Posted by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) in Eden Café- A Lunch Catch-Up

Posted by Civilian Kenzo B’tren-Hyrushi (Governor) in Eden Café- A Lunch Catch-Up

Posted by Captain Eela Dasca (Lt. Governor) in Eden Café- A Lunch Catch-Up
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Kenzo nodded in understanding. “You have a firm.grasp of yourself right now, Eela… despite the instability you have encountered. That is very… impressive. And I am pleased to see you navigate these waters with such aplomb. A better leader for the colony I can’t think of.” he said with a half-smile. “However the futures moves you… be that Roger, Mr. Jones, or some as of yet to be named entity… I sincerely wish you the best. But no matter what happens… you are not allowed to quit. I am afraid you are here for the duration.” and he chuckled.

Kenzo

“Till death do us part?” she deadpanned with a quirked brow. A joke, yes, but it was both a recognition of the danger they joked about plus knowing that Oed had captured her heart and she didn’t see herself living anywhere else, even when her time as Lieutenant Governor was up.

“Be that in fifty years or fifty seconds from now. You are… stuck… with me.” and he, finally, gave her a full smile, however brief it was.

She chuckled.

Eela inhaled deeply and let that breath out with a sigh. “You know, as frustrating as it is that I have those psychology degrees and years of experience as a therapist and I couldn’t see the signs of what was happening, it’s all proving very useful in this… aftermath. It doesn’t make me feel better or make it less painful, but I can look objectively at the situation and see the variables and consequences. And yet, I also know that my connection to others is the one thing truly helping me find a way forward. Having you, and everyone else, supporting me, holding me up when it’s just too damn hard has been so important. It’s made a difference, so just know how grateful I am and how much it means to me,” she said, her warm smile matching her deep affection for the man before her.

~Eela

Kenzo shrugged slightly and said “Professionally, you and I both know that proximity is detrimental to objectivity. You didn’t fail in seeing the behaviors, Eela. You were too close to be able to have perspective. You weren’t ‘wrong’… you were simply too involved in it to be objective. That isn’t your fault… objectivity is one thing we must sacrifice when we devote ourselves fully to another. Yet another reason that, for individuals like us, it is a scary thing to do.”

Kenzo

“Betrayal blindness,” she said, before sipping the last of her lemonade. “It’s a safety mechanism, and it’s hard not to do after forty years, but that’s why I have a therapist,” she said with a bitter chuckle. When her hazel eyes lifted again to her friend, Eela felt the strange weight but also relief of Roger’s revelation. “The fight going forward is for me to trust myself around others, to not second-guess every action and decision. Because, as Roger pointed out, consider how much my ex had to have hidden his true self from me and how much deception there really had be to hide from an empath and touch-telepath. And now I’m in this role here where perception really does matter and…” She shook her head. He understood, of that Eela was certain. “It’s so hard, Kenzo. I’m trying to be my authentic self, whomever that is, and trying to protect myself at the same time. At it does sometimes feel like those two things are at odds with each other.”

~Eela

Kenzo let feelings of understanding and sympathy and care wash over her as he said “Because they most often are. To protect ourselves we have to close off parts of us. Build walls around the vulnerable places. With those walls in place, we cannot be our entire selves. It is a balance that is hard to find and harder to maintain.”

Kenzo

She nodded, even if there was a frustration that she couldn’t entirely name. “And that is why reclaiming my cultural identity is so hard. Haliians don’t have those walls with each other. Certainly we respect boundaries, but at our core was want to share that core identity with others. And having slowly but surely hidden that away for so long, I’ve gone quite the opposite, almost to spite Cory. And that can be dangerous too.” She shook her head and laughed, despite herself. “No one said this process was going to be tidy, that’s for damn sure.”

~Eela

“The most efficient way to assemble a puzzle is to ensure you can see all the pieces.” he said and finished his drink. “You have emptied the box. Spreading the pieces around to see them clearly is a solid first step.”

Kenzo

She gave him a rueful smile. “If only I could. Unfortunately, when you’ve been deceived and gaslit for forty years, I don’t even know if I have all the pieces yet. And even if I did, it can actually be more harmful to deal with it all at once.” Eela tilted her head and gazed up slightly as she pondered. “The way I am seeing this process is that we are tackling one piece at a time, and we look for the next obvious adjoining piece. Sometimes we’ll pick up a piece that I can’t find a spot for or is too much much to deal with just then. So we set it aside and come back to it later. Often when we are more clear about other ares, the more difficult ones become easier to manage. What we don’t want is to overwhelm me so much that I shut down and halt the processing. But… if we are to talk more generally about seeing things clearly, I know what I am dealing with now.”

Eela paused and took a steadying breath. She had gotten part-way with Roger, but now she knew (for her own well being and healing) that she had to take this next step and say the actual words. Other had said them, but not her. Not once. It had been too much to fathom. “I don’t know if Cory is a diagnosable narcissist or just someone with narcissistic tendencies, but he was emotionally abusive. Mostly to me, but I suspect his subtle brand of control affected others as well. I was the scapegoat in the family, and he used the children against me, which, while I have an amazing relationship with my daughter, has sadly meant that my adult son hasn’t spoken to me in two years other than a few basic exchanges at Caridee’s baby shower. And I know that not all that is about me and Cory, but whatever else is going on in his life, all I could do was let him know I am here for him whenever he’s ready. But that was seven months ago and he hasn’t contacted me since I left Earth. So as much I want to, he might be one of those pieces I can’t pick up.” It was one of the more painful parts of the whole thing, because she could hold onto that beautiful time in their lives when her and Jourin bonded truly and properly for the first time.

~Eela

Kenzo was quiet a moment and then he said “Well, not having children I cannot speak to the difficulties your relationship ship with your son bring… but I do know this place. Oed has a penchant for bringing people together. I see no reason to believe it will not exercise it’s talents in that arena for you and he.”

Kenzo