 30+ years of ending arguments with yelling at me “do you want a divorce?”–and after being my own lawyer in this legal adventure I understand why lawyers are so pricey.
The rest of the year with her was a mix of nice and not so nice. In May while she was here for my son’s brain surgery she overlapped with my food poisoning incident. She made me food, took what care of me she could, and tried picking fights that I would not take the bait of. Basically this pattern continued through the year until November 7th when I once again tried to find answers to her lies. I finally have one admittance to a lie, and a lot of stuff that had been settled from 20 and 30 years ago brought up yet again, plus a lot of stuff that never happened, and her once again digging at my sexual/personal expression–for those unaware I am intersex, I primarily identify as female though fluid is more accurate, but I was mis assigned male at birth–when we were dating I was told this was not an issue to her…but she made it one. In the end I wound up blocking her as well.
When I blocked my ex wife I heard my kids in my head “ mom, you have a type” Both ex wife and Jobe have pretty much the same personality. Now I have to break that trend.
Whatever closure you think you need, you don't.
The closure you think you need is right in front of you in the lack of respect, care, apology, accountability, and honesty.
–Unknown, heard elsewhere with no attribution
“Never re-friend or re-family a person who tried to destroy your character, your integrity or your relationship with others, a snake only sheds its skin to be a bigger snake. If others fall victim and walk away from you because of that, let them … Sooner or later the snake will bite them too.”
–George Clooney
As I noted, May was food poisoning month, apparently some dumb-ass living in my house made chicken salad with mayonnaise that was open way too long–note I live alone. I spent about three weeks fighting with Salmonella poisoning, and going through two rounds of antibiotics. I lost 21 pounds/9.5kg/1.5 stones in that month as food would neither stay down or in.
My son had brain surgery in late May, and he came out of it cracking jokes. “I feel really high” was the first thing he said to me as they rolled his bed into his room. The tumor was successfully removed, it was pushing on things in his head just right that it was mimicking epilepsy, he has been seizure free since the surgery. So he is in chemo and will be for quite a while to come, but the prognosis is very good.
Most of the year's memories are blurry, between sleeping as I recovered from the mental abuse of my past life, and physically from the food poisoning–my doctor and later my therapist both said this is normal. At a point I was sleeping ten to eleven hours a day, but at this point I am down to seven again–which is normal for me.
Physically my weight-loss got me to a point where I invested in a two piece swimsuit which is something I had wanted most of my life, but never dreamed I would ever get in to and yes at first it was a bit disconcerting as you sort of feel like you are outside in your underwear aka nearly naked–also I was raised by a prude so extreme that even shorts were indecent. I have since lost some more weight, and have a bit to go before I reach my goal. In 30 years of really fighting my weight I have lost just over 100 pounds/45kgs/7 stones, that is just direct linear loss not counting the ups and downs along the way.
I bought my tractor in August, and there were people in my life at that time that were obviously upset I bought it even though it had no bearing on them–I think it was the fact I could make that financial commitment and they over extended themselves within a few months of moving away–I no longer wonder where the money issues came from in my marriage. I am now able to do in a day with it what would have been several weekends worth of work before. I’ve since bought it a rake, and a set of pallet forks. Those two items added more usefulness and again sped up my progress on my work. I was able to use the forks to move dried brush piles about and quickly add brush to a lit burn pile…a job that took me an entire day before because of hand feeding the fire. Now it can be moved in bulk and burned in a couple of hours.
The first section of the old guest house was dropped, and the foundation has been added onto so it is six inches (15cm) above the surrounding grade. The original foundation height is why the original walls rotted as my yard is flat so every time it rained the water would get between the foundation and wall. So at this point the shop is about 25% done. The next section to drop and haul off will probably be in March or April depending on the weather, but no earlier as I need to pour more concrete when I do. If all goes as planned I should have the shop up by Halloween of 2025.
At this point I have been using the home version of laser hair removal for just over a year now. It has greatly reduced my facial hair issues, but at points it’s like it isn’t doing anything. For the most part it has helped cut back on how many razors I go through by stretching the time between shaving. It has also greatly reduced the beard shadow that I hate so much.
As noted earlier, I still have some weight to lose, but I no longer appear pregnant.
At the end of 2023 I was looking at blood pressure medication, now my blood pressure is normal for someone in their 20’s. What changed? Seriously, no Jobe, no ex wife, the stress and cortisol levels from what they were doing to me was the cause.
The house is still cleaning up, I hauled six big totes of stuff down to the ex wife on a Buttercup exchange midyear and I imagine I will still turn stuff up as I go. The stench from the filth that had built up during the last couple of years before the split is gone, there is a scent that is apparently from the previous owner, but I imagine that will get less as walls are redone through the remodeling.
There is still a smell where my ex son-inlaw’s cat had a litter box and he didn’t clean it regularly nor correctly. I’m afraid that section of plywood will have to be removed from the floor of that room to be rid of it. I will attempt to use an encapsulating paint first in that area, but only time will tell.
At this point I can now spend several hours at a time in the tool room without my anxiety going off the rails. This is a good thing as I am now slowly getting tools put away again. I kind of need things as organized as possible before the actual shop is up so I can migrate them out there…remember those forks I got for the tractor? Yep, those will be moving three tool chests, and a large air compressor from the kitchen door to shop door in under a year.
I bought a set of strings and a new bow for my violin in November. Had to repair the violin as the neck and head had come loose but managed that myself. Once together it was the first time I had drawn the bow in 34 years and she still sounds just as sweet. It’ll take time to get back to where I was, and maybe it will help my arthritic fingers too. Once I get halfway decent again I’d like to take up the bagpipes…my neighbors are gonna hate me.
I realized at some point I have started dancing again while cooking and cleaning. I stopped a long, long, time ago, and before that I had slacked off after making show choir in high school, but being denied the chance to perform by my mom.
I made it through the holiday season with no anxiety, no existential dread, no depression, just nice and chill–are we humans allowed to do that?
Overall and especially since early November, I am calm, at peace, no more living in depression, or within a constant state of paranoia. I’m not used to feeling this way all the time as in my life I’ve never known this, but I can adjust to it.
I am trying to wear nicer clothes even if it is only for a few hours between getting home and bed. No more bummy things as there is nothing in most of my house that will damage them anymore. It may seem a simple and odd move, but it had a very quick effect on my mood in the evenings.
I no longer feel that I return to my house after work, but I now come home, and freely call it my home. That was a big step for me as this is the first time in my life I have felt at home. On that subject I have worked out what style windows to install, and found where to get the trim for them. Once the shop is done the real work on my home begins.
So what lies ahead?
Several people I know are after me to start dating. In most ways I don’t know how I feel about that. I’ve been lonely for many, many, years–yes you can be in a house full of people and be very lonely–but I’m not sure anyone deserves the baggage that I have, or that it would be right to them–time and therapy will tell. Will I see minor things as giant red flags? Will I cut off good people because of the things Jobe, my ex, and my mom, did to me? On top of these, there are probably very few people who would be able to deal with my trans issues, basically I need a very open minded bisexual woman–yes I am a lesbian too–to accept who I am as I am.
I’m pretty open minded and can accept a lot of baggage if the person meshes right–but I come with a cargo ship full of baggage with each container packed like Fibber Mcgee’s closet. I do have a list of what I’d like, and maybe I’ll attach it at the end or as a part two.
I have to finish learning the video edit software on the new computer system to start getting videos up regularly. It may be easier to set up a dual boot on the tower though and use what I know.
I need more practice time with the action camera. Need to work the face tracking issue of my gimble out. In general during the colder season I need to work toward video becoming second nature to just shoot a lot. I stopped carrying my gear around many years ago for reasons you can probably work out considering my past.
I don’t want to plan too much, or too far. For now simple goals, small steps, one 2 by 4 at a time, and may the bridges I burn behind me light my path forward as I dance amongst the embers and ashes.
