not a pretty girl


a new person with each new experience

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

rosaries off our ovaries, heartbreak and near eviction

The highlights of yesterdays International women’s day alliance for choice event would have to be the seemingly sweet nun and the space cadet garde. There were only 15 of us at the highest point of the event. But it was fun none the less; we had a posh banner and placards. I mentioned it a few times how posh the banner it was and I realized I have never stood behind or held a fancy banner before. They are always cloth and most often painted. But this was vinyl with full color and proper lettering. Anyways the process of giving out information on abortion breaks the 1995 abortion information act. So there was a chance of getting arrested – and a more worrying concern was the chance of youth defense showing up and trying to ruin all our fun. But neither of those two things happened. Actually at one point Neiv went up to the garde and he took a flyer she handed to him. When she informed him that they just broke the information act, he just looked confused.

There was this point when this very noticeably pregnant women was walking towards us, the girl next to me was flyering her, but then suddenly pulled away when she noticed she was pregnant. Clare immediately asked her, why she did that. Pro-choice should not be offensive to pregnant women. That is buying into the pro-lifers idea that pro-choicer’s are pushing and encouraging women to have an abortion. I think that it is important to have women who have chosen to have children to be part of the movement to show that it is really about control over ones body and the ability to make ones own decisions regardless of the decision taken.

It is the nuns that seem to be the most dangerous of the pro-lifers. The guarde didn’t seem to care, any pro-lifers that walked by either said nothing at all or just said I don’t believe in abortion. (usually guys) But the nuns trick you by looking all small and sweet and old. They talk calmly and softly but say the worst things. The worst part of it is they touch you. This nun put her hand on clare’s knee in the most maternal caring way to tell her that she was murdering babies.

This same nun came back hours later after the protest and put her hand on this women’s shoulder to say ‘stop the mass murdering children’ which this women responded with ‘stop the mass abuse of children in your care’. – That nun deserved that low blow!

I wonder how and when abortion will be legalized here. Although there is a strong enough culture that women should have the right to have an abortion – the feeling is that they could just go to London to have the abortion. Which doesn’t take into consideration class or support networks. The thing is if you somehow raise the money for the abortion and the flight and accomidation, you are then in another country when you are going for your councilling on the abortion and because of that situation the chances of you deciding that you will keep the child for example are much lower because you have already gone to such trouble to get there. If you do not have networks in the place you are going for an abortion then you are alone during this difficult time or have to raise more money to have someone come with you.

Well international women’s day came and went without much going on, it doesn’t seem to be a big deal here at all. In steph’s blog she was saying that it didn’t seem to be a big deal in Toronto compared to other countries but Ireland makes Canada’s International women’s look like Pride.

Well in other news, this morning james and I were sitting eating pita bread and maple syrup ane watching the news when he got a phone call that altered both of our plans for the day. We got news that the squat was getting evicted and they needed people to come down. The squat is recently named the magpie house and was a group of nine people at the moment that were living in this abandoned house on a mainstreet here in Dublin. It was more then just a squat, it was a community centre. They had the womens group there last week, they had a library, Spanish classes, bike maintance classes, knitting circle. It offered a place for discussion a place to crash and so on.

We went down there right away with 30 or so other friends. Media was there but an eviction never happened. Bascially what looks like happened is the housing services were doing a routine check on the house, they started to busted open the bassment door to discover people living there. They didn’t really know what to do, the garda were called but again they didn’t know what to do.

The people at magpie were able to get the library and other important things out and put into the neighbors house. When they opened the door for that they let us in . . . most people wondered into the house. After an hour or so they opened the door and most people left but about 15 of us stayed on until 5 when the house services were off duty so no fear of them coming back. The support was not needed as much.

It was really good to see the amount of support for the squatters and to see how fast we all heard about it.

When I was inside the house looking around I got an immense feeling of sadness that this space was going to be shut down. It is such a positive space. It could be used for so much good. In seven months they had done so much with it not just for them to live in but for the community. I hadn’t used the space myself. I had missed the few meetings that I want to go to. I had put together three books to add to their library (that’s how you become a member) and was going to bring them down this week. One of the women from the squat said she would bring me there this week . . . well I made it but not under the best circumstances. You can check out the story and pics at indymedia , just click on the photo in the right corner . . .

And now for my heart . . . don’t know if I’m ready to fully right about that now. I have been thinking about writing this past week about relationships but I didn’t want to bitch about ready before I had a chance to talk to him. And now that I have talked to him my heart hurts even more. We didn’t break up, but I think it is inevitable. He has fallen out of love and unless we both put allot of effort to remind each other why we are together in the first place, why we fell in love with each other then it will fall by the way side.

The past little while I have felt really hurt, ignored, and not respected by ready. It was turning into a nasty circle because I would feel hurt and upset and I would try to just talk to him, spend time with him or whatever but because he was being so unresponsive I would have to really put myself out there to just get his attention. This means that I feel even worse when he rejects me and because I was more in his face he was feeling more resentful.

He said that lately he has been wondering if he should break up with me. He said that it wasn’t anything I did that it was just him, that his head is in a messed up place. ( I realize what a typical excuse this is when someone wants to break up with someone but doesn’t want to hurt them- but I can only take his word.) That he has been feeling more and more that he wants to be alone. That he has forgotten the initial attraction. He realized how crap it has been for me and he realized the dynamics of him being a bit of an ass and ignoring me. I know that I have been annoying him, but it is either that or be left out tin the cold completely. I have become more needy because I havn’t be getting anything from him.

Last night when we talked about this and now when I am writing I feel that my heart is being ripped out of my stomach. It hurts that he doesn’t want to give me a chance. That other people can see positive things in me, but he can’t. That he is not even really willing to try. We decided not to break up, but I wonder if it’s the right choice. I don’t think he is in the right place to love someone right now. I’m in a very vulnerable position right now – do I give it my all (like a want to ) to just face embarrassment, look like a desperate person. To do this I have to act as if I didn’t just have my heart ripped from my stomach. But the thing is I can only do this if he is willing to try, to reciprocate. Last night I had a feeling that he would, but today I wonder.

We were talking about the lies we tell our self in order to enter a relationship at all. He suggested that you treat relationships like it was the last day of it. Meaning that always give it your all with out fear of rejection and so on. The thing is I usually do this (hense the lies that we tell ourself) but it is going to be hard to continue to do that if he is not going to give me anything back.

God my heart hurts.

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