Common Bonds

isn't it fascinating how we feel more human when we can create a bond and unity with others that share the same strife and ostracism as you? It makes you feel accepted in a way and allows for a perverse form of kinship.

It is familiar to me to find such people that have had colorful lives either through fault of their own or product of environment. I am mixed as to my feelings when I meet them and am wary of their intentions as desperate people will do desperate things. Recalling a time I had spent in a domestic violence shelter, when Laurel was an infant and we had made many friends, and then left the shelter only to maintain some of those friendships. One lady was a well to do woman with two boys who I felt most alike, and when we embarked on repairing our damaged lives she wanted little to no contact as she felt embarrassed by how much I knew about her and how much we shared. Some people are like that. They want to keep themselves as far away as possible to the people they met while under duress. Another woman was a different story.

She wound up as a repeat visitor to the shelter. That was apparent and she kept going back to her abuser. She and I also shared a bond and friendship and she even invited me to her house to meet her children who were not with her when she went in. I remember visiting her, and when I left I soon realized she had robbed me. Really robbed me of the last thirty dollars I had on me after my bills to purchase a Christmas tree for Lobo. I called her and confronted her and she told me I couldn't prove it, and the words of the counselors echoed in my head reminding me of what a fool I had been. "Never keep contact with the ladies you meet here. Most are here with a genuine need and others to get what they can get and make associations to take advantage of." She was such a person. It was vile and still makes me sick and when I called her a second time to plead with her, she put her "abusive" husband on the phone who threatened me, to "fuck me up if I kept calling his woman a thief," in his words. I never called again and have never seen them again and for all I know they moved or he finally made good on some of his threats to her. She had even told him where the shelter was at and he showed up there drunk which was a big no-no once you're  in there. "No contact with your abusers and they are not privy to the location."

But now I am older and wiser and guarded beyond what a normal person should be and I wear my disdain and my hurt like a badge of honor for all the shit I had been through with the people who have harmed and wronged me as well as my own ignorance. It makes it difficult to make friends and keep them. It makes it difficult to trust a man or a family member and it makes it hard to raise a child without that "village" everyone thinks you need. But I have done it. She's not perfect and neither am I but she is a hell of a lot better than most of her peers and now she is a perfect little carbon copy of me with her own disdain for the things she has witnessed me suffer through and drag her through. And like me, she is drawn to freaks and outcasts like ourselves and it bothers me. Is it fair I should want her to have a more normal life, if one can be had, than I have had? I have nothing against the people like ourselves but they aren't the caliber of individuals as I have raised her to be. They lie and cheat and steal and fight and we just don't unless we are forced into a situation to defend.

So I meet people all the time and it breaks my heart to see their children go through it too. It breaks my heart all the time to know that so much hurt exists and that the only human bond I can identify with is that of pain. It breaks my heart to know I can't trust them any more than I can my own family, pushing me and her further from the bonds of civilization where we will advance better as the wild and articulate species we are. It is no wonder how when I found my difference, how it made me feel validated. It gave me a reason to be proud and to be noble again, but still wise and wary. I am one of the most altruistic freaks and I wear my "freakdom" proud! I will listen to anyone who has a story, I will even share their pain. But I will do as that first woman and keep a safe distance to protect my daughter and what little we have. What else can I do?~mobe's love to her all and her all to her loves.