august 14th

[prismaticbleed]

 

All right. I need to stop slacking off. There won't be a bridge unless I build it. Things won't heal unless I sincerely start the process.
Even if the current mental situation is making life very tiring and tricky on the inside, even if it's threatening to hollow me out dry and bloodless, I'm not lost. I'm alive. I'm somehow, blessedly, still holding on to hope and love, even when I don't understand it.

Nighttime is a sign from God. Every evening the veils start to fade, quietly and softly, like gauze curtains slipping away into a foggy evening. And even if my brain still won't accept anything, I can feel people nearby, within, around. I see their faces, I hear their voices. Even with doubt and anger screaming, even with apathy suffocating, it cannot be denied. Just like Genesis said. It's somehow one of my biggest saving graces... this damned constant faith in others. Yes, it can lead me straight to hell. But it also prevents me from lying to my own face when I know something is real, in my heart of hearts. I can try, sure. But it won't work. The instant something appears, it's unquestionable. The tangible truth of it is too powerful, too awe-inspiring.
Every night when I lie down to drift off to sleep, there's a constant. I might not always see my boss, he's busy at night of course. I might not see Minty, if there's no need for her to assist. But the second my awareness switches to upstairs, without fail, Laurie is sitting there by the bed and CZ is lying beside me. Every night. Every single night for as long as I can remember. And it's beautiful, and it breaks my heart, because that is a constant and the love confessed in that single truth is more than I can bear on bad nights. No matter how much of a scumbag I may convince myself that I am, no matter how mercilessly I butcher my own hopes and dreams and memories, no matter how full of doubt and despair I may be, that constancy silently and gently brushes all that aside.

Xenophon was hanging around with me for most of the morning yesterday. We went picking blackberries with Genesis, and then I told her to stay because I missed her being and her company. It's funny, how I still struggle with the whole "am I a father or not" thing and yet when she calls me one, I accept that with total happiness. I don't mind. I love her, I want to care for her as much as I can. And I realized then, driving home with her eating berries in the front seat of the car, looking out over the mountains of clouds covering the valley beyond, that I wanted this sort of life. I wanted to be her father, to have her around the house, to live in simple peace and joy with our extended inner family, to share these little golden moments and treasure every second of the day. I wanted that so much, and the only reason why I kept denying that was because how rarely do we have this? When I spend my physical life wracked by ridiculous outer concerns and physical family stress, when I let it get to me, how can I possibly split realities at all times?
But God please I WANT to, I want to balance BOTH worlds, I want to live the daily life this body needs without sacrificing the heartbreakingly true inner world of my soul, of our souls. I want to bridge the gap forever. I want unity. I don't want to split realities, to ignore one for the other. I don't want to be forced to turn a blind eye to the people I adore because "the daily grind" is starting to wear my bones down to sawdust. I don't want to care at all about that anymore. I miss the glittering days when I didn't.
Why did I ever listen to the doubt, to the hatred, to the shame and guilt? Was it just too powerful? Was I just too weak, for just too long?
I've been tossed about for too long. It's an avalanche. And the worst part is that I believed them when they told me I deserved to be buried under this ice, that it was the right thing for me, that it was better to feel nothing but frozen empty wastelands in my chest. I believed them because I was terrified that disobeying would kill me. And now look at me.

On Saturday, I ended up in furious frightened tears for two hours once nightfall hit, trying to explain to my grandmother why I was such a mess. I told her how for years, I've been obeying every "order" thrown at me left and right, typically from "holy" sources or claimants. Do this, do that, don't do this, obey me or else, obedience until death, trust me without question, do as you are told. And sure, some of it is good advice, but that's what makes it so terrifying. If someone tells you to blindly follow them, to never question them, because they are the "voice of God," what do you do? What do you do if they're right? Because I get that to some extent on the outside, passively-- all the conflicting, sometimes hypocritical "new age" and "spiritual" articles that claim to know exactly what I should be doing and feeling and thinking now, and which I feel powerless to 'disobey' due to moral paranoia-- but it's never louder than it is with those godforsaken "floating voices," the ones outside my head. They all sound the same, they talk the same, they have admitted lying to me and toying with me-- "we were just testing you"-- and they all insist that if I don't listen to them, "I'll regret it." I'll pay dearly for it. Sometimes they say they'll kill me if I don't listen, and in the worst cases, the psychosomatic consequences are scary enough to convince me (if only temporarily) that they weren't empty threats. Nevertheless, the problem is that they aren't going to lie or mess around all the time, or I'd pay them no mind. Most of the time they're right, even if they're right in cruel and demanding and angry ways. And so I learn to doubt my intuition. I learn to doubt my own logic and experience. I forget what it's like to make my own choices, to act on reason, to be discerning. No, now I just do as I'm told, because if I choose on my own, it's wrong. I'm too stupid, too lost, too corrupt to tell if I'm acting on whim or programming or actual good intentions. No, I can't know what's right on my own, they say! So listen to us, or you'll be sorry.
Laurie gets pissed off at them. If she shows up-- which is terrifyingly hard to do now, as the 'floating voices' operate on a completely different level from headspace-- they run. Always. What does that tell you? And no, I don't want to hear more lies from the doubts telling me "it's just a level switch!" You awful voices sound just like the cruelest, most vicious people on our level, and I can't believe I still listen to you. I'm just scared. But guess what? When Laurie shows up, when she and the rest of our System help me choose what actions to take, when we have free will to work from, then I don't care even if I DO "mess up" because we TRIED. We did our best and we LEARNED. With you people, that doesn't happen. With you, there is no learning from mistakes. There's only obedience and punishment. I'm on to you. I don't want to deal with your noise anymore, not when your claims of spiritual authority carry no love whatsoever, and never did, and never will. Don't lie to me. I will gladly, GLADLY, go back to a life full of chance and uncertainty, if it means I can live a life full of love as well. I will deal with the struggles of our System with total gratitude because I love them, ALL of them, for contributing to our completion, to our growth. The only thing that's ever been "absolutely, unquestionably pure" up here is the damned Plague and it is an incorrigible liar. You CAN have too much 'good.' You CAN. And you are calcifying me. You are freezing my feet to the ground and telling me that this static bleached-out life is heaven, is true progress. You're a LIAR.
This is why Infinitii's been quiet, isn't it? You're terrified of hir, just like you're terrified of Laurie, but you keep trying to kill them. You keep trying to hurt them, AND Chaos, and I will not stand for that. Just try me. Being good does not mean standing by and letting people be trampled just because you swore up and down that it was "God's will," that it was "predestined," that it was "the higher good." Don't lie to me. Don't TOUCH them. You will not be allowed to continue with this. There is a force greater than you that will balance this out, a force that I am NOT separate from, that I CAN hear and feel WITHOUT you acting as the middleman. I don't need you. I don't. And this is terrifying to say, I am scared to death that I'm blaspheming here, but if I have to choose between the heaven you offer and the supposed 'hell' of headspace, then God I am sorry but I cannot conceive of a heaven where such genuine love would be excluded or damned. I can't. I'll side with the black heart I was born with because it's full of stars.

Sorry. That's what Saturday night was like, actually. I just spilled it all out.
I'm so tired of feeling puppeteered. I'm so tired of feeling like I CAN'T say no, or act on my own judgment. And most of all, I loathe feeling like I cannot act without checking everyone else's opinion first. I've been reading spiritual websites daily since I thought the world was ending in 2011, and I am tired. Is that a "sin" to say? I don't know. Yes, there is some beautiful advice and pointers on those sites. I don't mind following that. But now, where I feel like I HAVE to read 20+ articles a day, to the point where I can't remember any of it anymore, or tell it apart, or reconcile the conflicting authors and messages... it's hellish, ironically. And if I may use such a strong word, I hate feeling like I have to go through THAT in order to know anything about what I "should" be doing spiritually.
That's the core problem here. It's the childhood conviction that I cannot personally reach "God." We've discussed this, but I'm reiterating it, because lessons will repeat until you've learned them and this one isn't over yet. It's this false programmed belief that I must adhere to ritual and rite, to the orders of parents and priests, or else God will reject me. It's utterly untrue, and yet it was reinforced so often, and so strongly, sometimes to traumatic extremes... it has deep roots. Fear that raw is hard to scrape away.
I CAN learn and know everything I've ever read on those spiritual sites. This archive is proof of that. The way people react to me is proof of that, and I'm not saying that to be proud, that is a fact. Whenever I speak of my own volition and humility to others, they don't tell me I'm evil or wrong or stupid or naive! Instead they say I am inspiring, or otherwise a point of light in my own right. I still cannot seem to accept that, because those devil voices keep demanding otherwise. I really need to just bite the bullet and ignore them for a while. But yeah, constant reinforcement that "I need THEIR knowledge to live, because I CAN'T get that on my own!" Dude I had an accomplished clairvoyant tell me that I had latent powers that could rival hers and I STILL won't accept it. Why? Simply because it was said to me. It's nonsense. It's a false loop. I need to start actively saying positive things instead of listing the negative like this. Attention is powerful. I'll try to make this the last discussion of that negative side... I should really start keeping a sort of daily journal on paper where I do nothing but write down positive things about myself. That'll take guts, but hey, I know more than enough people inside who can help me out. That's humbling, more than anything else right now.

...Spotify just tossed me some synchronicity, that was actually a huge surprise.
"Too much of heaven can bring you underground. Heaven can always turn around. Too much of heaven, a life and soul hell bound. Heaven, the killer makes no sound."
I haven't heard that tune in years, and honestly I almost skipped it before I realized what it was.
But yeah, I need to be careful. Any extreme holds its opposite within itself, and any floating voice that furiously insists that it is acting on God's will needs to be looked at with serious discretion. I need to learn to trust myself. When I can do that, when I can stop attributing all good choices to other people, when I can stop denying or doubting or erasing my own true feelings... well, that'll be our biggest obstacle gone at long last.


Now let's talk about something a little more optimistic.
I started testosterone last Friday, so in 12 hours it'll be a full week on that. It's almost surreal, for this to finally be a reality! But... honestly that's been the biggest impetus for everything lately, good and bad.
Do I have time to write about that tonight? Maybe I'll wait until tomorrow... the past two therapy sessions have been painful as hell but they've also been incredibly informative. I'm sorry for not typing about them yet but depression has made it tough.
So yeah, remind me tomorrow if I forget. That's a massive topic and it deserves more time than I can give it at this hour.
Anyway, one week on T. As for changes, well, I've noticed that all my shirts now stick to my shoulders, haha. Honestly this stuff is like flypaper until it dries and it never fully does, but I think it's hilarious so I don't mind too much. Even better, because of that, I literally have to wear this mint-colored lacy camisole whenever I put the medicine on. I do that on purpose. Queer it up as much as possible, hehehe. But yeah, that top doesn't stick to it so it's cool.
In all seriousness though, today during mass I noticed (with a bit of an amazed shock) that my voice already feels different. The lowest note of my vocal range is sticking around past the early morning, and when I do sing it no longer 'strains' to hit lower notes in general. My voice feels smoother, if that makes sense? It's getting a different tonal quality, something thicker and more velvety than the fiery-bright tones of the feminine voice (Jewel's thing, obviously). Either way I'm excited to see how this plays out. Gonna be great.

Really though, it is late. I have so much cool stuff to tell you guys but I will do that tomorrow, as I said.
I also plan on buying two heads of lettuce from the farmer's market, and buying issue #3 of The Sandman:Overture if possible. Yes, the first two issues ended up being massively relevant, thank you universe for leading me to those!

...I just realized that I've been taking life far too seriously over the past several months. That's not healthy either.
Genesis, dude, consider yourself on full-time BFF duty. You help me loosen up and I need that. (Plus do spend more time in the room with everyone else at night, we keep wondering where you are.)

On that note, I'm off to revisit that neverending constancy of love and hope. See you later.