The Holidays, Reflection Time

January 16, 2024

The Holidays, Reflection Time

Well Christmas has come and gone, and so has the new year started. The over eating has finished, and now the heat of summer has arrived. It is time to reflect on recent times.

Firstly, the recent highlights.

Christmas day was very nice and low stress.JO and I worked well in the kitchen preparing lunch after a relaxing morning. We were joined by a couple of friends over the day and evening, and it was no stress. In fact, no stress may have been the issue. Family stress is the norm for Christmas, and without it it doesn't feel like Christmas.

Last years Christmas was very simple in one way. And there was tension created by what I would wear so as not to upset some people. So I compromised so that I would fit in and not create an issue. Families, huh!?

This year was to quiet. I could not phone family because I had been warned off. I did not feel close to my friends. It was nice, and good, yet I felt distant.

It was recent events of love lost most horribly, the disconnect with family, all the missing people. My family is very small now, and feels very distant. Distant in time and space.

If there was a real highlight it was a text chat with my daughter, who turned 24 on the 30th December. It was really nice. I don't know if she realizes how important she is to me. Maybe next Christmas we might have a phone call, or maybe a video call. Lots to work towards.

I hate hope, the deadliest sin in Pandora's box.

The days up to New Year were also quiet. And New Years Eve was a friend and I playing a board game and chatting.

The next week I did a little building, mowed some lawns for cash, and a bit of my own garden. A highlight was having two trans friends around for a Sunday afternoons gaming. One is not fully out, so this was to help her out by normalizing her trans self.

The next week was very quiet with my flatmate out most days and evenings. Alone. Even the cat ignored me.

There has been financial issues with my bank account getting hit with fraudulent charges twice, requiring two card changes and another long wait for the replacement. There is also bills gone unpaid because I could not internet bank them, and having to ring around and explain my situation is stressing. Sales of things has dried up over the holiday period, and so has the lawns work.

My flatmate is moving out in April, and there is the added stress of finding somebody, and maybe even two and giving up the spare room that is my lounge and work space and privacy. Stress. I need a well paying job to support myself, things will likely get tougher than easier.

And today I got evicted from a ladies board game group that meets fortnightly, aa highlight of my last 6-months. I did nothing to deserve the eviction. It is not my first rejection by women. I have been rejected by most groups, especially CIS women with men issues who sees me as a male, and there is something of this in the current eviction with descriptions of my masculine energy and strong personality and a description of feeling unsafe to have me in a house of women. They were so worried of feeling unsafe they bought a friend from the group and humiliated me in a public meeting. As she talked I felt like she was talking to and about her ex. My eyes were full of tears, and I wanted to run and hide before more people saw my distress, or heard it as people sat very close or passed within earshot.

It took all my strength to not run and hide, drawing more attention. It was painful, humiliating, and drawn out for maximum effect. Then they had the cheek to ask for my thoughts on how they could learn! They felt disrespected, what about me who has put up with constant misgendering.

So I write this with a very empty heart of love, isolated, alone, and disconnected. I had to process the rejection today with power tools, trying to make lovely things to sell without the love in my heart. A year ago this same situation had me make amazing things with a broken heart..

Right now I want to make art using the broken computer power supply beside my desk. It is the heart of the computer,, and it sits broken and defective, no life flowing through it. Thats how life feels right now.

I am tired of fighting right now, trying to tread water each day. Each day seems to be a continuous battle. I am tackling things as best I can, lots of small bites of the elephant, putting out the most dangerous fires, which are spreading.

Will keep you posted.

Some photos from this time.

Christmas Day