Blonde

I felt like changing up my hair a bit today. I was planning to go really dark brown (my natural hair color is kind of a basic, boring brown, and I usually just have some highlights), but the salon lady talked me into going lighter instead. So now I’m sort of blonde, and it’s fucking with my head a little bit. I think it’s kind of cute, but I’ll have to get used to it…for now, every time I pass a mirror it startles me.

I feel like I should write more about the Noah thing, but I don’t really know what to say about it. Half of me feels like I’m kind of making a big deal out of nothing, because he didn’t do anything to me at ALL. And the other half of me is still freaked out.

I grew up around violence, and it fucking sucked. My mom took out a lot of her anger on me…nothing as bad as what Noah went through as a kid, but I did get beaten pretty badly sometimes. And of my relationships, so far Noah is the only one who hasn’t been violent with me. So there’s a big part of me that is always just a little bit worried that I’m somehow not actually capable of finding men who aren’t like that, so it’s just a matter of time.

So even though he hasn’t done anything to indicate that he would ever hurt me, it still kind of messes me up to see him be violent in any way, because it makes it much easier to picture him being that way with me. When I was a kid, I learned to just kind of go numb, curl up in a ball, and wait for it to be over. And when I saw Noah lose his temper, even though it wasn’t directed at me at all, I felt myself instinctively going to that place. It’s not a fun place to be, and it makes me feel stupid and helpless and not at all like the person I want to be.

And it’s not his fault that I react that way, because he’s not the one who damaged me. So it’s not fair to punish him for it, and I know that.

He says he would never, ever hurt me in any way. That he’d give his life protecting me. That he only wants to make me feel safe, and comfortable, and good. And he says that he’ll work on the anger thing, that maybe he needs to get back into working out more in order to get out some energy that way so he’ll be less likely to explode, that he’ll bring it up with his therapist. He’s said all the right things. He didn’t do anything to me. So why do I feel like I got punched in the face?