Here are some more fantabulous photos of me. Lol
Clothes make me happy right now.
So SirGawain and I haven’t had our Valentine’s Day together but I think he’s wanting to do it next weekend. He came over for our steak dinner on Monday, and brought everyone there chocolate lollipops from Zoe’s, which is a local company that makes the most delicious desserts! He also brought me a box of assorted chocolates that were divine. I admonished him though - I would rather him not spend his money on gifts. I am okay with accepting them now, but there’s no need to spend on me.
I had some good news with my Blessing Box this week - I met with another woman Tuesday morning, who is running a grassroots initiative in our city. She helps families with special needs children. Since November, I’ve been helping her secure medical equipment and necessary items. I have a larger, more supportive donor base, and it’s been awesome to team up. Well, at our coffee date, she agreed to sit on my Board of Directors, and I’m going to move her organization under my nonprofit umbrella (when I finally get approved). We are both very excited about the collaboration. She’s one of those people that just vibe with me in some sort of way. We have lots of love and mutual respect for each other.
So I was on a high from that interaction, and I also had some back and forth with the economic development director that evening about a property that looked like it might work for our purposes. With further inspection, I don’t think it will, but on Tuesday I was feeling pretty positive anyway.
Well, SirGawain shit on me hard that night, and both of these positive interactions were flushed into the toilet.
Sigh. I don’t even know where to go with this. He’s always been negative. He frames every interaction with complaints and a viewpoint that each day is at least as terrible as the day before. It’s normally something that I can handle because I am the exact opposite. So being an outlet for his negativity is easy - I can listen to why everything is awful and roll with it. But on Tuesday, it was like, WTF. I’ve been down for reasons I explained in my previous entry, and I was just kinda shocked into silence over the phone that night.
Which like, I never stop talking, so that’s saying something.
I can’t even paraphrase what he was saying, but he was pretty much shitting on my connections, and saying that I’m wasting my time buying a building, because in 5-10 years the city council will be made up of different members. And those members are probably not going to be as supportive of what I’ve done and what I am doing. That where he lives, organizations like mine have been forced to close and move due to gentrification, and that’s 100% sure to happen to me as well.
I was just like, what? Are you for real right now? I have actual, real issues going on right now - refinancing, locating property, figuring out how to pay for improvements, writing bylaws and getting members for my board - and you want me to just stop everything because a decade from now, there may be policy changes? I was really flabbergasted.
He literally spoke AT me about this for 40 minutes.
I had him on speakerphone - I always have everyone on speakerphone & my partners know this - and MisterMoonbeam came into the room about halfway through. He froze, and listened to the rest of the conversation. When I hung up, he was LIVID. He told me that SirGawain is an emotional vampire and he just is at his limit for watching him suck me dry. He said never in his life has he wanted to throttle someone, and watching me just deflate on this call was too much.
He told me out of respect for me, and at my insistence, he wouldn’t text SirGawain, but he said it was taking a lot of willpower to not freak out on him for being so negative, and belaboring a point that is legitimately so stupid and not at all an issue I need to be focusing on right now.
I have to say I was pretty done after both conversations.
On Wednesday I received an email from a current city council member, putting me in contact with the executive Director of a HUGE nonprofit, who is anxious to partner with me, in an initiative that could expand what I do exponentially. Like, it’s crazy. I am going to meet with this dude next Wednesday morning for a tour of their facility and a run down of their ideas.
So yeah. That all happened.
SirGawain closed on his own housing refi, and has plans to get a new roof and a new fence super soon. I’m supposed to see him on Sunday, as we are now going to focus on setting up his spare bedroom as a library for all of his RPG books. I haven’t been over to his house in a few weeks - he’s been staying over one night a week at my place - and that’s been a relief in some ways. His one kitten, MadMartigan, has been pissing under the bed there, right under where I lay my head. I can’t breathe, for real. It’s so bad. So far SirGawain hasn’t done much to address it, but the plan is to get this spare room set up so space is freed in the basement area, and the kitten will then be relocated there for a couple of months, to stop this issue. Hopefully it helps.
So yeah. SirGawain is still horribly stressed and burnt out every day from his job. Every day is like the worst day. I really sympathize, and I hope he can leave there soon.
I also had a huge issue the weekend before Valentine’s with him, in that he ran into someone who told him that his ex and her husband had her cheating partner move in. He was devastated by this news, and really upset. He said this was disturbing, but I thought honestly that it was a normal sort of progression for that relationship. I was myself upset that he had even asked about the topic, and if this person was readily sharing info to hurt him, like why was he even encouraging that?! He said he still wanted to get his old life back, and be able to attend events at his gaming club. But he can’t do that with his ex and her cheating partner still going there. I told him that at this point, it’s been over a year, and that it’s not going to happen - they aren’t being kicked out and they’re not going to stop.
So yeah. I was just kind of defeated because he is still not reacting in healthy ways, but seeking out news about his ex. He told me he had a good therapy session after the fact, but I don’t know. I asked him about trying to set healthy boundaries - both with his work and with his ex - but he said he isn’t going to set any boundaries because they all end up blowing up his life when he does.
All of this stuff combined is a lot.
She got superhero coloring books for my guys and 24 temporary tattoos for the Blessing Box. Such fun!
