Birthday 'Party'

Lisa rang early yesterday to make sure I would definitely be at her birthday celebrations.  I get that a lot: phone calls from people who say, ‘You will be there, won’t you?’  And my answer phone is always jammed with messages saying ‘’Rie, if you’re there, pick up the ‘phone.’  People around me are well aware of how antisocial I am so they assume I am trying to avoid them (and usually I am).  I did go to Lisa’s birthday celebrations.  We met at The Eagle and then went back to her house for a small party.  I even managed to make myself useful by clearing a bunch of Trojans from her hard-drive.  Norton didn’t even pick them up so I downloaded AVG.  (Typical). So, Lisa’s computer is no longer (in her words) ‘poorly’.

I received a ‘phone call from my mother earlier this morning.  We discussed the differences between ‘madness’ and ‘badness’.  Mother has this rather simplistic notion that the two cannot exist within the same person.  ‘Were you ‘mad’ or ‘bad’ when you tried to kill me, Mother?  Did you know what you were doing when you wrapped your hands around my neck and squeezed so hard that I blacked out?’  I asked this question in my head, not out loud.  I was nine when this happened.

The Pseudo-Messiah has stolen something from me – a certain innocence; a conviction that now I am an adult, I can defend myself in a way that I was unable to when I was a child.

I’ll never be the same.

I’ll never be as trusting as I was before.