Who's house?

I've dated before. I've raised my girls in the safety of being, at home. Keeping men at bay was easy. Letting them in isn't. Men have no authority in the house that I built. Women feel free in my space. Men are merely useful visitors. Single parenting doesn't get a do over. What happens when the worlds collide? What happens when the princess questions her authority, because a suitor addressed his fraility at her expense? What happens when the suitor fails to read her discomfort while persuing the Queen? 

Choice makes this scenario seem as easy as learning hopscotch. Public dating hasn't been my M.O. for over 10 years. The last 2 times were tragic. Both men have other children. Mine were younger. I learned how they parented girls. It was almost aligned with how I did things. Only one lived with me. It was brief. He never made them feel ashamed of thier bodies. The other has different standards. His daughter lived with him. He provided for her. She wore whatever she wanted. I never paid too much attention to what she wore, at home. I didn't care.

Without the gaze of patriarchy, how can I teach my child women aren't as free as they seem. Sometimes, we make choices to keep all of safe in the long run. Sometimes, our greater need for support makes us look at suitors for a how, not a why. I used to balk at a man telling me to put clothes on. I thought it was controlling. I didn't understand my role. 

I didn't explain to the suitor how I ran my queendom. He feels like he can treat the princesses like others. This looks like favoritism. It looks creepy. It doesn't look like he truly likes them. I didn't see it. I have concurrent agreements about safety. They don't talk to each other.

I feel horrible. My child doesn't feel supported. The suitor will feel defensibly defeated. He won't know what to do. Thing is, I don't plan to stop seeing him. 

Toryland Beach

 There are moments where trauma doesn't begin or end. It just layers on the veins embedded in our rocks, our traumas. Gravel is the uncomfortable pebbling the path. Veining if is faint. Nonetheless, the trauma is showing.

    Are we the rocks? Therapists tell us that trauma happens to us. It changes our brains. What if we didn't know, bc trauma whipped our ancestors so badly, it showed up 4 generations down the line. What do we feel like? Are chips? Are we tumbled smooth? Are we light catchers? Which parts of sparkle? 

    What if you got your spark from trauma? Poverty dictates. It creates stories that socialize around lack. Basic needs are a party. Funerals are fish fries. Building fund is a few hands of poker. Prom was baking pies for the community. Lack forces you to see the world for what it gives not how you work with it. It demands you learn early and young to play with rocks.

    My middle daughter has always carried around rocks. I've never grasped her fascination. Hidden in patches of grass or barely missing from the driveway, she collected them. Currently, she has around 11 tucked into a pouch. They go with her everywhere. She saw things in those rocks that others take for granted. 

    I grew up on a gravel drive. When my mother bought her first home, it didn't have gravel. Over time, the compacted red clay gave way under Buicks and Chevys. At my grandmother's house, the putrid green walnut hull hugged the gravel every fall. My grandmother drove over them. I'd find the nuts. Little did I know, I was allergic. I could walk on rocks.

    I couldn't undo the trauma. I'd seen the affects. I didn't know. Words can't speak in silence. They can fill up intentional emptiness. All the rocks in the world aren't as big as Cancer.