Dovetailing

The conversations I had last week were the culmination of many weeks' anger and confusion.

They weren't the result of these things.  But they were an almost too-tidy culmination of the effects of forty-four years' self-censorship, anger, fear, and hideous frustration.

I'm unaccustomed to living in a state of anger, so to find it in myself - as suddenly and overwhelmingly as I did, when it came - was confusing in the extreme.  I didn't understand its source - I understood its trigger - but not its roots, not the depths from which the anger sprang, and grew.  And so I had to search it out.

Erick's been the only person I could talk with about the full panoply of everything that went into last week.  He didn't even point the way; but just something about his brain works with and against my own in a way that seems to stimulate mine.  He makes me work in ways I could not, before I knew him.  And what that has given me, I'm so grateful for.



The harasser resigned this week.  He had another offer.  So I know this isn't the result of my painful decisions.

I still did the right thing.  He can't take that away from me.  It *is* a shame the next employer may be exposed to the risk his behavior represents (I know I was not the only person he upset).

But mine isn't.  And my employer is the one who matters - and not only to me.

And, however it dovetails - or absolutely doesn't - the risk is removed.

Not eliminated.  I'll pray about that part.

But removed, and from me.  Interesting, that.  I'll pray I don't take credit for it, but give thanksgiving anyway.