Over Coffee

Today I am free. The Intervention Order that prevented me from walking down the street is gone. Ob and Lob sold the house a couple of months ago and are gone.
I stopped in to see a friend who lives next door to my old house. We laughed in amazement that a year had passed, and agreed to finally get out to play golf.

I had imagined Australia would evolve into a society embracing human rights and equality, and become a model for less evolved nations.
...
To deny someone a legal right based on who they live with or love is the simplest and purest form of bigotry. -- from "PM leads bigotry charge" Herald Sun, 6 Jun06, p 21, Letter to the Editor by Jeffrey Bartholomew, Surrey Hills, NSW

I can imagine a lot of people thought Australia was a more evolved nation, Jeffrey. Considering that a civil marriage is only a secular document, I don't understand why it should be denied anyone. It's done at a Registry Office, not a church.

The Australian Christian Lobby claims gays have no right to "force their world view" on the majority of Australians. -- by John Klopogge, North Croyden

Despite the fact that I believe in Christianity, no one can sanely deny that the ACL is not another example of Christians "forcing their world view" on others. Christianity is a morass of hypocrisy and dialectics. Christian nations have proven to be the most tolerant of other "world views" -- even to the point of putting themselves to danger for higher ideals of freedom; and yet expose glaring hypocrisies on such seemingly irrational prejudices.

It's a sad fact that emotional abuse often leaves no scars a plastic surgeon can heal. The old saying needs to be revised: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but they will heal. Unfortunately, your words will ever hurt me." -- from "Few Signs of Emotional Abuse", unsigned p21

This short article prompted a friend to ask: What would she (Ob) call abuse, Paul?
Do you mean the times I told her she would be kinder to take a stick and split my skull? .. rather than say some of the things she screamed at me?
Or .. maybe when I would tell her such things were unnecessary? .. that I wasn't arguing with her?
Or .. when she told me I was lucky her ex husband didn't come over and shoot me for making his baby girl cry? -- because I had stopped his baby girl from lighting her hair on fire with an iron.
Or .. when I asked her, -- so stupid in my trust and blinded by love--, if she had any idea what I was going through?

I wanted to tell him again that neither Ob nor Lob ever saw my raised hand. To say again that these things were said with my palms outward and open. I wanted to tell him again .. so many things.
My friend went silent, and I had to fight back the urge to tell him about the indescribable pain of a massive DVT; three desperately painful months learning to walk around my small house; and then how hard it was to force myself to walk on the beach when old men with walkers raced past me.
And when Ob and Lob would snigger to each other when I grunted spontaneously in pain to stand.. But I didn't. The memories still make my hands shake, but I didn't.
The poor bastard's been like a brother to me through all this. He's put up with enough crap from me. I don't know how I'll ever repay his patience and kindness. (-- Pardon mah franch...)