I mean, former Hoe.
If you’re young, just know, when you are promiscuous in a small town, it catches up. I’ve never been a very judgemental person when it comes to sex. Not now & not then. I believe in the ‘live & let live’ lifestyle in any aspect as long as you aren’t causing harm to yourself, other people or spreading disease. Some of my best friends are swingers, former hookers, have OnlyFans accounts. They make up some of my favourite humans & are definitely never a bore! Although, If you ever hurt animals, children or literally anyone weaker than you, i’m judging, oh, I am judging…
I’ve been a good person, a bad person, the victim & the villain. I’ve lived most days just trying to get by. Since turning forty I’ve been trying to figure out a purpose or at least find something that brings me joy. I don’t want to just survive anymore. I’m in my ‘let it go’ phase, selfish phase, find a reason to get out of bed phase. It’s difficult because I feel guilty about being selfish & working on myself knowing what is happening in this world. But, when you find yourself in a position unable to help anyone, all you can do is your best to not make it worse. Recycle, Reduce, Reuse & what not…
For the majority of my time on earth so far, I just angrily & anxiously moved through life pretending I wasn’t angry & anxious. I promise you, it gets harder to hide as time goes on. I felt like I was on my own always & my self esteem was so low the perverts, pedos & predators could sniff me out from miles away. It’s made me feel very protective of young people going through anything even remotely similar to my experiences with men as a young girl. Rumour has it that if you learn from other peoples experiences, you don’t have to learn everything the hard way. This apparently involves listening, absorbing the information provided & applying empathy. I’m still experimenting with this notion…we shall see…
I did good things & dumb hurtful things & all the things I thought you’re supposed to do as a human. Finished high school, wasted money on post secondary education, had a kid, bought a house, wracked up credit card debt and a vehicle debt & suffered the stress of financial burden because well… that’s what old people did when i was young. Good luck in this economy to future generations… Yikes.
I will say that I am sorry to anyone I hurt when I was a toxic person & didn’t know better. No excuse, just sorry. I broke a few hearts, but men were disposable to me for a long time. I enjoyed the chase. I liked the attention & I usually didn’t care when they evaporated. I didn’t need one for financial reasons, after all, I had my own career, home, vehicle, daughter. I wanted to find a guy, I saw Disney movies, it looked nice… but also didn’t really need one. Which is quite a conundrum when you’re attracted to toxic misogynistic douche bags. They weren’t all bad, but, back then, in the words of my best best friend “I chewed up & spat out the nice ones”
The only serious relationship I’d managed to get myself into in my twenties was with an extremely suffocating cruel, abusive man. He would scream things at me about being a whore & force sex on me. He’d say, ‘why else would I need a girlfriend if not for sex’? He would corner me & restrain me which in his mind was ok because he wasn’t hitting me. I think, maybe, I thought the abuse was love at the time, To Be Clear, It is NOT! He was so intense, i’d threaten to leave, he’d fall apart & beg, round & round it’d go… & I would never argue with the whore part, I mean, i’d had a few partners before him & he told me no one else would want to be with me due to the ol whore past & other cruel things… I couldn’t yet fathom it was ok to just be alone. I put myself through it for three years blindly hoping I was shielding my daughter from the situation (how dumb can a girl be). & then one day, the epiphany struck, I came home from work & there he was, this short, balding man, wife beater t-shirt, ripped underwear, one sock on, sitting in this broken recliner that he refused to part with & he was dunking plain, deep fried chicken wings in Frank’s Red Hot Sauce & I looked at him. I really looked at him, sauce on his face and chair and the wall behind him, deep fried oil smells in the air, I literally, in that moment, just no longer cared. I had still been paying my own bills, some of his, still taking care of my daughter alone, taking care of him & i realised he was just this huge burden covered in sauce & all that was left was pity… I still can’t stand Franks red hot sauce… Sorry Frank… it’s not your fault…
Oddly, to look on one bright side, living in Canada through your hoe phase / abusive relationship phase is kinda beneficial. Even if your doctor is a judgemental bastard, abortion is legal & you can do as many paps, std screenings & blood tests you want for free! ‘Free’ meaning tax dollars, just to clarify. Nothing is ever really free.
My daughter made the first half of life worth it for me, but, with my daughter still alienating me from her life, since turning forty there’s been an intense desire to find some sort of purpose for the second half. I’ve been trying to make a new start. I quit my soul sucking job in customer service & have been focusing on some post-secondary education. I’ve been doing this journal. I even go out on the town once in awhile, which if you read my last journal entry, you’ll know I tend to run into problems from my former self. I find myself running into my old flings & my old flings current partners. I catch myself thinking things like, you poor thing, your lil fella only lasts 12 seconds…or, she’s a lucky lady, husband shags like a gigolo! Or, feeling sad for her knowing that the husband is a greasy cheating snake. Either way, i’m like “woohoo dick sistas for life” Yayyyy! I highly doubt they see it the same way. On the flip side, I often feel sorry for some of these ladies because they are awesome & I think to myself, how did he get her? she’s amazing! Maybe she doesn’t know yet it’s ok to be alone? Should I tell her? Especially when the guy is like… Ew… ya know? Ya, I slept with him, but you’re actually stuck with him…You would think that I’m the one who should be embarrassed or feeling shame right, because I never ‘landed’ the guy? Well, I don’t, I’ve just come to realise I dodged a bullet … a lot of bullets…a lot of sperm bullets…Thank Odin for birth control!
There actually was this one interesting scenario where a very dear friend of mine’s married business partner kept dm’ing me & hitting on me & i kept brushing it off. I guess this man heard i was a hoe & thought i’d be an easy target. This friend of mine though had literally saved my life. He was going through some personal problems at the time & I didn’t want to cause any work drama for him on top of it so, I tolerated this a little longer than I normally would have at that time. But, I did get tired of the business partners advances & in an attempt to avoid the entire situation, I thought, instead of blocking him, i’ll tell this man I was actually a lesbian & just wasn’t interested, no muss, no fuss, we’ll all stay friends right… I even had a girlfriend ready to be my lesbian lover just in case. I really just wanted him to fuck off… So what does this man proceed to do? He sends me naked pictures of his wife!! & she was fucking beautiful! Literally stunning! What the hell was he messaging me for!?! Not the point… but still… Sometime after that, she started coming into my old place of work & i’d hide in the bathroom… because… whaaaat? Small towns…
The way i was raised, it was always implied that you are supposed to compete with other females for the lead roles at work or compete for dick (aka potential husband) or whatever. That outdated way of thinking definitely made me a toxic mother for my daughter & a toxic being for other women sometimes. Only, in an interesting twist, I’ve become one of those women who fiercely wants to protect other women. Maybe too late for my kid but I will always try to correct that behaviour, own it & apologise for it. I will tell women when their significant other’s have made passes at me. It’s difficult sometimes, you can lose friends, even with evidence like screenshots showing you didn’t do anything wrong. I had a women once blame me for her boyfriend dm’ing me. I had a woman tell me ‘it’s my fault’ when I’ve been hit on by a man in a relationship. It’s confusing. It’s the reason for the wrinkle between my eyebrows. So, with all due respect & love, you gaslighting bitches… stop it, don’t gaslight me & especially don’t gaslight yourself…
I face things head on, it’s just what I do. But some of these things really make ya want to pack up & go where you know nothing about anyone. Maybe I will…
Holly's Not Real 