Monthly Archives: July 2021

Sentimentality

I do something bone numbingly stupid. I hold on to every card, letter, thank you note, holiday letter… all of them. They are in a box. It’s not a small box. I appear to have lost some of the ones from very early in my life (unless they are somehow buried at the bottom of the box I think of as “Noah’s stuff). Well… and I burned my dad’s suicide note.

This is a stupid thing to do. It’s stupid for a whole bunch of reasons but chiefly because scanning through these things causes me pain. I fucked up so many relationships. I hurt people. I made choices that horrify or embarass me. I lost people that I didn’t want to lose due to my selfishness and my unkindness and my anger.

And I keep this box to remind me that if you fuck up there are consequences. If I run my mouth or think too highly of my opinion… there are consequences. If I put myself out there and let people know what I really think it may result in the severing of ties I don’t want to sever. Better to shut my fucking mouth and bite my tongue and pretend everything is fine even when it isn’t.

It’s the price.

What is a witch?

Recently a little girl told me that all witches are ugly and old and have green skin. Hm. I’ve been thinking a lot about what being pagan means to me lately. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to manifest in this life. I believe that magic is focusing your intention and your will on making something real. I don’t think it has to be about repeating prescribed words or chants that someone else made up. I honestly don’t see much point in following someone else’s path, even as I read books that other people write about their paths.

I think the painting is part of it for me. I often think of it in terms of creating the background setting as if I was creating a theatre set. All the world’s a stage and all the people are but players. (I don’t believe in a binary of genders so the original quote doesn’t seem so fitting.) I am shaping how people see me. I am shaping who people perceive me to be. It matters to me. I put as much effort into this as someone else would put into a spell. I want to draw the right people to me.

Sobonfu told me to make my own community as I will never belong in one that other people have made. I need a place to invite that community. I need a space where people will feel the force of my will and feel influenced without me even having to say anything. If I have to say something then I have missed a window. I have missed an opportunity.

I don’t know how many opportunities I have left in this life. Everytime you miss a window you change the course of your future. You change what opportunities will fall into your lap in the future. There are limits to what any person can accomplish. I know that I will hit limits. I just don’t want to miss opportunities that might be well within my limits.

It feels like it matters so much.

It’s the waning crescent moon. The end of the cycle. Time to let things go, but what? It’s almost time to think about new beginnings again. Oh golly. I don’t know what to let go of nor what to start. So much happening. So many balls in the air. How can I narrow my focus to be more effective? Right now I am spread in so many different directions that I hardly know what to change nor how I will manage.

I know that tomorrow will involve maths, breakfast and a visit with friends, then painting. Friday is a park date with homeschoolers then more painting. My arm is only a little sore. My hand isn’t even numb. Surely that means I am ready for more work. I really want this part of the hallway done.

I really want all of the high stuff done so I can go back to working at reasonable heights with a step ladder. There is no way to get to the other side but to go through. I can do it. I will do it. It will feel good to be done on so many levels. All it takes to get through is doing many more hours of work.

Now that’s magic I can embrace.

Limitations

What does it mean to live in a place? For most of my life I lived more in a general geographic area than in a place. Then I had my time in Fremont–nearly 13 years. I spent a lot of time in Fremont but I still spent a lot of time leaving Fremont. I traveled around the world while living there. I probably missed well over a year of being in the city in that time with all the trips added up. When I was there, depending on the year, I spent a lot of time driving south or north or west to spend most of my waking hours with other people. I was not content in my skin or in my place in the community.

I feel a bit like a ping pong ball here in this small town. I want to pop out and learn more about the community. I want to get to know people. I am someone who likes to know everyone and so far I know precious few. But I also want to spend an awful lot of time at home. I want to paint and garden and learn how to sew and cook and bake and take care of chickens. An awful lot of my push to go out into the community stems from feeling like I have to create a network for the kids. I don’t know how much I want it for myself. I can’t even tell because it is all mixed up.

I am afraid of looking for community for me. I know that the self I am allowed to bring with me here is a carefully edited version. I know that I have to mask my difficulties and challenges as much as possible and when I can’t mask I need to go home. I have challenges and they have to be utterly invisible. I really suck at that and things leak out. Then people feel uncomfortable and it is my fault.

I am afraid of trying to making friends. I know I have Jenny. We are figuring out how the size and shape of boundaries needs to work between us so we can maintain this relationship that is very important to both of us. I love her so much and I don’t want to wreck everything.

I feel like I always wreck everything.

Do I fear abandonment? Enh… not exactly. The funny thing is: you can do a fearsome amount of damage to a person and a relationship and they still won’t abandon you. They will keep coming around year after year because there is something they get there that they feel they need. People submit to being hurt long after they should just walk away because their fear of being alone is far greater than their sense of indignation in putting up with someone who wrecks everything.

People are weird.

I don’t fear being alone. I fear being the source of pain. I fear being the one that someone hears in their head when they feel bad about themself. The trouble with being a highly reflective mirror that shows people who they are is… reflected sunlight can burn. It can burn all the way to the bone.

I fear causing damage that cannot be fixed while creating a bond that means someone will never want to walk away from me. I don’t leave because I’m running away before you do. I leave because I know you won’t and someone has to think you don’t deserve to be treated that way.

Which is ego, right?

I always come back to Karen laughing when I said I had low self esteem. It wasn’t a chuckle or a soft laugh, no it was a full belly guffaw. “You have the highest self esteem of anyone I have ever met.” Damn. That doesn’t sound like a compliment. I do have an incredibly high sense of what I will accept from people. It’s not even that I feel like “I deserve better” so much as I am not going to put myself into a position where I am going to explode and I know what makes me explode.

I’m tired of exploding. I want a smaller life.

I wrote a letter today; my first one in a long time. This wonderful lady has written me so many letters since I moved she outpaces all other mail from everyone else. I talked about my garden because it is clearly very important to me. I am stunned by the sheer variety of plants in my yard and I have not yet catalogued them nor grown to understand them fully. (Apparently one fucker is connected to tics with Lyme disease?! Ok I don’t like the poky thorns that much anyway.)

What do I want to share of myself going forward? I am not defined by where I was nor what happened to me. I am what I do. I cultivate a garden. I work hard at reducing my impact on the earth. I try hard to be creative and possibly even inspiring. I invite people into my little world as much as I can. I have to share what I have to share.

I want to be a positive force in people’s lives. Maybe it will happen and maybe it won’t. All I can do is try. I have to work within my own limitations.

I want to be done painting by November. If I could be done with all the indoor painting by then it would be absolutely fantastic. That’s 17 weeks. If I could manage 20 hours a week on average that would give me 340 hours of work.

All I’ve got to say is thank fucking goodness I am mostly done with the evil ladder work. A little bit is still to go high up but it’ll pass quickly. I have faith. I hope that all the evil high stuff will be done in another 10 hours. I think I’m 48 hours into the hallway. That totally discounts the time I put into the kid doors during the last big round of painting. But hey. Gotta just count from somewhere.

I’m running into the limits of my body and the patience of my little Shortie. She is so damn done. But on we press.

There is no way out except for through. If I get the painting done this year then I can just… leave it be. I won’t have more of that project hanging over my head. That sounds so absolutely lovely. Then gardening and baking and cooking and sewing can become my projects. Chickens. I want to sit around and read in the yard.

And lots of fully functional bathrooms. Woo.