Part of the job
The fourth episode in my formative sex & relationship series. After a dismal year of university, I move to a small mountain town for new adventure & summer romance. A series of events has me question the nature of reality and my place in it.
*Heads up* I describe unwanted sexual advances, a minor act of violence & drug use
In this series:
Ep 14 :: Seeding disenchantment
Ep 16 :: Petroleum engineering smart
Ep 17 :: Sex and the city
Summer in Jasper National Park, Alberta
⛰️🌲🛶🍁
Drawings from my Left Hand Notebook
“Left Hand Michael”…
Notes and drawings from Josh
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This is Divine Interruption. I'm Sarah Hildreth Rankin. Hi, welcome back.
So I'm going to continue on today with another episode in my series of just unpacking a lot of these formative relationships that I've experienced in my life.
And each episode has kind of been building on each other, because as we grow, we have more experiences, right? We learn more. We develop some different beliefs about who we are in relationship and how we feel safe in the world.
And I'm just going to keep building. And it's interesting. I have wanted to talk about these things for so long.
I feel like these stories have been wedged, like actually stuck in my physical body. It's almost like I can feel them, not just energetically, not just emotionally, but like physically in my body.
I've tried to in the past, in certain moments, or I've kind of been like, okay, I think this is the one I want to talk about, or this is how it could kind of fit.
And every time I try to find the time or space to do it, it's like I don't have the energy. It's like something in me kind of just goes flat, and I'm like, I can't. It's too much, or it feels overwhelming, or I don't have the words.
And so I've been trying to do this for a while, but truly, there is another force at work here. This is a process that I have not been able to control, and I've started to really recognize, okay, I just need to go with the flow.
What comes out comes out when it's meant to. And yesterday, I had the whole day to myself, and I have the whole day to myself today. I have not had any time alone throughout the summer.
And these two days, I was like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? I want to work on this. I want to work on the podcast and feel creative, but my body half the time can't support that, or I'm too exhausted, or I just end up sleeping.
And I was really praying that I would have the energy so that maybe I could look at some of this. And when I did yesterday, I felt this surge of energy just move through me.
It was like, whew, I was like, wow, something is moving and helping me talk about this today. And I was able to work through two episodes yesterday.
I barely got any sleep, and all night, I was like seeing other things, and I was connecting the dots, and I was like, wow, I have so much I want to share. And I woke up this morning, and I realized it's my dad's birthday.
And this feels important because I had had a reading with an astrologer a few years ago, and one of the things she had brought up around me, essentially moving forward in life, or I was asking about career, I'm like, oh, I wanna build my own career,
and I wanna do this, and I wanna make all these changes in my life. And she was saying, you know what? She's like, you're not gonna be able to until you clear so much karma and energy with your father.
And I remember thinking, but I've done so much work on this already, you know? There's no way that this is gonna prevent me from moving forward. But you know what?
It has, or like I'm still kind of in the same place, which is interesting. And for a while there, I was trying to force it. I was like, okay, well, I need to intentionally work on this relationship that I had with my father.
And that again, is across all planes of existence, right? It's not just the relationship I had with him until he died, you know, in this lifetime. It's so much bigger than that, that I don't fully understand.
And it's not just him. It's also what he represents, right?
So those formative energies when we're born, it's like the mother, the father, even if those aren't blood relatives for you or whatever it is, those figures in our life expose us to so much and set us up for so many things.
And so I just had a lot of work to do around this archetype of the father, around male figures, around relationships with men and just men in general. Like I have something really big to work through.
And she was essentially saying, like, you won't really be able to move on in a big way in your life until you work through this. And heal some things. And like I said, I've been trying to tell these stories, and they feel very connected to this.
This is my experience with male figures in relationship. And a lot of those beliefs and things that I've lived through have really shaped how I see the world in terms of this archetype. So I'm like, wow, the energy is with me.
All of a sudden, I'm talking about this. It's coming out. It's my dad's birthday.
He would be 90, which is like blowing my mind. And I feel his energy with me too. Like he is helping me do this.
I truly do. And I feel like a lot of support right now. I'm like, whew, covered in tingles.
I'm like, there's energy moving. It's time to do some more clearing. And that's by speaking.
And there's so much shame attached to so much of this for me. And I'm realizing like shame can't survive once it's out in the open. Like it needs a voice.
And so for so many people, this is going to look different. And if this is something you need to work through, maybe you don't actually need to say it out loud. Maybe you don't need to share a story.
But for me, that's the one piece I haven't done. And I realize this is so big to put a voice to it. And it's not just all the work that I've done behind closed doors alone or with other professionals.
It's about actually giving words to these other versions of myself and accepting these things and putting it out in the open. So yes, there's a lot of energy roofing, and I feel like there's timing. We can't control this process.
I haven't been able to. So now I'm going with it. I'm like, okay, you want me to share this?
That is happening, and I can feel it. So today, I just want to pick up from where I left off. Again, these can be listened to as standalone episodes, but I do feel like they really build on each other.
So if you haven't listened, I would go back and kind of start from the beginning. I will put links in the show notes. And where I left off last time, essentially I was in university.
I had had one kind of semi-relationship, and then I had gone away for a weekend with my friend and ended up meeting someone and having sex for the first time. And again, I will talk about sexual type things in this episode.
I just want to put that out there.
I don't think it's anything, again, too graphic, too out there, but if you've had any experiences that have not felt right or you've had your boundaries crossed, you've had certain experiences that really didn't feel good, I'm just giving you a heads
up because there's some of that here. And who knows? It can bring up all sorts of things for people. So just letting you know, if that's not for you, then you don't want to listen to this.
So I had just had sex for the first time and then come to this realization that this person possibly had no interest in me at all and kind of left me in a space of undoing where I was like, oh my gosh, I'm humiliated. I'm only good for one thing.
I had learned all of these things that started to start to gel for me, which was around my worth and I felt very disposable. And it felt like there's something deeply wrong with me as to why I was being treated the way that I was.
I was probably in the middle of my second term of first year university. I wasn't doing that great. It wasn't going well.
And my parents could see that because they had agreed to pay for my first year. So two terms of school. I was living at home still, so I was still in the nest, you know, had it quite easy that way.
But it just wasn't going well. I wasn't enjoying myself. I found it really hard.
I couldn't get by in the way that I had before in high school. And my dad got really serious and told me like, we're not going to pay for you to go to school anymore. Your grades are not good.
You need to make a decision about what you want to do because I think this is wasted on you. And there's so much more that you could be doing. You do need someone to change things for you in a way sometimes.
And I needed to hear that because I wasn't enjoying it, but I didn't fully understand when he showed me, he's like, this is how much this costs. Can you afford to do this? Do you want to pay for this yourself?
I looked at it, and I was like, oh god. No, I can't. No, this sucks.
And yeah, I do need to do something else. And luckily, he had come from an entirely different background where he had gone to art school in Glasgow at a very young age, right out of high school. And then he decided to come to Canada on his own.
He left his family, he left his life, and moved to Montreal, and just started over. And he lived at the YMCA bare bones. I found his journals a few years ago, and was like, oh, I did not know.
He never told me about this, but I was able to read about his experiences. And so he had this other perspective that he was able to offer to me, which was, you don't just stay at home and go to school. You need to have a different experience.
My friend at the time, she had also been feeling the same way, and wanted to go work in Jasper National Park for the summer. And that just kind of lined up, and it felt right. I was like, yeah, let's go do something different.
I'm going to make some money, be somewhere else, and just have a different experience. I remember putting together my resume with all the very lackluster things I had on there, like child care, child care, child care.
And I remember even phoning all of the different businesses at the time, like asking them for their address, and then putting together these letters, and addressing them, and like mailing them off. And then, you know, waiting to hear back.
I'm like, oh, someone will just call me and tell me there's a job available, and that happened. And I applied to quite a few places in town, but heard back from the one I really wanted, which was to work at the bakery, because I loved baking.
It was always a thing, and I had this dream as a kid of opening up my own bakery. And my friend got her job that she wanted, and we're like, wow, we're gonna have this totally different experience.
Through some connections, we were able to live in a house rent-free. So we had our own room. We shared a bed.
It was kind of like having an extended sleepover for the summer, which we were both totally into. We just knew that we had some responsibilities, you know, to keep things clean. When we got our groceries, to put things away, that kind of thing.
We didn't see the owner of the house very often. He worked night shifts and just wasn't around a lot. And then there was this kind of unorthodox situation where there was a man living in the garage.
It was like he had a blanket fort. So he had a bed and like a microwave and a chair and some things and just this like blanket all the way around that area of the garage. And he lived there.
We also wouldn't see him very often, but we were just jazzed that we had this place, we could save some money and just be a part of this whole new experience. So we packed up our stuff, moved there, and yeah, I started my job.
I was working early shifts, so I had to be at work at 5 a.m. And just spent the first couple of months really learning the ropes, super busy, kind of settling into this new routine of life in this town.
It was way smaller than what I was used to living in a big city. I think at the time anyway, the population in the off season was something like 6,000 people.
And then in the summers, because it was a tourist town and people visited from all over the world, it went up to something like 15,000 when you got all the seasonal workers.
So huge influx of people coming from all over the place to work for the summer, just like us. So I feel like maybe it was a few weeks in, over a month in, where I was working at my job and I was working in the front of the bakery.
So that meant that I was serving customers and I was setting everything up in the mornings and working the cash register, cleaning tables, that kind of thing.
I would see all sorts of customers, a lot of them being regulars, but in the summer it would get crazy busy, like lineups out the door, get super hot in there. I was exhausted by the end of my shift.
And there was this one day where there's this man in line, young-ish, like in his 20s. And I remember there was just something that caught my eye about him. I was like, you're kind of interesting and weird.
Like it was the way he talked or the way that he moved, like his eyes were really intense. I don't know, he grabbed my attention. We had a brief conversation as I'm like handing him his cinnamon buns.
He's like, oh yeah, I'm from Vancouver, because he has like a van city debit card or something. And apparently, like at that age, that carried some like cache for me. I'm like, wow, wow, he's from another province.
Wow, he lives in another city. So funny what attracts us at different ages. He's kind of like flirting at me a little bit.
I felt like there was some sort of vibe there. And he mentioned, oh, yeah, I'm here for the summer. And he was working at some sort of gift shop.
What was it called? Rocks and fudge, something like that. I don't know what it is about tourists and fudge.
I'm like, have you ever eaten fudge when you're not on vacation? So anyway, I could be quite gutsy in my own way. And I liked to be really intentional.
So I felt like I had had this moment with this person. I knew where he worked, and I was like, I'm going to go there, and I just want to see him again. I want to have another interaction.
So on my day off, I walked to this store, this gift store that sold crystals and trinkets and fudge.
And I spent way too long picking up every single one and looking really interested in these Canada flags and these little stuffy mousse and looking at all these slabs of fudge, really trying to consider my options.
I'm like, orange creamsicle, cookies and cream. And as far as I remember, I was like, I think he sees me. It was really awkward.
I ended up buying some fudge and I left. So not really a positive interaction that I wanted to have. But in a few days, he came into the bakery again and I could tell that, oh, he'd seen me come to the fudge store.
So he's here. And as far as I remember, some of this is kind of hazy, but we agree to hang out. And we did.
And we walked around town. He told me all about his life in Vancouver, his aspirations. He wanted to design jewelry.
He was really into that. I'm like, wow, he's really creative. He's so worldly because he's from Vancouver.
I don't know. I'm into it. This is fun.
It's kind of exciting. And he seems to be interested in me. I'm like, the fact that he asked me to hang out, I was like, whoa, that's a big deal.
He wants to hang out with me. I found him attractive. I think he was a little bit older than me again.
He's probably like 24. I was 19. I was just like, oh, I think I like him.
So as far as I remember, we agreed to meet up again. And the next time we meet up, I think it's later at night, and I think we go for a walk again. And I remember it just feeling off.
Like there was something about him where again, I'm like, there's like this intensity about him. His eyes seem kind of weird. This time, he was not present.
Like he wasn't, how do I put it? He just like wasn't there. I'm like, something's off.
I just felt it. I was like, ugh. He's kind of like, there's a vacant vibe.
And he didn't fully seem cognizant the same way he was before. So I was like, uh, I don't know. That was like weird, whatever, shake it off.
And I figured, okay, that's it. I don't know who this person is. He seems like up and down.
But he kept coming back into the bakery. We met up again. And this time, he wasn't that way.
I was like, oh, okay, he seems like more normal. Like he's more engaged with me. There's something here.
He walked me all the way home. We spent like hours, you know, those times when you meet up and you just spend hours talking. And he walks me to the door and he kisses me.
And I'm like, oh, okay. But then I got this feeling and he's like, oh, well, like, aren't I coming up? And I was like, what?
No. I live with my friend and there's other people who live here. And I just knew that that was like rules of the house.
Like, he's not coming in. And then he kept trying. He's like, well, no, like, I'm here.
I want to come up. And I was like, no, I can't. And my voice wasn't saying, no, you can't.
My voice was like, oh, wow. Like, oh, that's so nice. Yeah, no, I like I can't.
I couldn't express myself. And I was giving off this vibe of like, I knew deep down, you're not coming upstairs and like, whoa, this feels really forward to me for some reason. But he kept trying and he actually started to feel a bit upset.
I was like, oh, he's actually like upset. He started to get a little bit like mean, like he's upset with me. And so I was like, I'm really sorry, like I can't.
He's like, okay, like whatever, you know, whatever, fine. Then I kind of took that as I'm like, whoa, he like really likes me. He's so upset because he can't come up and be with me more.
And there was something about his persistence that albeit like a little off putting and confusing and a little bit, I don't know, confronting.
It was also, I'm like, oh, you know, he has this dominance to him that was equally intriguing and unexpected, but also a little bit scared for me. Like I was a very sensitive person. I still am.
And sometimes it really does throw me back when someone acts in a way that's like very aggressive and it's unexpected. So I had a lot of mixed feelings about it, but I knew he liked me. Next time we meet up, he takes me to his place.
It was a staff house. So there was many places in town that put up the seasonal staff, and a bunch of staff would live together. It was very inexpensive, and it was super common.
And I think he lived with at least three to four other guys in the basement unit. He brought me over, and it was just so messy, so chaotic. And I was like, is this what it is to be an adult?
Because again, I still had not lived on my own, right? In my own apartment. And this felt like, oh, he's older than me.
He's more experienced. So he brings me to his room, and I swear, it was like the tiniest space I'd ever seen. It was like a jail cell.
There was one tiny little rectangular window up top by the ceiling, and the rest of it was just bare. It was like bare and gray. He had one shelf, one tiny shelf, again, way too high up.
I'm like, who puts a shelf up there? And it had two, like, Heinz Beans cans, and then he had this, like, desk thing, but it was made out of milk crates and, like, a board.
He had half of, like, an old weird chair, and then there's just a single mattress on the floor. And I was really, I was like, oh, is this how people live? Like, okay.
He kind of gets me to sit on this, like, dirty old chair thing. And again, I'm still, like, taking this all in. I'm like, this is confusing to me.
I don't like it in here. Like, the vibes are off. It just feels yucky.
But I'm like, okay, we're hanging out. And he pulls up this huge binder, and he's like, I want to show you some things.
And this binder is huge, and it has, as he's flipping through, there's, like, different dead animals, actual, I don't know, like, you can say you got, like, a butterfly, right? And it's, like, underneath a sheet of clear plastic.
And then there's, like, a weird, like, rat pelt. And then there's different animal skins. And I'm like, what is this?
I'm like, okay. And he's like, he's like, see, this is what I like to do. And I don't know if he was into taxidermy, but he liked making things, like, with leather, like, belts.
And then he also was really into jewelry design. And then he also had this fascination with, yeah, animal materials. So he's showing me this book that I was essentially like, this is like a book of death.
And this is super creepy. Like, I don't want to see anymore, like, gross pelts or skins. And so I'm like, okay, this is what's happening.
This is an interesting experience. And he left, he went to go do something, and I'm just like in there flipping through this book, kind of taking in his life. And then he comes back and he's like, come sit with me.
And he motions to, like, the mattress. And I'm like, something seems off with him. I'm like, I don't know, like something, it's just like the energy shifted in the room right away.
And then he just starts kissing me. I'm like, okay. He kind of takes his hand and he like pushes it up underneath my shirt and he just takes my bra off.
And I was like, I don't like this. Like, I don't like this. Everything had changed, the energy had changed.
He felt like he had changed. Like he got that super intense look in his eyes, but kind of like vacant. It felt really aggressive and like the vibe was off.
I'm like, I don't want you like touching me like this. Like you can't go from showing me disgusting, like animal pelts to like shoving your hand up my shirt. So it just, itch.
All of it felt itch. And I remember being like, oh, I have to like go to the bathroom. And this bathroom is like burned in my memory.
It was the most disgusting thing I've ever witnessed. I can't even really describe it. But I was like, is this the way that people live?
Like, oh my god. I couldn't even basically use the bathroom. And there was just like matches all over the floor.
I don't think anyone had cleaned it ever. And all of it just, sensory overload, so gross. I used the bathroom.
I'm like taking a moment to like take a breath. I was like, I don't know what's going on. I go back in and I don't know, he looks weird.
His eyes are all weird. And I just have this feeling, he's like pulsating this need. And anyone could feel it.
It was like coming off of him. I'm like, he wants something from me, but he's looking through me. He can't even see me.
He's looking through me and I feel irrelevant. I feel like as Sarah invisible. And so he grabs my arm, he pulls me back down onto the mattress.
He takes his hands and just holds my hands back. And he just starts putting his body on me. I remember parts of this and not all of it.
He's like putting his body on top of me, but it just feels like too fast. He's not like checking in with me. He's not looking at me.
And I'm like, I don't want this. Like I just felt gross. I was like, I don't want your body on me.
You're sweaty. You're looking through me. Something is wrong.
I definitely like don't want to have sex with you. Is this, you know, I was realizing, I'm like, oh my God, he just wants to sleep with me right now. And it just felt off.
It was like this hunger. It felt ugly. It's hard to describe energy, but I just felt really gross.
And it felt ugly to me. I was in this disgusting room, in this disgusting place with this person who I was like, I don't think I even like know you. And you're acting in this way that you weren't before.
Like he's very up and down, right? He shifts quite quickly, takes my pants off. And again, I'm like, you're moving too fast.
Like, what are you doing? You know, I'm not saying any of this, by the way. I am just essentially going into a bit of, like a bit of a freeze, I guess, like in a nervous system way.
Like, I'm freezing up because it's going too quickly, and I'm trying to process what's happening, and I'm trying to figure out how I can get it to stop, because I don't know how to use my voice.
And I don't really know how to say no, because it's already so ingrained in me, and it's so natural to, and I'll use the term, like, people, please, but it's just this way, it's a way of staying safe, too, right?
It's like, I will give you what you need so that you will leave me alone, and so that I will be safe. And I'm not doing this anyway that I know I'm doing it, it's just subconscious.
I'm, like, freezing and thinking, oh my god, okay, how do I get myself out of this situation? And, like, not let him down. And I don't want him to not like me, because that's also dangerous, and that also makes me feel ashamed and unwanted.
Like, it's so much to process at once. So I don't specifically remember what I did, because as far as I know, I never used my voice, but I was kind of, like, not letting him... I was like, you're not taking my underwear off.
Like, I was kind of just moving around, and being like, ugh, ugh, you know, kind of, like, pushing him away.
And I can't speak that I don't want this, but it's very clear, like, I am not letting him progress in what he wants to do, because I can tell him, like, wow, he just wants to have sex with me right now.
This is, like, zero to 60, and he's being really aggressive. He does stop. I can tell he's getting irritated with me.
He's like, oh, whatever, you know, and he kind of, like, kind of pushes me to the side a little and, like, gets up. And everything felt weird and off, and I felt really alone because I was like, why is this happening?
This person is being nice, and, like, why is he mad at me? So I must be doing something wrong. Like, what is wrong here?
Everything feels weird and off. And it didn't leave. Like, I'm, like, taking a nap and just lying there and not saying anything, not getting myself out of the situation.
And so we kind of fall asleep and lie there. It's really awkward and weird. Now, at some point, we kind of wake up or things start happening.
He still feels off to me. But I remember thinking, like, how do I get myself out of this? What do I do in this scenario?
Because I don't really want this, but I don't want to not do it because if I don't do it, then he's not going to like me or something bad is going to happen. It's just really confusing. And so he's kind of moving his hands all over me.
And then he takes his hand and he pushes, like shoves his palm onto my face. So he's got his entire hand over my face, and he's pushing my head down into this dirty mattress. I can't really see, right?
He's covering my eyes, he's covering my nose, and he's got his body just on mine. And again, I was just like, what is happening? And I didn't feel like afraid for my safety in that moment.
I didn't feel like something horrible was going to happen. I didn't feel like I couldn't handle it necessarily. I was just so shocked that someone, I can't tell you the feeling of having someone like do that.
It just felt so horrible to have someone like shove their hand over my face so that it's like I wasn't, again, I wasn't there and he was trying to do something and he didn't want to see me. I didn't let it go further.
I was just like, again, I'm not going to have sex with you. Like I'm scared. I've only had sex one time before.
I don't know what I'm doing. So I'm afraid of like touching him in that way. I'm just like not ready for any of this.
So essentially I'm kind of like trying to stop him or I'm not letting him again like take my underwear off. I'm like, no. I can tell that he's frustrated.
He's getting irritated. I'm like, oh my God, like I've really irritated him. He's getting angry.
I can tell he's disappointed. And I just keep thinking like he's in control here. I'm messing this up, but I feel paralyzed.
So the interaction like kind of ends and he's like, ugh, you know, like again, like kind of sits up. He's like irritated. Like he's not getting what he wants.
I have a journal from that time. It was actually more of a notebook that I called it my left hand notebook. So I would draw pictures with my left hand to like practice because it was funny.
And I liked the way that the pictures always looked weird. So in my left hand journal, I did write a couple of things. So I'm just gonna let myself speak.
What were the feelings that were happening? So this is 19 year old Sarah, who's reading this from, let's see, June 10th, 2004. And it says, I really don't know how things work sometimes.
Who can you trust? And what do people want from me? I'm not sure, but this feels weird.
I think I need to appreciate what I have sometimes. Josh has the same alarm clock as me in one little shelf holding miscellaneous canned goods. Am I sheltered?
Do I not know what the real world is like or how it turns? I feel pretty grounded most of the time, but what am I doing in actuality? What is the real world?
I can see how I could feel really lonely right now, just lost and alone. But the thing is, I'm not. I'm so lucky to have real true friends who care about me.
I have them. But what am I doing though? Do I have to escape that to experience everything else?
Like now, why am I sitting here on this old mattress amongst a bag of carrots, half a dirty couch, a broken box of baking soda, and a milk crate desk? This room is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, and the door is closed.
The window is open and it's raining outside. Is something wrong with me? Or is it the other half of the world?
Can I be respectable? Have I done something wrong? I feel like I want to cry for no reason, or just be sick in bed, being five years old in my old room, with mom giving me lifesavers and reading me stories about the famous five.
Is Josh going to come back? I must be really naïve to think that I can make things normal. He just came in to get his contact solution.
His eyes are really red. But that must be because of the drugs. I think it's stupid.
People are slave to substances that I've never tried. Should I be trying them? I don't know what to think.
So I definitely was aware that maybe some of his behavior shifts were due to taking some kind of drugs, and it felt like it was more than weed, possibly. But again, I was really naïve to that.
I didn't grow up around drugs, and so I was really young in that way. I just hadn't been around someone who was using. I felt like he was off.
Like I said, he almost went somewhere else. I could feel this vacancy that would happen to him, where he would be almost like a different person. At some point, I was like, oh, I think these are the drugs, and he would keep leaving.
He would leave the room often, and he would come back, and his eyes would be really weird, and he would be weird. Or when I'd met up with him before, I was like, okay, something is off about you, and it wasn't off the last time.
So I kind of discerned that. I don't think we talked about it at all.
He never told me what he was doing, but I'm pretty sure that evening, I had picked up, I'm like, okay, you're leaving to go do drugs, and you're coming back, and you're being a little crazy, and I don't trust you.
So after all this had happened, I did not leave, I did not go home. I felt really trapped in it, and we ended up going for breakfast to a hotel.
It was the most awkward breakfast I've ever had because it was this completely different aesthetic and tone and surrounding than where I had been 10 minutes before in his tiny little jail cell. We'd woken up, gone super early out for this breakfast.
I'm ordering granola, and it comes with this starfruit cut up on top. We're sitting across from each other, and I'm just like, who is this person?
I don't even know who this guy is, but I've just had a bunch of really yucky experiences with him, and I don't think this can hold up in any way in the real world. He had treated me poorly. He didn't really seem to see me.
He definitely wasn't seeing who I was. So after that experience, we just didn't talk again. There was no need to meet up.
I didn't really see him. I'd see him around town, but I don't think he came into the bakery. And if he did, I was just like, no.
So that kind of ended. But that experience really is kind of being my first. Again, I'd left home.
I was still really young, and I felt like I was exposed to something beyond my experience. It was all very new, and his erratic energy was very confusing. When he was high, he was very dark.
It felt almost like a different energy moved through him.
This is interesting, because this is how I've always felt about drugs, not because I think I'm better or holier than thou, or I'm a prude or I'm not open to things, which is maybe even how it sounds in my journal.
I'm like, people are a slave to drugs. That's me not knowing anything. All I knew is how it made me feel.
Even today, I still have a bit of a thing with it, because I can feel that that person a lot of times is dissociated in some way and their energy has left. And so I don't want to be around that. I can't feel them.
It's like I can't feel their heart or something.
And sometimes I do feel that there is more energy coming in where it allows space for darker shit to come through, or even parts of them that are maybe unconscious that they have been suppressing that then come out.
And some people are fine, and they can handle it, and it's not a problem for them. And I'm not talking about those people.
I'm talking about, yeah, a lot of these experiences I had where it felt a lot darker and where I felt, like in this scenario, I wasn't even there.
Like, I was invisible, but he saw me as this thing that he wanted to consume, and it didn't matter how I felt or who I was as a person. He's just like, I want this, and I want this now. And you're standing in the way of me getting what I want.
So after this kind of brief daliance, whatever it was, I don't remember how long this went on for. It was quite short-lived. You know, we hung out a few times and then had this experience in his disgusting room.
And at this point, I just remember, I was really concerned. I can even hear it when I'm reading my journal. I was really concerned that what I thought life was, very existential, I was like, is how I feel about life just a fantasy?
Like, have I been so sheltered that now what I'm experiencing is what real life is? And this is how people treat each other, and this is what a relationship is.
I was worried that I was living in a fantasy and that my expectations had just been too high. And life can actually be this dark and depressing. And like, are men truly this mean?
Like, he was just not a nice guy. Again, you find yourself, you're like, why am I in this? You know, I got really caught up in it.
So, that was my first summer romance, and it just, romance, you can't even call it, it was nothing about it, it was romantic. He did, however, at one point, draw me a sketch of a necklace that he's like, I designed this for you.
And it's some sort of like Celtic cross necklace with like an emerald in it. And I remember thinking that was pretty lovely. Like, I'm like, oh, wow, he wants to like make this for me.
I think I burned it last year. Otherwise, I will put up a picture because it's all very meaningful. But, you know, there were moments like him as a person and even a creative person that I thought was really special.
And like, I was always like trying to see the good that was there. But in the end, like that was not a good situation for me at all. And I really felt disheartened.
Again, I felt really dirty. And I'm not using that word in a shameful way, because I think sometimes people equate, oh, you have this experience and then you're dirty or something. No, that's just how I felt.
Even his apartment or his little room was physically dirty. And I felt, I remember getting allergic to his bed. I was like, oh my God, I don't think he's washed any of his sheets.
I can't be around this type of person. So I physically felt that way. And then being around someone who wanted this from me, who couldn't see me, it was like I was disposable.
I was worthless. I was invisible. He wasn't even seeing me.
So I had a use for him. He had a need for something that I had. And I felt very disrespected, like he didn't respect me at all.
And that made me feel very sad. And so sex had also felt like, again, I'd only done it once, you know, a few months ago. And it was a big deal.
I had that piece of me still intact where I knew this isn't a good idea. I'm not ready. And I knew I didn't like what he was doing.
And yet it still felt like it was my fault. And on the outside, I could easily say to my friends, I was like, oh, he was really messed up. He has this insane book of animal pelts and dead animals.
And I could tell my friends that, and we could laugh about it because it was weird and it was messed up. I could see all of that about it, and it was funny. And I could be like, F him.
But underneath that was just this other experience on a deeper level, where I hadn't been enough, where I felt like I was wrong, I was bad, I was flawed. Like, why was he so mean? That meanness is something, I think, that feels very childlike.
I'm like, why would someone ever shove their hand in your face and push you down like that? Like, I'd never experienced that. I couldn't imagine doing that to someone.
I still can't. That is very painful. Just even that act of what you're doing, like trying to silence someone, trying to push them away, not wanting to see them.
Like, I can't look at you. You are so despicable. Why was that?
Was it because I didn't give him what he wanted? Or maybe if I was more mature, or if I was cooler, or if I was anything that wasn't me, maybe if I just wasn't me, then things would have gone differently.
Which again, is that really damaging narrative. That is not true at all, but that is what I took away underneath all of that. And funnily enough, maybe about 10, 12 years ago, I actually saw him.
You'd think I wouldn't even remember what he looked like. I don't have any pictures of him, but I saw him. I was in Vancouver crossing the street with my friend.
We were like at a cupcake store, and I saw him crossing the street. I'm like, oh my God, that's creepy Josh. Like I knew it right away.
He looked exactly the same, just like older. And you know, seeing him in that moment too, it's like, as an older person, like this, this is what I was aggrandizing. Like this is this worldly person who was so artistic and amazing, you know?
No, there's nothing about that situation that I should have been in. So the rest of the summer went on and I didn't really connect with anyone else.
I'm not saying that I didn't have any sort of crushes or that I didn't interact with any other guys, but these were really the experiences that stood out for me. So the rest of the summer, not a lot in that department.
And it was really more about working, you know, having a few adventures, spending time with my friend and some new friends that we'd met. And there was a lot of rinse and repeat, especially when it came to working morning shifts.
And there's a morning that I specifically remember in that house. I was eating breakfast in the dining room. It was dead silent.
Everyone was sleeping. It was still dark outside. And I was eating some cereal about to head off to work.
And then I heard some bizarre sounds, and I was like, what? Like, what is that? I realized it was like loud talking was coming through the floor.
And the closer I listened, truly confused at this point, I realized that it was the man who lived in the blanket fort in the garage. Like, he was actually right underneath where I was sitting in the dining room, and he was talking really loudly.
And he was repeating certain phrases, almost like in an attempt to get this person on the other end of the phone line to understand what he was saying, because I couldn't hear that anyone was actually there with him.
And you know, there's those moments when you know you shouldn't be hearing something, and you truly don't want to be hearing something. Well, it was one of those moments. And I realized I was listening to someone have very loud phone sex.
And I don't remember how I came to figure out, you know, the exact truth of that scenario with my roommate. I think we did some investigating as to like, wait, who's this person, and what's happening?
But we came to learn that he definitely had a woman who lived in another country that he would talk to at certain times, at uncertain days. And I was definitely privy to this more than one time.
But from there after, you know, would avoid eating breakfast in the dining room for this exact reason.
And may I say some of the most bizarre and filthy phrases that I heard come out of this man's mouth, you know, through that carpeted dining room floor at four in the morning, they have truly stuck with me.
And thank goodness, you know, we rarely saw this man around. He worked completely different hours than us, so we never had to like look him in the eye and be like, I know what you're doing at four a.m. on Wednesday mornings, you know.
And we also didn't see the owner of the house very much because he worked night shifts. But there were dinners and barbecues where we would spend time together that way.
And on one of those occasions, everyone had been sitting outside by the lake, and then we were heading inside to have dinner.
And the owner of the house stopped me, and he said, you know, I haven't seen you around for a while, you know, and he kind of looks at me in this way. And I was like, oh, right. You know, we had agreed to help with certain things around the house.
We agreed to take on extra chores and projects in lieu of rent because we weren't paying rent. And it felt like his comment was saying, you know, perhaps we weren't always so sure of what these extra duties were.
And, you know, maybe we'd been slacking a little bit. So he kind of mentions this. But then he leans in really close, and he takes his hand and he grabs my butt.
And as he's holding it, he quietly says, are you being a good girl? And in that moment, I just, I froze. I kind of laughed it off.
I was like, oh, you know, because I think some moments are unprocessable. You know, you're experiencing like a cognitive dissonance. And he had been this person offering his support, his home.
He'd never touched me at all. He'd never even hugged me, right? We didn't have that kind of relationship.
I didn't really know him that well. I wasn't super close to him. I was grateful for the home and what he was offering.
And I saw him more as, you know, like a dad or like an uncle figure. And all of those things were true.
And yet also in that moment, I'm accepting the reality that I'm like, he's touched me in a very sexual way that makes me feel really uncomfortable. And he's also made this really sexualized comment. It all happened so fast.
Brushed it off. We walked back in, and it's as if nothing ever happened. But I felt a power dynamic.
I felt put in my place.
Him saying that, I felt like I needed to be better, or I had to do more, or that I had to show up in a way now where I really appreciated the hospitality that was being offered, because it felt like I'd done something wrong, and like I'd been caught.
That was the feeling. It's like I'd broken the rules, and now there was this adult coming in and putting me back in my place. And so I said to myself, okay, it's not a big deal.
I know that things happen to women all the time, and those things can be really terrible. And this, what I've just experienced, this is not really terrible.
This is just what happened, and it's not my right to be upset, because I'm not supposed to be upset.
And so I just pushed that down, that small, tiny blip, that, you know, 30-second interaction that happened, and I didn't talk about it, I didn't think about it.
And even now, I am extremely uncomfortable talking about this, because there's the me that puts this one moment into the context of the world, and the atrocities that happened and have happened. How dare I even bring up this moment?
How dare I say it even mattered? Do you know what I mean? Because in the context of the world, it's really the tiniest little thing.
But then, there's also the me that was there, that experienced that moment, that was 19 years old, and this was like a 50-plus-year-old man.
And that version of me felt so much pain and discomfort having an interaction with someone who had just felt safe, you know, who had been kind of like a fatherly figure, and yet had now made me see myself in a different way or feel this kind of
shame. And that really cracked open this whole new world of like, what do men really want? Who am I to men? What do they think of me?
Like, have I been living under a rock? Like, how naive am I?
And that framed this power dynamic that I had already felt now from multiple interactions with men, again, closer to my age, but with men where I'd felt like I was supposed to be weak or I was weak, where I learned that I wasn't in control.
I was also being seen in this way that I really didn't want to be seen. Like, I was being sexualized just for existing, and I felt really trapped and powerless.
I just shut it out of my mind because this put me in a position where I really felt like I couldn't talk about it. And that's what shame does. Like, shame tells you that speaking about something will mess everything up for everyone else.
And even today, like, I know this interaction was not my fault, but somehow, like, I believe that by sharing it right now that I've broken some set of code, because it was kind of clear that for that to happen, like, he knew that I was going to laugh
it off, or that I wasn't going to say anything, and that I definitely wasn't going to make it awkward for anyone else. You know, that would be horrible. Your job is to stay quiet and to go along with things and make things not a big deal.
Like, everything should be easy for everyone else, and especially that person. And it's also like women have been dealing with this forever, and so that's like a part of the job. That's a part of the job.
If you're in a female body, this is your experience, and you just have to deal with it. And guess what? People experience so much worse every single day, so you got by.
Like, this is fine. And I never experienced that again with him. He never said anything.
He never touched me again. And we really didn't have that many interactions. All I remember was that, as the summer continued, he would ask me to go run an errand.
At one point, he had to go pick out a gift, and he was very clear that he's like, I need your help. And so that meant driving to another town and spending my afternoon going shopping with him and coming back. Nothing happened.
It was just because of what he'd said and what he'd done. I felt like I was being manipulated in some way, and it felt like he was holding this thing over my head, and I needed to repay him for his kindness, like with my company.
And it's like, I'm expected to show up, and now I know that you are the one in control. You're the one who holds us above my head. And it was so subtle.
And anyone on the outside probably would have never discerned anything. It was not obvious. In any way, I just know how I felt deep down.
There was these ramifications of what had been said and how he touched me and crossed a boundary that one time.
And yeah, it really definitely shifted a lot for me or solidified more for me in terms of how I felt about men and how I felt safe and how I saw myself and my worth.
And so yeah, that kind of takes me to the end of the summer and I'll probably pick up again because things just keep on trucking in this experience. And you know what? This feels really messy.
Like I feel like even how I've shared this came out all wrong. And I don't know if I've treated it in a way that speaks words to it in the way that I want to, or the emotions, or gently and with integrity.
And I don't know if that's happened, but I'm just, I'm here and I'm sharing it. It is messy. And I can only speak to my experience and how it felt.
And it's very confusing, but it's helping me put the pieces together. So thank you for listening, and we'll pick up again next time. Thanks so much.
Bye.
