Twilight Zone

07/12/24

Periodically I find myself involved in a series of weird events – like for a short time, my life flips into a comedy version of the twilight zone. I’m in the middle of such a time right now.

Two of these things sound serious, but were more irritating than alarming; the third was just plain silly.

Last night, my lodger, who until now has been the epitome of decorum and respect, came home drunk and tried to put the moves on me.

I will add in here: he doesn’t normally drink, and while it’s no excuse whatsoever, it certainly contributed to his poor judgement.

He was very firmly put in his place, and this morning he was beside himself – abject apologies.

I made it clear that this is the one and only chance he’s getting; any further episodes of any kind and he’s out. I then accepted his apology and suggested we move on.

Fucking weird!

Continuing, we come to the just rather silly incident…

Walking to work, passing underneath a massive beech tree, there was a sudden gust of wind, which caused a beech nut to fly off the tree. It managed to hit me smack in the centre of my left eye.

This caused my eye to produce a large volume of tears, but fortunately no visible bruising has resulted.

However, what I didn’t realise, until around halfway through my shift, was that I’d cried all the make-up off my left eye, and had spent the subsequent time looking like Alex from The Clockwork Orange.

Given that not a single colleague or customer thought to mention it, I can only assume they believed it to be a deliberate sartorial choice. It’s great that they’re all so non-judgmental, but that’s a curious view they have of me and my tastes.

Having done a little patch and repair to my face, making a more symmetrical visage, I then dealt with a very busy, massively understaffed shift (with equanimity I might add).

So, we now move onto the third event, another potentially serious one…

Trundling home, mentally debating what to have for dinner, I suddenly got a sharp pain in my hip; a food delivery driver had pulled his car onto the pavement, far too close to where I was walking, clipping me with his wing mirror.

Naturally, I objected.

His response?

“I’ll bang you out if you touch my car again!“

Say what now?! I swear, the entitlement was dripping from that ridiculous threat.

I pointed to my chin and welcomed big man to do his best. He declined, walking away and calling me crazy over his shoulder.

TV sketch show comedy.

Here’s the interesting, positive, pride inducing stuff for me in all of this:

Firstly I held clear boundaries in each of the difficult scenarios, with both men.

Despite both of those incidents having the potential to trigger deep rooted patterns based on past abuses, I was more than able to override the flickerings with healthier, self-affirming actions.

Don’t get me wrong, the old instincts were there, but very much muted.

In both situations the fear and learned helplessness around men who are sexually predatory, and/or aggressive were sparked inside me, but the new, stronger True Jess rose without hesitation.

The fear didn’t take over and make me go into pacify mode. I didn’t get the adrenaline pump either. There was no lasting emotional impact after either event – just a kind of ‘Are you kidding me?‘ feeling that was soon shrugged off.

I can’t express enough how huge a change this is. I love it! I definitely feel the work with the truffles has helped; hoorah for redirecting that default mode network.

As far as the Clockwork Orange beechnut situation goes – not so long ago I’d have been mortified to discover I’d been walking around with lopsided, obviously screwed up make-up. The embarrassment would have haunted me for days, possibly weeks; god forbid someone make reference to it, even jokingly – I’d have felt so small and humiliated.

None of that applied today. I found it absolutely hilarious; both looking like Alex DeLarge, and the fact that everyone thought I was experimenting with a new look.

So, despite all the weirdness, I’m feeling full of chirrupy spirit; bit by bit I’m seeing my personal growth goals coming into reality.

I’m actually so proud of myself that I’m starting to question if there’s a point where pride becomes unhealthy; I don’t fancy experiencing that fall after the pride malarkey!

MUSIC OF THE DAY:

JP