Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
by Slayer Tash
Rating: NC-17
When you are trying to change your life around people throw a bunch of clichés at you. I guess they are clichés for a reason you know. Tried and true explanations of how this world works from time to time.
I hate clichés and for good reason…because of the truth part sure but mainly because the person that delivers the cliché is a smug thinks they know it all kind of person. Someone who ‘has been through it’ and honestly thinks they have something to offer, when really they are just annoying and not helpful at all.
Sure advice from someone who has been through it can be helpful but in my experience I just get the know it alls butting in. I know they mean well and yadda, yadda, yadda but I don’t care, it isn’t about what you went through and what you did and stop forcing it down my fucking throat already!
I like to do things at my own pace, always have and always will. I hate it when I get rushed or feel forced to do something or explain something. Unless it makes sense to me then I am not sharing it with anyone else…well not any of the know it alls anyway.
I feel like a cliché of my own is about to come out but I just wanna share this with absolutely everyone I know and meet. There is someone I share it with. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to me or not cause she understands me and she certainly doesn’t judge me and I am very thankful that she is in my life. The I smile when she smiles, the I hurt when she hurts is so true but the best thing is it is vice versa for her. We are on the same page, most of the time anyway. The only thing we argue about is who gets control of the tv remote (and even then we compromise on Wednesday nights when Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International is on, we both LOVE that show) and whose turn it is to do the grocery shopping (again we seem to compromise and both go. If I don’t go we only end up with Twinkies and Yoo Hoo and if I don’t go she ends up with Whatchamacallits and Pepsi Max). It is some form of domestic bliss I am sure and might be mundane to some people but for us that little bit of normal is our heaven.
One mention of her and my whole tone changes. I mean a few minutes ago I was all ‘death to clichés and those know it alls’ now it is all ‘awwwwww mush, mush, mush’ and I think that is part of me changing. I could rant and hold a grudge like nobody’s business. I was at one point in time one of the most sensitive people around. It was all about me and god forbid anybody tell me differently. I know that is a whole lot of things in what should be one train of thought but going off in a tangent isn’t something I have been able to reign in just yet. The starting with a simple thought branching out in to 5 different directions I think will always be part of me. Part of my charm she tells me.
She has helped me change and in some ways has been the reason I want to change so much. Don’t get me wrong, I want to change for the better. I don’t think I could have made so many inroads if I didn’t want to change, I am just saying I found a reason bigger than me. Isn’t that what life is about anyway, finding that one person who makes you want to be a better person?
When did I start changing? I like to think I evolved on a daily basis but we all know that isn’t true – refer to aforementioned holding a grudge or the sensitivity thing as proof. I can’t really answer that question with a definite date but there was a moment for sure when I noticed I felt and reacted differently.
We were having our monthly catch up in Cleveland. We had flown in and the night we all arrived I had made dinner for everyone. What’s the big deal you may ask? Well I was not known for my skills in the kitchen. Give me a stake and I can shish kebob a vamp in no time, give me a sword and I will julienne a Goltek Demon into next week but if you gave me an onion and wanted it diced I would have looked at you like you had 8 heads. Changed me however, different story.
I found that cooking was a great way to release stress and the fact I had a housemate who ate anything helped the talent develop.
Anyway I had made dinner for the 7 of us and about halfway through people started to realize I had made dinner and that it tasted okay and nobody was lying on the floor dead as a result of my lasagna. That was when the jokes started. Now if we rewind a good 5 years I would have started sulking then gotten up and stormed out in such a way drama queens would have been jealous of but instead I chuckled along with the jokes even agreeing with some of the comments.
I didn’t even notice that I wasn’t getting pissy until later that night when she pointed it out while we got ready for bed. I think I broke her that night and in a not fun, not sexual way that either of us was used to. She pointed it out and I said who would get upset over silly little jokes like that, especially ones that were pointing out past truths. She sat on the bed with this cute, confused look on her face before asking who was I and what had I done with her girlfriend. She seriously thought that I had been taken over by some demon and told me she had been preparing for a melt down of nuclear proportions when the jokes had started flying about earlier in the night.
Now I hadn’t been aware of the changes to this point, her comment made me stop and think and I saw a few ways in which I changed. The slaying wasn’t a burden anymore, I accepted it as part of who I was and I enjoyed it. My relationship with Dawn was so much better, we actually got along. It wasn’t all about me anymore…honestly it stopped being all about me when Kendra was called but as long as I was getting attention and the world revolved around me it was good enough to keep it all about me. Then of course came the pissy. I was kinda insulted that she hadn’t noticed the changes within me despite the fact she mentioned it. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t noticed either until she brought it up 2 minutes prior but it didn’t stop the sick feeling I had inside my stomach.
Now normally I would have just kept it inside and let it fester and give her the cold shoulder til she begged me to forgive her despite it not really being her fault. Yeah we went through that stage til one day she got sick of it ‘You know I love ya but fuck doing this forever and a day. If ya wanna sort it out like adults then open up your fuckin’ mouth and talk to me. If ya wanna sulk like a toddler then forget it, forget it all. I am done with this shit.’
Ohhhhh, I guess that is the moment I decided to change. Cause I did talk to her, despite the screaming in my head not to. I was so scared she would think I was some crazy deranged fool because of all I would spew out in a 2 minutes space of time but the thought of losing her was a great motivator. I would rather be crazy and with her than alone and appearing sane.
Sorry to have so many tangents from what should be one train of thought but that is how it is in my head and in my defense I did mention it earlier!
Sure I can’t claim that I noticed the changes myself, it did have to be brought to my attention like many things I guess but I think I should get points for noticing many changes I have made upon the prompt of one change.
So back to that night.
She is still sitting on the bed, patiently waiting for me to speak. She knows I am processing and thinking a thousand things but she won’t rush me. She understands me getting to this point was a mini breakthrough. Our process isn’t perfect by any means so please forgive me if this is information overload. Warning: You might feel like Chuck after the intersect was shoved in to his brain.
Maybe I should have started off with that warning…
Okay sorry, she is on the bed now trying to stay calm. I know she can feel all that is flying about inside of me and she knows there is some anger there and is thinking it is going to be aimed at her. It kinda is but I am trying to talk myself out of that and I know this is going nowhere fast.
“You don’t see how I have changed over the last year and a bit…what is up with that?” I blurt out.
“Uh, what?” She frowns.
“Expecting me to go off on my friends over stupid little comments. Yeah maybe I would have ages ago but not now. I have changed…you don’t see that.”
“Did you put a roofie in that lasagna or somethin’?”
“Oh you want to make jokes? You think this is funny?”
“No of course not but tell me what the fuck you are going on about!”
“I am trying to!” I snap “You mention that you were waiting for me to go off at them for those jokes, you make me realize that some time ago I would have been totally irrational and done that which then makes me realize that I have changed. How I react to things, my relationships with people, how I feel about myself…it has all changed. You made me realize that yet you don’t see those changes yourself!”
She gets up off the bed “Okay.”
“Okay? All you have to say is okay? This is something major for me here! I was a self indulgent idiot…caught up in my own drama, drowning in a sea of self doubt and you save me and all you can say is okay?”
“I am trying to digest it all too ya know! I know shit is hard for you to get out at times and when it is all spewed at me like that I don’t always have an instant response…wait I saved you? From what?”
“Myself” I say softly, not really ready to say it with any kind of conviction because then it really does become true. I needed saving from myself.
Accepting the truth is a hard thing to do. If you listen to the clichés though you can’t move forward until you accept it. Being proud of being a changed woman was short lived. There were things I needed to face up to. It was one thing to realize I had changed in certain ways down the track and after the fact but as soon as I admitted it I realized I still had a lot of work to do. A lot of things I had to face up to about myself as a person.
Like any good trauma that makes a person the way they are I had to go all the way back to my child hood. Find the one thing that made me build up walls, push people away, always take the harder road as opposed to the easier one, why I always chose drama.
There are certain things in my past that I am for sure not proud of and my friends are aware of those choices but prior to meeting them I had a whole other life. They know about my cousin Celia passing away thanks to the return of a demon from that time but what they don’t know is that after that I started to put on weight. I don’t know if a 7 year old can have depression but if they can then I got it.
I ballooned over the next few years and maintained it for quite some time. Towards the end of middle school was when I decided I needed to lose weight. I was entering high school and was tired of the taunts and teasing and being judged for how I look.
Being bigger isn’t a bad thing, it isn’t about the outer layer but that isn’t something you learn until you get much older in life. When there are skinny girls gracing the cover of CosmoGirl and every other magazine geared towards girls that age the pressure to look a certain way takes its toll. Growing up in LA there was always news and shows about glamorous girls and the ways they became glamorous. Sure hard work and exercise is a great plan along with healthy eating but when you have grown to hate who you have become you decide that along with losing the weight you are going to punish yourself for letting it get that way.
One my friends I grew up with was having a lot of time off school and nobody apart from her really close friends knew why. She was part of the popular group, part of the group that made my life at school a daily living hell. While she never indulged in the teasing she didn’t do anything to stop it either. If she stood up for me then she was likely to become a target as well. Then I learned her secret. She was suffering from a combination of Anorexia and Bulimia. I was shocked because unlike me she wasn’t a big girl. She had the perfect hair, the nicest clothes, the big group of friends…she to me was the perfect girl. Had everything I thought I wanted at the time.
When you combine your self hate along with the taunts and teasing it is fuel to a self hatred fire. Throw in the news of my friend and you start to think there is a way out. Once I got over the shock I thought what any sane 14 year old would think. That starving yourself and throwing food up thing is really working for her maybe I should give it a go.
And give it a go I did.
My whole life started to revolve around this disorder. I couldn’t stop eating because my parents would know for sure that something was up but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t still eat what I wanted and then just throw it up. So my close, personal relationship with bulimia began.
When I first started I almost got caught a few times. The perils of having a nosey sibling. It made me realize there were so many factors to consider. Once the weight started dropping off how was I going to explain it without changing my eating habits and with no exercise? How was I going to be able to make myself sick with my little sister appointing herself my shadow? How would I be able to do it at school? There was no way I would be able to bring myself to kneel on those floors and breathe in while leaning over those toilets. What happens when I reach that point of bulimia where everything I eat just automatically comes straight back up?
That is when it turned in to a game, when rules came in to play.
I allowed myself to eat and keep down the food I had at school. This for sure would help with the not automatically bringing everything back up. My sister didn’t get home until an hour after I did on school days so I allowed myself to eat anything I wanted on the way home from school and when I got home as long as I made myself sick before she got home. After dinner it was easier as well, everyone else had their own little rituals before they went to bed. That doesn’t mean it was always easy. I didn’t want to make my parents suspicious by going to the bathroom as soon as dinner was finished so my evening showers sometimes had to be the scene of the crime (not a good idea folks, drains cant always handle chunks of food). Sorry to gross you out but this was the nature of the disease nothing mattered but the release at times and no matter how many times you tried to talk yourself out of it the need to let go, the need for some semblance of control took over.
I got in to the swing of things, all my kinks ironed out and I really was like a well oiled machine with my rules and routines. Then enter the weight loss, people started noticing. At last things were starting to turn around was what I thought. It didn’t matter that I was starting to look thinner the teasing still happened. In some ways it got worse and more personal. Guys started noticing me and I began dating this guy, it wasn’t anything serious to say the least but at the time I felt amazing. He said all the right things, did all the right things. Then he changed, we got to a certain point and he just stopped being nice to me. In the end I told him to not bother, that I was over it. He of course told everyone he dumped me because I was a frigid fat bitch. I stood up to him in front of all his friends, I even recalled one afternoon where I was prepared for him to go all the way and he chickened out not me. That is where things went from reasonably okay to pretty fucked up. The next day at lunch I ended up with an assortment of rotten fruit thrown at me. It didn’t matter where I moved to or where I hid over the following week the fruit followed. I left it alone at first because I figured they would get over it but when one afternoon I was hit in the chest and the head by an apple I took it to the principal.
To say that I have never had any luck with my principals in school would be an understatement. His reaction was boys will be boys and maybe I should stop being one of those sensitive girls. Sorry I think the fact that I have a huge red welt on my chest and a large welt on the side of my head gives me the right to be a little sensitive to the matter.
It wasn’t until the daughter of the principal copped a banana peel in her face a few days later that the boys were brought in to line and punished. My mother was less impressed at this fact and she tried to speak to the principal about it but got the stock standard line of we can’t accuse people based on one person's complaint there has to be numerous complaints. She started to kick up a stink about the wrong doings and the prejudice I suffered at his hands but her issues with my father flared up and it was quickly forgotten.
I wasn’t upset as I thought I would be, I had something more reliable to count on and it involved sticking my fingers down my throat. Nothing in the world compared to that rush of making myself sick. It made me feel like I was in control again. The name calling didn’t matter neither did being brushed aside by the principal and my parents because when I purged it wasn’t just food I was bringing up, so were the emotions I held inside. All the names I was called, all the shitty things that happened to me were flushed away with my dinner.
That is when I started to build the walls. If anything happened to me I didn’t deal with it, I just made myself sick. And while eventually I got help I never really adapted to dealing with things as they came along. I always managed to find a way to not deal and have my world keep turning. And while we are being totally honest making myself sick when things get to hard is still a coping mechanism I turn to.
I had never told anyone apart from my mother because I was backed in to a corner and then the discussions were saved for my counselor and dietician. My mother was of the opinion the issue was out in the open and she was sending me to the doctor once a week so all was okay.
She knows. She knows it all. I broke down in front of her and told her all about it. She was amazing, she held me as I cried and dried my tears when I worked up the courage to actually look her in the eyes. She told me she loved me and that I needed to get help. There was no pity and very little sympathy but I didn’t expect that from her. I was scared it would change how she looked at me that she wouldn’t love me as much anymore. She would look at me and see some broken shell of a person, that she would look at me and see all the bad things I still thought of myself.
That conversation was one of the hardest ones I think we have ever had despite everything in our past.
“You know you need help right?”
“Yeah, why do you think I am telling you?”
“I can’t help you with this.”
My heart literally fell out of my chest.
“Don’t take that the wrong way babe. Telling me is a huge step and thank you for sharing it with me but I am not equipped to help you with this. You know I will support you and stand by you but if you want to get over this and move forward it has to come from you.”
“Yeah you are right.”
“You understand what I am saying right?”
“Yeah, you want to help me and will help me but I have to wanna help myself otherwise what is the point.”
“Yeah pretty much.”
“How can you make something I have struggled with for so long seem so simple?”
“We all have things to deal with, I have had my own changes to make and none of them came while I had my head stuck my ass using others things as a way of dealing. It wasn’t until I hit rock bottom that I could see the only way things would change was if I got up off my fucking ass and did it the right way. I stopped blaming everyone else for how my life was and I took ownership.”
“I didn’t make them call me names, I only ever wanted to be their friends!”
“Not what I am saying about your sitch babe. No ya didn’t ask for what they did to you. It really fuckin sucks you went through all that but don’t let that hold you back anymore. You aren’t those things they called ya. You know that, I know that and ya friends know it too. They called ya names cause they were pretty fuckin scared of their own shit and while it ain't an excuse it is a reason to not take it all personal. A lot of shit like that comes from jealousy and I reckon they saw something in you. They knew you were gonna change this world and they were gonna end up working the night shift at the toll booth on the freeway.”
“How do you know that?”
“Cause I saw it the first time I looked at you.”
I think that sentence was the most beautiful thing that has ever been said to me.
Notes: After some drama not long after part 2 was kinda not wanting to post anymore cause I was scared. Had a melt down of epic proportions and did a little negative attention getting but was then part of something that made me sit up and see what a twat I was being. Have been dealing with stuff and this part kinda shows that with the swing it takes after how I left part 2.
So there it was summed up in what seemed to be a pretty simple way. I honestly mean it when I say if I have her then things don't seem as bad, I feel like I can do anything and be anyone. I thought it would just continue, that I would get the help I needed and have her by my side through it all. That we would come out the other side of this stronger and happier than we ever have been.
While I know she didn't have the skills to help me with what goes on in the deep recesses of my head it didn't stop me trying to reach out to her when I needed that feeling of reassurance. When I needed 5 minutes of feeling safe in her arms, where past feelings and thoughts couldn't get to me. Where I was me and she was her and the world was spinning at normal pace rather than the turbulent way I have felt since this all started. Those 5 minutes eluded me, I reached out and found nothing.
In dealing with the past you have to bring up all your emotions. It doesn't matter if they are significant or not, if I felt it I have to tell my counselor. This isn't an easy task. The only person who I feel comfy talking about that stuff with says she can't help me. Sure she is being the supportive girlfriend. She takes me to the sessions and picks me up, she understands when I don't want to talk about anything right after but honestly when you talk about hating yourself so much that you want to cause the pain you are feeling from what you are doing to yourself, hearing about Xander finding a mint condition Superman E dition #24 from 1968 just doesn't seem to matter.
"That's cool?"
"It's beyond cool babe, it is worth a fucking shitload. It is amazing, like outta this world fuckin' amazin' B."
Part of me wants to scoff and say yeah right and part of me screams for me to partake in a normal adult conversation with my other half. Neither part wins as I just sit silently and watch the trees that line the street go by in a green blur. Not even her sigh brings me out of my inner thoughts enough to get in to the argument she seems to want to have. I know dealing with me has to be tough on her too. A relationship that was filled with laughter, sex and love seems to have fallen to the way side to silence, no sex and aloofness.
I think her wanting a fight is her way of bringing some kind of normality back to us. Even if it is the normality of us before we realized how we felt, I guess she will take whatever she can get at this point in time. Honestly so will I.
I want to share with her what we talked about today so much but as soon as I start talking about any of my sessions she switches off. After her little speech before this all started this non recognition of me dealing was the last thing I expected out of her. It is like she finally knows the truth about me and she doesn't want to know me at all. I know I may be a different version of me at this point in time but this version of me still loves her, still craves her like the old version of me, still reaches out to her when I can't make sense of my own thoughts. I don't think much has changed except the feelings, thoughts and emotions are darker.
She understands the darkness, I know she has felt it, I know it has consumed her, I know she has fought it and I know it still scares the shit out of her from time to time.
"What are you scared of?"
"I ain't scared of anything B."
"Really?"
"Yeah, also I don't really know what you're talkin' bout." She chuckles a little.
"I am talking about the fact you will talk to me about comic books or the line at the drug store being unbelievably slow that you thought a time spell was being used or how to cook the perfect steak or basically anything that isn't what Buffy talks about between 4 and 5 on a Wednesday and Friday. So I ask you yet again what are you so scared of?"
"Nothin'."
"Bullshit! I can talk to you about anything and it took me so long to get there and here I am needing to talk to you so much and you put a wall up."
"I told you B, I can't help you with this."
"I don't expect you to cure me or provide the answers Faith."
"Well what the fuck do ya want?" She shouts a little.
"My girlfriend!" I shout a little back.
"I'm here ain't I? Pickin' you up, droppin' you off, lettin' you be silent."
"Oh fuck off! You 'ain't lettin' me be silent' and don't even try to play it like that Faith. You babble about such inane shit, you do anything but let me talk about the one thing I want to so much."
She pulls in to our drive way and switches the engine off "You think I wanna undo any of the work your shrink is helping you with?"
"My shrink says sharing this with you is one of the most important steps. I don't want to share this with you because I have to Fai, I want to share this with you because you are the most important person in my world."
"Don't you dare lay it on me like that Buffy. Don't you fuckin' dare!"
"How am I supposed to lay it on you? You walk off or change the subject when I even start to broach the subject. Tell me what are you so scared of?"
"Nothin'." She says so quietly that I know it is total bullshit.
I don't want to keep going around in circles so I don't say anything else, I just watch her hands clench and unclench around the steering wheel.
When it is apparent that nothing else is going to be said by her I get out of the car.
"I'm goin' to Xander's, don't wait up." She says as I close the door.
I know something is bugging her and while I am sorting out my issues right now, what upsets her and has her feeling this way doesn't mean any less to me.
Is that what she thinks? Does she feel like she can't talk to me because of what I am dealing with? Despite in all the ways I have changed does she still see me as that spoilt, self centered person?
At this moment right now and back when I watched her drive off down that street the only way I feel like I can get back the control is to walk straight in to the bathroom and make myself sick, inflict some pain because I feel like I deserve to be punished. I feel like I have hurt in some way and in turn I need to hurt myself to make up for it. I don't want to stop til I have tears streaming out of my eyes and my stomach is so totally empty that it matches the feeling I have in my heart.
I feel so lost and alone without her support. She is just going through the motions right now and I don't for one second discount that, she is doing what she has to, to get by right now. I just want to know why she feels that way, want to know what has changed within her that she can't be around me in her natural comfy way anymore. Can I just come out and ask her that? Can it be that simple?
She knows how I feel about her and has done so for such a long time, even when I was in denial about it she was 100% sure about my feelings for her. At times I made it fairly obvious to everyone but myself just how much I did feel for her but now it is like she has forgotten all that.
Does she need time? Does she need to talk to someone? Does she see me in a completely different way now?
Does she hate me as much as I hate myself?
Notes: My flow took me in a different direction but thanks to T I decided to trust it. Also thanks to T for how the flow started.
I know how I have been in the past is how a lot of people see me now in the present. I have changed, I know I have. I feel it and I see it in how I act and how I speak at times.
I used to just spout off and generally to the wrong people because I would think it was in confidence and they would never ever say anything because as far as I was concerned they felt the same way. They agreed with what I said, emphatically at times too but then when push came to shove what I said only seemed to come up and you cant turn around and say "You said exactly the same thing" cause it just looks like you are trying to save your own ass.
I understand that what I have said and how I have projected myself has put me in this situation. Old me would turn and blame everyone else for where I am today but the new me acknowledges that in my past I wasn't careful about what I said and who I said it to and I think the main issue is who I said it to.
I won't ever apologise for what I say. People aren't always gonna like what you have to say but I have an opinion and as everyone knows I will always voice it. It may be wrong and it may have been said based on emotion or jealousy or even just a snarky comment at the time but I said it and what is the point in lying.
I have found that the ones who care about you and the ones you care about take all of you, good and bad. If I have ever said anything that Faith hasn't liked or not understood she will question me. She won't go to Willow and whisper about me. I can't say the same about Willow or Xander though. I guess that is because my relationship with them is different. As much as I love them I am not in love with them. I don't need them to understand me as much as I need Faith to.
Yes they are my best friends and I am grateful for them in so many ways, ways that I don't think I can ever thank them for but at times I feel they judge me, they expect more from me because of my calling and I don't think it is fair. I may be able to pull a demon's head from his shoulders but I am still human. I still have the same emotions they do running through them. I still have the same day to day issues.
I hate being treated like I am the same person I was a few years ago. It is like people see my name and go `jealous trouble maker' or `speaks without thinking' and while I do hate it I understand my actions in the past have brought me here. I know the people who matter don't see that, they make their own mind up about me. There is this little community we are part of. We see things that a lot of people don't. We have so many things in common yet we are the ones that judge each other the most.
Rather than embrace the amazing people we have around us who have so much to share we get jealous, we say awful things regardless of whether we think it is confidence or not and then when we are challenged we back track or we throw other people under the bus. I have found that the people worth worrying about will come to you and ask you flat out. They won't listen to the whispers or the gossip.
Another annoying thing is that because of what I have done in the past I still get tarred with the same brush now. Again without sounding like a broken record I get why I am judged that way but I am sick of it. I am sick of people taking a few uninformed rants from years ago and basing their opinion of me now around it. None of them have bothered to talk to me or get to know me. Sure some of them have tried and given up on me and I don't blame them, I was stubborn and stupid for a very long time but I had to go there to get where I am today and I don't think I would change any of my past. My past makes me who I am, who I will become even and I like where I am going and for the first time in a long time I actually like who I am, despite all my whole hating myself moments.
It took me a long time to get here. I didn't do it by myself either. I am not that arrogant that I think I got here because of me. I got here despite me. I know that and I think it takes a lot for a person to admit that.
People that say they don't get jealous to me are liars. I think jealousy is a perfectly natural emotion really. In the world we live in today where everything is geared towards success, glamour and money it is natural for people who don't have that to want it and feel they deserve it more than someone else.
Nobody knows where they have been or what they have been through and if you have had a shitty hand dealt to you it can be natural to think that you are owed some of the better stuff in life. I know at one point in time Faith felt that way and as much as I fought her on it back then, I got to know her, I fell in love with her and I wanted to give her everything she never had, everything she deserves.
The difference between me and some of these people I refer to is that I will admit it. I will admit I have said things I am not proud of, I have mouthed off when I don't really know a person, that I have criticized someone because I don't like them or what they have done, that I have called people out. I don't see the point in lying really. I have an opinion and I will use it. If people don't like it, it isn't the end of the world, I am sure there are things they say and do that I don't like and I am sure they don't give two shits if I approve or not so why should I lose sleep over someone like that.
In saying that, I don't like it when people accuse me of stuff I haven't done. I will stand up for myself to the nth degree. I might not give a crap about the other stuff but if you try and say I did something when I did then you better look out. I can remove a demon's head with my bare hands remember?
I feel at times I am all over the place with my emotions one minute I am all about jealous people and my view on it and how I have changed and am sick of being judged the next I am a mess about other stuff.
I know the counseling has a lot to do with it. It is working out stuff I need to work out but at the same time I feel it is driving a wedge in the most important relationship I have ever had. Not the one I have with myself or my sister or my friends. You know I mean the one I have with Faith.
Not ever in all my life have I felt as safe or as protected as I do by her. I am often asked if I regret not realizing how I felt about her sooner and I do go back and wonder what would have happened if Angel hadn't have come back or if Alan wasn't staked or if I had reacted differently after he was staked would our past be different. I could go over hundreds of tiny scenarios and a few big ones to answer that question but I think it could screw up what she and I have now and I wouldn't ever want to mess with that or change it.
Despite the fact she has spent the last two nights at Xander's I wouldn't change a moment of how Faith and I have become Faith and I. And I just want to tell her that. I just want her at home in front of me, even if it means her arms are crossed and she is all defensive towards me, at least she would be in the same room as me and I wouldn't feel so lost.
Sometimes how much I care for Faith and how much I think I need her can't be healthy. When something bad comes along I should be able to deal with it myself. I guess a battle with an eating disorder for years is proof that I haven't always been able to handle things on my own but I want to be able to do that but I also want to share everything with her. I want to know I can go to her with anything and she and I will be okay.
Her taking off like that had me back at square one and her not noticing changes since then and since we started dating had me there too. Then she says something amazing and I am right back to where we should be. All this up and down and all around confuses me. I'd just like to for a day have a plateau of emotions within myself. I feel every comment, I analyze every word. I need to learn to just take it as it comes and just at times let words be words and not some personal attack on me.
"B, Babe, where are you?" I hear the front door shut and her keys hit the hall table.
"In here" I call from the kitchen.
It takes her a few seconds but she joins me in there. "Hi" she says stuffing her hands in her back jeans pockets and rocking on her feet.
"Hey, how was Xander's?"
"Smelly, noisy…ya know, the usual." She half grins.
"We should have him over here more often."
"Why? Ya want it to be smelly and noisy here too?"
"Well no, but I just…he must think…Faith's hiding out from crazy Buffy again…I know you go over there for more than that but I…just…"
"Can't form a full sentence?"
"No, I guess not. Are you okay with Butter Chicken for dinner?"
"Maybe later, ate a lot of shit at Xander's and I think I brought some of the stink home with me so I am gonna hit the shower and just crash." She starts to head out of the kitchen.
"Just because you spent a couple of days at Xander's don't think I am forgetting what I tried to talk to you about just because I am so happy you are home" I call out to her retreating form, she stops walking and her shoulders slump. "If you don't want to hear it then just say so but know in doing so our whole relationship will change. I am not giving you an ultimatum even though it sounds that way but I need you to talk to me about how you feel."
"Well explaining tired and smelly may not be as fun as you think it will be but if I don't explain how tired and smelly I am I would sure hate for our relationship to change over something so small. I always thought it would be something much bigger." She says not bothering to turn around.
"Do you think I am somehow going to blame all this on you? Do you think that what I go in there and talk about is going to change how I feel for you?"
"Y E S!" She turns and faces me. "Not to the first one but yeah I do think you goin' to that shrink is gonna have you change how you feel about me so I talk about anything and everything that isn't related to it cause there is no way in hell I am helping you dump me!"
"Sweetie, I love you, I am so happy to be here with you. Nothing in the world will change that."
"How do you know? I sat in that shitty motel room for months and a nice cozy jail cell in love with you and the one thing I said was `she hates you and nothing in the world will change that' and it did change B. It changed and it was scary and amazing and beautiful and I can't lose that. I can't have it be the other kind of scary, not again."
I walked up to her and slid my index fingers in to her front belt loops "Faith and Buffy are meant to be in love together forever and they will be. It won't always be easy despite how much we want it to be and it will change over time for sure but not how you think. I adore you sweetie and my life is our life, my world is you."
"That scares me too B. You shouldn't be all wrapped up in me all of the time. It ain't healthy." She puts her arms loosely around me, resting her hands gently on my lower back.
"I know" I look down at the floor "I know it all can't start and end with you but certain things I can only share with you."
"I love that you can share this with me, that we can be this open with each other after all these years and all that shit but I feel like I am your whole support system and you know I will always be there babe but I don't think I can shoulder it all on my own. You ain't the only one having thoughts that are serious and sometimes I can't deal with what you have to say all at once."
"So you avoid it?"
"Uh, yeah…I know it isn't a good thing to do but…shit I dunno Buffy I just feel all this pressure."
"From me?"
"From you, from Xander, from Giles…fuck even Robin keeps pesterin' me about these couple of rogue slayers he has been tracking. Yeah I was rogue but I ain't no more and I can't help these girls. I ain't some saviour hero. I am just a girl that got fuckin' lucky in some amazing ways."
"You don't wanna help them?"
"I don't wanna sound selfish but no I don't. I don't feel inclined in the least to help some bratty little girls. I know if people felt that way towards me this here wouldn't be happening but it did happen for me and I all kindsa grateful for it believe me but it isn't my path in life now to save every single person that feels that way themselves. I can handle looking after me and I can most times handle lookin' after you and I am happy with that load."
"I get that."
"You do?"
"Yeah, everyone looked to me when we closed the Hellmouth and I knew if we won that would happen and I was prepared for it but standing at the edge of that hole I knew it wasn't up to me anymore and that people had to start doing things for themselves. The chance to live a normal life was finally at my feet and I was taking it. Stuff selfish and stuff responsibility, I earnt my normal life. I love making our bed, I love dusting our knick knacks, I love picking up after you, I love staying in a watching a movie of a night time, I love there is an army of millions to fight the next apocalypse but mostly I just love you and I get how you feel."
"You aren't mad at me for thinkin' that way?"
"No" I smile at her "I am kinda proud of you for being so honest."
"Just kinda proud?"
"Yeah just kinda, still a little pissed at you for taking off for two days."
"Can I make it up to you a little upstairs?"
"By taking a shower? It won't hurt…I think for his birthday I am getting Xander a maid service. Having a place that smells so bad your guests take home the stink is not of the good" I let go of her belt loops and give her a playful shove backwards.
While I didn't get to talk to her about what happened in the counselor's office in depth those few minutes meant the world to me. It became about both of us being important in the relationship not just me because I was in the midst of yet another crisis and I think that is what my counselor is trying to tell me. Look at the bigger picture, look at what is around me. Don't discount what I went through because that is important. Where I have been is part of who I am, what I dealt with is part of who I am and always will be but remember what I have now, where I am going now because that is important. It is part of who I will become.
...to be continued...