A New Devious Chapter

 After all of the explosions on all sides, I had two days home to try and get things done before heading out with Rabbit again.  I was suddenly dumped with the mental load of a home that expected me to do without any regard for anything, and it was quickly affecting me.  Even with everything we were juggling out at Rabbit's, I found it easier on my mental state than just being home for two days.  He saw what was happening, and felt badly for me.  I explained that this has been what I was raised to think was normal, and he immediately felt stressed about it, and wanted to get me out of the house and moved in with him. However, we got Squishy home from school, and all packed up to head out.  The plan, even with the obstacles, was to have dinner with his parents for Chanukah, and then the next day he could tackle the yard while we cleaned in the house, and then have a Friday dinner at his place.  Most of his parents' friends weren't feeling up to celebrat...

 I was supposed to have one and a half weeks between Thanksgiving and Channukah.  That time was meant to be used for a thousand things, caught in the juggle of catching up with everything I make, gifts, holidays, parenting, and general life.  Every day was going to be nonstop, but I had a plan for it all. The Friday before Channukah I called Rabbit to wake him up, and within an hour he found out that a neighbor who was consistently hollering at him over nothing, or calling the cops on things that wasn't him had filed with the township about his front yard being "unsightly".  He also got told by one of his new roommates that he wasn't able to make rent, and had to deal with a someone showing up to do some pest treatments.  As he was driving away from all this, he got a call saying animal control was there, because the same neighbor had filed another complaint about noise and the yard being a "health hazard" due to smell and feces, which is interesting conside...

 Coming into Thanksgiving I went a bit into overdrive.  I had so much I knew I was going to need to juggle, with the coming holidays, everything that I now balance, two homes to be present for, and everything else.  I had project after project being piled upon me, as well as the mental load of both houses, and the increasing physical load of my own house. Where it should have been an easy week, I was rather nonstop leading up to heading out for the holiday.  My parents were pushing guilt up to the last minute, as though I would change my plans and stay home just so they could treat me poorly and feel better about themselves.  I left, despite some bumps in the road, and had a fairly peaceful holiday.  It didn't quite go as planned for anyone, but could have been far worse, and we felt a little better by the end of it. I got home knowing I would be busy.  I had a lot of projects to finish, and they needed to be done quickly to work with a different deadl...

 We come upon another new year with the high holidays rolling through.  This year started out oddly, and certainly didn't wind up like a normal year, but was a good change of pace.  With having a Jewish partner, it means that rather than navigating things like Christmas or Easter, we need to sort out the many Jewish holidays, on who goes where, and how we celebrate. My family as a whole more or less has been threatened by their doctor to finally behave like diabetics, and so they've been much more strict with their diet.  Going up to the holidays, as my mother makes the exact same things for every holiday she was incredibly clueless.  When I offered to make two or three things (which she wouldn't have to put in any work for) she tried to stop me from cooking, and I said that it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than buying seven little containers of each tiny thing.  That made her quiet down, and so it very clearly became another holiday that I would cook ev...

 I wasn't back for long, and the state that I was in before rushing off to Rabbit's came right back.  Just after getting home was my sister's birthday, and I had to do everything for it, because no one else knew how.  While I was in the middle of putting that together, I let Oliver out, and he got some baby birds, so while cooking, the old man was yelling at me for not being outside with him.  As though I could do both.  That day didn't get much easier, but in the following days, things got worse.   My parents were treating me like I had to be constantly doing six things for them at all times, without any real break.  At the same time, I was trying to get Squishy through the end of summer, and the first days of school, and try to keep up with all my stores and channels.  To top it off, Rabbit has things going on at home that I was helping maintain, but I wasn't able to completely solve them, and now he's unable to keep up with the maintenance...

 I got home from my long visit with Rabbit and found myself missing him, despite all the anxiety and lack of space due to his injury and being out of work.  At the same time, I was swamped with things at home and the stress there.  Top that off with needing to catch up from two weeks of not working, and it meant I was no recovering well from the mental state I went home in.  For several days I barely got anything I needed to finished at all, just because I was being dragged around for whatever my parents wanted. After about the first week, I managed to be able to get some work in though, and was getting back to some routine.  I was just about on top of things as much as I needed to be, and then things changed.  Rabbit had people moving in and out of the house, who weren't doing anything near what they needed to.  He couldn't move much, or lift anything, which had him feeling horrible, and didn't help the situation we were trying to get out of. On my en...

 Months ago, I picked up tickets for what I had wanted to do for my birthday.  Initially, it was supposed to be open well beforehand, but then as time crept forward, I noticed myself being more set on what normally happens, and didn't expect it to open.  I was sad, but tried to find a backup plan, and unfortunately couldn't find something.   Then with Rabbit's leg and back, and him going out of work, I knew that most things we wouldn't be able to do.  However, where we had thought we only had a certain day, this meant we had more time if we did find something.  That's when I saw a message about the soft opening of where I had bought tickets for.  Rabbit offered to still go, but he could barely do ten minutes in the car, and the thing involved crawling and exploring.  I wanted the both of us to be able to run around and explore, so as much as he pushed, I told him that because the tickets were good for a year, we would have plenty of time. So ...

 After the weekend of madness that was Rabbit's birthday and my parents travelling, I had what I was hoping to be a little over a month until my next big thing.  With Squishy having the idea that living with the gnome will magically make everything better, I decided to send her there for a month.  It would be longer than a visit, and would actually give her an idea of what it would be like living there.  Rabbit immediately saw that as a chance for me to spend a long time with him, and while initially I was planning on doing a few days at home first, it would be a long process to get to that. At the beginning of the month there was a scramble to get things done at Rabbit's place.  He has been on his last thread with the friend who moved in at the beginning of the pandemic, for many reasons, and recently made the decision to let two other friends move in.  That did however mean moving himself from having a bedroom and a music room to just having one room down...

While in Israel, I was talking to my mother, and she mentioned an old friend was cleaning her pond, and wound up shattering her ankle.  She would need some heavy surgery, and my parents intended to go out there for a couple of days to help give a hand as she recovered.  I told her we would look at dates once I got home, but I planned to be gone for most of the weekend after I returned, because it was Rabbit's birthday.  She asked for then twentieth time when his birthday was, and I reminded her, with the same landmark of being the day after my grandmother. A few days later and I'm back in the states.  We have a day or so to recover from jet lag, but rather than just some relaxing sleep and getting through a mountain of laundry, Rabbit was in the middle of moving rooms around, due to some roommate issues, and other friends moving in.  We got a call during our trip that had Rabbit dreading conversations that needed to happen, and were keeping him from sleeping....

 A while ago, probably near the end of March, my old man asked me what was up with Rabbit and I and our relationship.  Having just passed being together for six months, I sort of shrugged and said that it's still a relatively new relationship.  He just asked if it was looking like we might live together at some point.  I told him that I still liked him, but not much past that. I wasn't going to tell him that we had just talked about some day living together.  Likewise, I wasn't going to even remotely mention that I had already been looking at rings to pop the question to Rabbit. So he started on about how we've been dating for a while, and how he liked him, and then kept saying all the things that reminded Rabbit of himself. And I won't lie, there was a moment as he said it that my brain tried telling me that because he liked my boyfriend, I couldn't.  That anyone like him was going to be horrible for me, and anyone he likes is clearly not the right option....

 At the beginning of the month, Squishy was supposed to spend a weekend with the gnome.  A short, normal weekend that initially I was planning on just spending time getting ahead on creating things, because I want to have things done through my trip out of the country fairly soon.  Rabbit wanted to try and move things around so that he would have the chance to go fishing, and so I suggested that so long as I could go home early, I could spend most of the weekend with him.  I would just need to either bust my butt to get through editing, or he would need to make a little gremlin cubby for me to be able to record. So I packed a small bag, and tried to spend some time at his place getting some little things done.  The Saturday that I was at his place, while he was at work, I get a message from the gnome.  He says that Squishy doesn't feel well, and I recommend that she take a test.  Before he even told me that she tested positive, he said she could quaran...

 In all my back and forth with Instagram, I've kind of settled into mostly using it as a way to find cute things to send to Rabbit.  Some of them are flirty, and some of them talk about aspects of relationships we identify with in good ways, and once in a while things about healing, which we're both still very much doing. And one day, while sending silly things about butts, I found a video that simply mentioned "Who you are now, is who would have made you feel safe as a child."  As I sat with it, tears came to my eyes, and ran down my face.  I only really let myself think about it for a few moments at the time, but it was true. I grew up having no idea what safe was.  That feeling on eggshells was normal, and having to hide everything about myself.  That sharing things got you harmed, and that everyone was in a position of power over you.  I've grown up learning how not to be.  How to create a balanced space.  Wanting to be nothing like the p...

 Since the start of the new year I've been slowly moving back toward all the habits I had early last year.  Because of the summer, being away from home, being more social, and starting a new relationship that is present and healthy, a lot of things went to the wayside in some bad ways.  There's also been some other happenings at home, that have really given a hit to my mental health, which also makes it difficult to do all the things I need to. Squishy has simply not been doing school work.  I'm constantly getting emails about her not handing in assignments, which only require her to push a button.  Most of the grades on the things she does hand in are good, so it's not that she doesn't understand, it's that she just doesn't want to do the work, and would rather play around on discord.  Because all the work is on the computer, it's at the point where I need to have her where I can see her screen to ensure that she's actually doing anything related to...

 This is the last post of 2022, and should be something about the holidays.  Or it should be some manner of reflection about the previous year, and the amount of change I've gone through, and how life looks incredibly different compared to how it did.  Instead though, we had one extra event that occurred that I need to write about, both to reflect, and to remember, that I wasn't expecting. Two weeks ago, my mother's friend came over.  They were supposed to go to a tea house, and pick up some last gifts, while I got things done around the house.  With holidays approaching, my days were carefully divvied out with everything that needed to be done.  In fact, I had already baked up some fresh pita before she arrived, because Rabbit's father asked me to make some for my next visit. Well, as she was trying it, she got a message from her mom, saying that she was positive for covid.  We pulled out a test for her, and she was negative, but went home.  Beca...

 Rabbit comes by for at least one night a week, so we can spend time together.  Where many weeks, we wind up with fun plans of things we want to share with each other, some weeks are just for relaxing.  Last week was supposed to just be calm and quiet before holidays hit, but we decided on some short errands anyway. He got caught up talking with my father after Squishy left for school, and because that seemed to be eating up a lot of our morning, I opted to head upstairs when they went to the basement, and grab a quick rinse.  I took what honestly felt like a normal length shower just for a quick wash, got out, and started assembling myself.  While brushing my teeth, I heard the doorknob, saw the door crack, then heard the saddest sounds as it closed again.  Rabbit was hoping he would make it into the bathroom with enough time for us to shower together, but alas, was too slow. I finished putting myself together, making sure to have time to brush his hair, a...

 We're coming up to the end of the year, and looking at how things are with the holidays now, they're so much different from last year.  Both that there's things not happening, and new things that are. The biggest of which, is having a partner that wants to share the holidays, and wants to share time whenever he can.  We're starting to really find our stride in doing that, and he's starting to make sure he gets plenty of time with other friends as well.  As I encourage him, he's also having more time with music, and doing the things that make him happy, as I take on more things. We're definitely finding our stride when it comes to a dynamic, and how things work to make us both feel fulfilled.  There isn't any heavy protocols, but he's definitely made himself a happy nest of a submissive place with me, while knowing how to playfully brat and say that he's the top.  It works well for us, and I only see us being happier in it as time goes on. Things...

 Just before Halloween, Rabbit was over for an extra day because he needed an extra day before going back to work.  We spent the day working on personal things, and spending time curled up together.  While it didn't mean another night together (he had work the next morning) it did mean an extra twelve hours before saying goodbye for the week. And during that time, at one point I started sharing examples of things that have happened in my home.  How I'm treated by my parents, and the situation I'm living in.  And I realized, while talking about it, that I started feeling more anxious.   I noticed that even though he was being supportive, and telling me that he was here for good and bad, and asking what I might need in the moment, I was wishing I'd never said a word.  My mind could only go to Lux telling me that he couldn't deal with my home life.  That it was too much for him, and how he would disappear whenever things got bad.  I was so ...

 I swear, this is the last post about Rabbit and I starting a relationship.  There's just been a lot going on with it, and most of it has been funny. The day we decided to be official, Rabbit had to go to dinner with his mom.  She had been poking at him not so gently for a while, and while we had a joke about waiting to tell his parents, he wanted to give her some good news. So while they're sitting and having dinner, he stops the conversation, and tells her that we're together.  She is smiling, but stern faced, and he asks about her response.  She says that she's happy that he's happy.  He questions it again, and she mentions that his dad had concerns about my age.   Now, Rabbit has been working at renn faires for a long time (it's how we originally met) and most of his friends are older.  A lot older, to the point where Rabbit's roommate has a couple of decades on him.   Rabbit looks at his mom and asks how old she thinks I am....

About a month and a half ago my parents got an estimate for a new front porch.  Our old one was starting to fall away from the house, and before we could have a new roof put on, that needed to be fixed.  My mother called one person, got a price, and hired him. He started working, and almost immediately the old man was furious about his work.  He threw a massive screaming fit that had us thinking he was just being difficult, and so later that day my mother and I got out of the house in order to have a bit of a break from him.  I then found out that my mother hadn't looked up the guy, nor asked for addresses to see examples of his work in the area.  I went to look him up, and couldn't find anything under his business, or anything that would put him in a more positive light. Later that week, when the guy was done for the day, the old man came in and said that absolutely everything was wrong.  He was afraid to speak up because he didn't want to be the bad guy a...

 Recently, there was a night where Puppy couldn't get to sleep, and it wasn't yet my normal bed time, so we were chatting.  We were talking about a handful of things from when we were young, and I was explaining about how it has affected how I view people in my life now, because of the poor examples and situations I had growing up.   As a response, rather than saying he's grateful that I've learned to put so much care into people who are decent to me now, or that I've figured out how to navigate things in a healthier way than I'd been taught by my family, he made a comment that had me go off on him a little.  He just said that he was hoping that while he and I have a friendship, he manages to put more of his optimism into my life, because he thinks I deserve.  And he's often commented about how I should just find something to be happy about because he doesn't like me being upset, on several occasions before this. Which put me solidly in the camp that I c...