Deep breath...find serenity...

         Last night my dog killed a snake in the backyard. Or, at least I think it was a snake; it was dark and the security light switched itself off while I was trying to see what was going on. Which was really handy because to make it turn back on I would have had to walk past where the apparent snake murder was taking place to wave at the sensor. Brilliant. I elected to instead stand on the doorstep screaming at Bowie to "COME INSIDE YOU STUPID %^$&*@! DOG" (I was panicking). (I later apologised and restored his 'good boy' status). (I don't think he cared either way; he was just excited to have met a new friend).

           Anyway it was very quick and frenzied; he slammed the alleged snake against the garage a few times and then bit it in half. And then ate the portion he was holding while I took turns screaming at him and gagging. Lovely. The other half was still moving....ew... I locked up the back door and wore ug-boots all night, even though it was the hottest night we've had this summer, because snakes are not one of my favorite things, and there have been a few of them found in people's yards and homes around here lately, and I get super creeped out about it. There is a sale-yard across the road (sheep and cows), a zillion feral cats and a creek running under our street so, yeah. If I was a snake I'd probably hang around here in the summer too. The thing is, the snakes we get in my part of the world are not benign; they're mostly really venomous so as a general rule, if you see one, the suggested course of action is to have a complete nervous breakdown and then never go outside again. Or walk quickly in the other direction and stamp at it if it tries to chase you.... One or the other, I can never remember which. 

        Bored and alone, I posted about it on facebook, "I think the dog just killed a snake outside, I'm not going out there to check until its light though". My brother told me the snake would get me when I was asleep (thanks dude) and my grandmother told him that it was actually making its way to his place, and would be waiting for him in the garden, and so on and on they went in the inimitable style of my people. By the time I went to bed, there was apparently an entire army of vengeful snakes making it's way to my brother's home. I retired secure in the knowledge that everything was absolutely normal in my family.

      I was woken circa 3am by 2 drunk men on the doorstep looking for 'Debbie". I didn't think to ask them if Debbie was, perchance, a snake. I worried about them for a while (was it innocent or nefarious Debbie-seeking they were doing? Were they going to break in now, having ascertained that I was probably home alone? Or break into my car? And so on....) So all in all it was a calm, peaceful night here. I finally slept when it began to get light, like a scared little kid, lol. 

       I slept late and woke up to frantic messages and missed calls from my grandmother (who had decided that the half a snake really had come inside and eaten me during the night, and also wanted to know if my dog was OK, bless her) and then a call from my mother. This is where my serenity began to leak out of my ears and congeal in a puddle on the floor.

       "So how do you know it was a snake last night? Did you take a picture?" (Well luckily, mother, although we all know I can't trust my own eyes, ears and senses, I just happened to have a team of zoologists with me and they identified it for me. 'That long, writhing, legless thing that went hiss? Yes madam, I believe what we just saw was in fact what is known in the zoology bizz-niss as a snake").

      She asked me where it was now. I told her, the dog ate half of whatever it was and the other half was gone so I would never really know. Something else probably took during the night as I don't think anything survives being bitten in half. Unless it was some kind of absofreakinglutely huge earth-worm...which is what I was starting to feel like after a few minutes of this conversation.

"So you have no proof".

          This is where I started to feel really upset. Why do I need proof? And who do I need to prove it to? The facebook police? What the hell, why must she always question everything I say and make me doubt what I saw/experienced? Which of course I am now doing. I probably didn't really see it. I might have imagined it. It might have been a stick. Maybe I don't even HAVE a dog. Or a backyard. Maybe I'm actually hallucinating all of this from my bed in a mental institution. That's how I feel after these conversations, to be honest. Like that's a quite realistic possibility- much more likely than me simply observing things with the same accuracy as other human beings do and then having a conversation about it.

       And see, now I am thinking "well as you are writing this people will probably assume that you tell lots of lies and/or you really are crazy and that's why your mother is doubting you like this".  There's this whole cascade effect taking place and it really makes me feel revolting. I'm going to resist the urge to JADE because, it shouldn't even matter. Imagining what people think of me...and then feeling defensive about it...yeah, when it comes to that I DO have an overactive imagination and I probably AM crazy. So shut up, imagination. You're doing that thing we talked about.

      Next up, I checked face-book, and my stepdad has announced to the world (well, my facebook friends anyway) that he wants photographic evidence that it was a snake. What the hell? I was wearing shorts and no shoes at the time, and I didn't want to go anywhere near it.

But wait, now I remember what the official "What To Do If You See A Snake" pamphlets say. "If you see a snake, take off your shoes, and long pants too, if you are wearing them, and then get as close as you can and take pictures. Remember to use a flash if it is dark".  

         Step-dad says things like this a lot and it really, really triggers me because even if I try really, really hard I cannot recall a time, even as a child, when I invented something or was caught in any kind of serious untruth. Oh, well hell, when I was like 5 I begged him not to cut down a tree because fairies lived in it. My parents insisted that Santa was real (in spite of my disbelief) until I was far beyond puberty so, you know. All's fair. Maybe this is all payback for not believing them about the Santa thing. Or, actually, more likely, he does it because I went to him crying when I was a kid and one of his very, very drunk family members groped and tried to kiss me at a party. He didn't believe me then, and, that could be why he is so determined to discredit and disbelieve me now. I actually just thought of this...and it seems likely. Ha. Glorious elucidation. I've obsessed on it until arriving at an arbitrary conclusion as to why someone behaves the way that they do. That's some impressive detaching right there.

        Working out what he thinks and why is counter-productive; I should just let go but it bugs me to pieces nonetheless. Several years ago my washing machine exploded and mother sent him over to fix it. It happened again a few days later and he asked me, angrily, if I had sabotaged it on purpose to get attention. I think it was the most mortifying thing anyone has ever said to me; I didn't speak to him for a long time afterwards and resolved to not ask him for help under any circumstances. I still feel this horrible shameful feeling thinking about it and it's crazy; I was caring for a baby and my washing machine exploded and flooded the house twice; it was a bloody nightmare. The very idea that I would have done it on purpose is so weird and icky and wrong. Anyway the bottom line is, his comments trigger me in a major way. And they ought not.

         It's amazing how utterly full of shame this makes me feel; clearly if they doubt me, then my perceptions must be wrong- I either made it up or I'm crazy, or both. It's the inevitable conclusion I have always arrived at. I'm angry at myself for letting this upset me, for going into JADE mode and for doubting myself. I thought we had moved past that. ("We" being myself and my HP; I'm not referring to myself as "we" because I in fact have several personalities and one of them is the Pope of Rome, or maybe the Queen. If that's what you were thinking).

You know, it strikes me as very sad. Every time something interesting (good or bad) has happened through the course of my life, all of the focus has been on "proving" that it happened and then being convinced that it didn't really, or at least not the way I thought it did... instead of whatever the actual event was. You know what I think is important? The dog is ok (aside from the gas he is producing after whatever it was that he ate half of. THAT is absolutely noxious) and I reached out for conversation in the middle of the night because something happened that freaked me out. Why is that not the end of this semi-interesting event? Why is there now a trial? What end does it serve? Why am I participating? And doubting myself?

        Gah. I'm glad I understood this damaging dynamic a long time ago and that I resolved to never force my own child to doubt her own experiences this way. I know kids exaggerate at times but I let her navigate that instead of grilling her and making her doubt herself so much that she no longer trusts that anything she sees or experiences is real. That's a good take-away. Now I need to give that same respect and care to myself. 

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK OF ME IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS. THAT'S IT AND THAT'S ALL!!!!

Thanks for reading.

(((everyone)))