Memories of Sand

This is a good perspective to consider, thank you! The thing is that wherever I work I tend to suppress all the things that are Me in order to Do The Job. I am but a cog in the machine, and that's one of the reasons that I find it humorous that people like me and want to be friendly with me - because I'm so Not Me when I'm there and I don't know if they'd care about Actual Me.

A lot of people are helping to hook me up with work-related things right now, and I just feel like I don't deserve their help. I have been in a funk the last few weeks of I am too tired to do anything important to me. And now I have the brain weasels asking the very important question: "Are people ever going to like you when you're too drained to be bubbly and cheery, much less a Productive Member of Society?" Thanks, brain weasels. Thaaaaanks.

Oooh I have a bowl of vegan mac and peas to eat! Yesssss

That was yummy.

So, right now I am conserving energy to go to a lovely tea store and then to a party to meet friend's friends. I don't know how to be my normal bubbly self without conserving energy. I'm not sure I can do it. Another thing I've been realizing while I'm here is that I'm so used to tip-toeing around my apartment: not talking to the people who live there because I don't want to have to deal with them and their problems and having to do all the emotional labor and chores. So here I'm doing similarly, just kind of going with the flow, not dealing with what I want because I suppress those desires when I'm home.

I'm not sure whether I'm ready to move away. But I sure am ready to have space of my own.

I had a pretty amazing weekend, although I think it's more a "gotta write in my paper journal" weekend than a "write about in DW" weekend. I found out a lot about other people that is helping me to be more vulnerable, things I need to write about to process, but those are not my stories to tell. Better to tell privately.

The things I am learning about myself are:

• Practicing being vulnerable with people is a good thing.
• I can totally see myself with house spirits, just having to explain this to the housemates would be... difficult.
• It is actually okay to be vulnerable and open to people, and that there are still people who accept me as I am.
• Mayday is still a spiritual experience, and a place to watch and be vigilant.
• I need plants and growing things in my life.

These things are alllll over the place.

I want to thank everyone for the comments on my last (locked) entry. ♥ I'm still processing, and I think there will be more on the subject to come, once I've figured more of it out.

I am a kickass person who runs meetings and meets new people and works for the good of the planet! The more I say it, the easier it will be to believe?? (will someone love me for me and all my problems? even if I can't seem to make it in society's rules?)

That was my response to alwaysunami, who asked how people are doing on Facebook and I am trying harder and harder to convince myself that I have worth just by who I am and what that means. ( damn demons )

But, sometimes, a piece of my deepest, darkest truth comes free. alwaysunami told me that they had started singing Pharrell Williams's "Happy" in their mind while talking to me, then told me: "You resonate that song, even when you are sad." That being of light and love that I see when I close my eyes in a safe place, that is who I was, am, could be.

I just wish... You know, job hunting is still going, and I'm not sure why, because it's going so badly. Nobody wants me. Nobody.

Okay, I can't write anymore. I suppose this is one of the reasons it's so hard for me lately -- I don't want to face all the things. I can see the hole, I feel its edges pulling at me, but if I ignore it, if I just keep goinggoingoing don't stop, don't look, don't let it pull you in -- I'm close to the barrier between the hole and the real world, if I just send one more job app, do one more grassroots activist thing, get one more meal down... Someday, something will finally yank me to the other side, the side that's safe from the endless despair. Someday.

I flew as fast as I could to get away from YET MORE SNOW last week and ended up in California, cursing airlines and vowing not to travel again unless by train or teleporter (we'll see how long this lasts). California is wonderful; there's even a different quality to the light there. Life was blooming out there! I could go outside and run around and just... soak in that power and energy. It's wonderfully rejuvenating. I've gotten used to Minnesota's quiet power: hard to recognize until you've dug in your heels and forced it to look at you. California, on the other hand, is mighty: overawing you with mountains as far as you can see, powerful waves crashing into the shore to remind you that these forces are deadly. Such a different experience.

While I was there, my mom told me about her plan to give my brother her current car (which is newish and nice), then reminded me to pray to the Toyota gods about mine. Which I really should do with regularity, even though I'm not praying because it's falling apart but because it's 23 years old and it's holding itself together. You know in books and other media they keep praying that something holds itself together because it's at its last legs? Isn't that disrespectful? Sort of saying, "I don't believe in you until you show you're going to do something for me." But I believe that my car has made it this far without a problem, therefore I should show its founders the proper respect they deserve for creating for me a good, serviceable car that just keeps going. If I respect them now, wouldn't they be all the more willing to help me later?

And that train of thought while in the car (puns!) - well. I don't have a practice of praying to any gods. I haven't really figured out any kind of practice for me, actually. Not because I don't believe in the gods, but that I haven't found the ones or practice that speaks to me. And I thought, if I had an altar to my practice and my gods, would it be like the Wiccan where I devote myself to One Goddess and/or God? Or would it be like an ancient Roman one where I have my own household gods? Yep, household gods. There are spirits in all the things and like in Neil Gaiman's American Gods, we've elevated new things to the level of godhood - like Toyota. So, to be fair, if I were to set up an altar, shouldn't it be to Toyota and Its consorts, rather than to Hermes? Toyota is far more involved in my life, after all.

Who else would be on my altar, I asked myself then. (Because I do so hate to devote myself to one when they all have roles in my life.) Would there be a spirit to watch over my health and house? Or perhaps a god of career or creativity, to watch over those things. The ever-present Divine Selene to remind me of my ties to the dark and the moon, of course. Would Gaia, Mother of All, make her way into that altar, or would I find another, more-encompassing term for that power that rules over the Earth?

It almost became a challenge to myself. To create an altar in order to discover which gods are the most important to me. I wonder if I'll truly take myself up on it, and a voice in the back of my head rather would appreciate it if I do.

tl;dr: And this makes me wonder about others' practice: do you consider yourself spiritual? Do you have a practice that shows your respect to the Divine? How did you get to where you are, and are you happy there? What would you recommend to someone finally acknowledging that xe* needs more in xyr life than what xe has already?

* "Xe" referring to me or anyone reading this. I may be experimenting with neutral pronouns.