These abdominal concerns keep pushing me to take
serious time off. I can't help but wonder, now, if that's their purpose. It's forcing me to take a good, strong look at issues I otherwise would have brushed off or glanced over, justified or victimized.
I began to wonder, lying down again today, pushed into another hour of meditation. "Why did this start
now, why this bad all of a sudden?" Why did this literally seem to jump into gear right after I started T?
Then it hit me. What was one of the first quiet thoughts that ran to my head, holding that first tiny tube of testosterone in my hands?
"Well, soon I won't be a 'woman' anymore. I wonder what it's like to be one?" "I wonder... what exactly am I going to be 'leaving behind' with this?" And boom, it all jumped out of the woodwork like a frenzied
demon.
I'm feeling this really weird sort of thing right now. It's like glowing yellow anger, the sort of sharp-teeth spitting embers of a laugh that knows it could
burn, it SHOULD burn, and yet it is holding back only
because it is so goddamn
bitter. There's so much
pain. It wants to stop laughing, to blaze with justice, to be valiant golden truth, and yet deep in the back of its throat it is scared to raise its voice even for an instant because there are sobs crouching there, just as loud, just as demanding of attention.
Of course I respected and cared for women before. But now, now... I never really
felt like a female, you know. Or a male. I still don't; I'm somewhere between the two, feeling nervously helpless and indignantly angry because why do I feel forced to be either? Universal law doesn't split two and two as severely as we do. Universal law demands equality, balance, harmony. And yet we demand that you check either pink or blue, boy or girl, male or female.
It's almost funny how, in my 24 years, I never equated that with what was between your legs. Realizing that the great majority of the society I live in
does... it's an eye-opener, really. It's shocking. When I realize that, by virtue of my birth sex-- the fact that this body was given the biological equipment to build and then nourish life, whether or not I ever chose to utilize that-- a great many people are going to slap the "woman" label on me, completely and restrictively, it was a shock. I'd never really realized that before. Call it blind optimism, maybe. Call it culture clash, between my head and heart and what I was told on TV, in the papers, by my religion and family. But either way, I never felt like a
woman before, not as acutely as I have over this past month, ironically as my body began its slow shift towards masculinity. But perhaps it isn't so ironic. Cultural and global identities carry vibrations too... and what is this male energy holding? Control. Power. Disparagement, to a large extent. There's a muscle-bound, smug and glowering tightness to this "male" word, to this identity, and I don't like it. I don't like it at
all, especially not when it's got its hands clamped around a metal collar, and that collar is snapped around the neck of my female identity, bent at his feet. It makes me
angry. So. This stuff is being dealt with. It's so weird... it's my piece of this collective pain consciousness, and I must heal it within myself. I cannot change every other soul out there, although I feel indebted to, although I feel obligated too. But that's part of this as well.
As a female, as a 'woman,' a term I embrace in its temporary yet true accuracy... this is what is coming to the forefront.
1. The powerful and infuriating feeling that my body is public property
2. The equally enraging conviction that I must be the world's servant, obedient and never questioning
3. The related belief that I am not allowed to have or express an opinion; doing so would be selfish and obtrusive
4. The feeling that I am inherently sexual, manipulative, tempting, and spiteful, even against my will
5. And lastly, most strangely, our past personal history of abuse and forced invasion from
other women, convincing me that I had no choice but to emulate them in such behavior. This is where most of the pain is centered.
I want to reiterate once more, before I elaborate on that... I love being feminine. I do, it's great. I'm not a
girl, I could never be a woman, but feminine energy fits me. Becoming a 'male' on the outside will not change that...
should not change that. This louder outside energy is trying to challenge that, and
that's feminism too, this feeling of ire at the total, insane condemnation of the female
entity, in all of its forms. Pardon my language but it
pisses me off, now more than ever.
Anger is a strange feeling. It's a new feeling. It's too, too close to the slow burn of red malignance, and the manic yellow shrieks of wanton violence. And it was forbidden for years, from these same issues. Bury your anger, we were told. It's unladylike. It's rude. You have no right, bla bla bla. Getting over the
guilt that feeds this same anger is tricky. Why do we feel
guilty for defending our basic human dignity, our inherent rights to respect? WHY?
"Her"-nia. Go figure. It's funny, sure, but in a world where veins are rivers and walnuts are brains, where the microcosm mirrors the macrocosm, I've long since stopped being surprised when similarities jump up in the most "unlikely" places.
That thing won't go away and every time I dip into meditation and
feel it, there's just
crying. It's always just this girl, moaning in tears, shouting "don't touch me," incapacitated by hysteric, gasping sobs. Loud wails of helpless protest, of stricken terror, of despairing anger. She's
hurt and I haven't been able to figure out
why, there are too many tangled threads, there is
too much pain here. But every day I get closer. Every day the pain and humiliation kicks me down on my back, and I am face-to-face with her again, raging with her wet eyes and throat full of rusty nails. She's tired, she's furious, and she hates herself for it. She doesn't deserve this. She wants relief more than anything-- and so do I, but I've come to realize that relief will only come through
healing... through
compassion. Fighting, strangling, hating, all of that will not "kill the enemy." It only puts more poison into the wound. She was never taught otherwise, she was only taught to step on her own face... taught that the enemy was
herself, even when someone else had a gun to her head.
"You brought this upon yourself." And I have to be the one to offer her the first hand, saying,
"No you didn't." But I don't fully believe that yet, either. This isn't just her battle. It's mine, too.
There was a time when I
hated everything feminine. It's true. It breaks my heart to admit that, but it breaks even more to admit-- with biting regret-- that part of me
still does. Ironically, that part is not Jessica.
I must apologize to her. Her name kept getting tied to the wrong sort of self-hatred and I feel too many people, myself included, looked at her through a darkly negative lens for far too long. She was never a perpetrator, not actively. She was a victim, through and through, and that ballooned into an ugly and violent self-loathing that
sparked the negative perpetrators later. But Jessica was
hurt, first and foremost. Hurt people hurt people. So I must lift that heavy bough of condemnation off her back, off
everyone's back, where it does not belong.
Jessica holds all the female pain,
separate from the feeling of
being a female (that's mostly Lynne's job still). She's also separate from headspace, so her issues are grounded in physical reality, in the body. Jessica is the one who doesn't understand why the hell she's so angry all the time, who is broken-hearted and burning, who just wants to be
loved, but has been taught hook line and sinker that she is not allowed to
ask. She believes that her very existence is a sin. And now, now that I slowly begin to realize that we were
lied to, that we and she were
not a sin by being born... it's a slow, hard process, breaking through this massive shell that has built up around us, but once we get a crack in it it shatters pretty well. I won't give up. She deserves to see the light, to breathe the air, and the amount of profound
forgiveness both of self and of others that is welling up in my heart from this, is incredible. But it hurts, too. Why did I ever hate her? Why did anyone ever feel it was
justified?? And that's when I turn and ask Cannon.
She knows
exactly why.
Look at how society expected us to act. Look at how we felt we HAD to be, even when no one was explicitly asking.
We never really thought of ourselves as female before Spinny was born, either, remember. We were a "girl," sure, but what did that mean to us, to the child-cores? It meant we had eyelashes, and wore bows, and liked the color pink, and could wear dresses. That was about it. It was all "tertiary characteristics," all completely surface stuff. Then we got a job, then high school came to a close, and suddenly we were exposed to different treatment, so to speak. Here and there, as we didn't get out much, we'd get a glimpse of what it was like to be a female in society, and we didn't like it.
Problem #1 first hit us with the outfits. Our own family objectified us. I won't talk about that; they thought it was "innocent enough" but it made me feel sick and nauseous even before I started high school. I was more than eye candy, why did I have to act and dress like it? Why was I shamed for dressing like a boy, for cutting my hair, for saying "no" to what others ordered me to do? Even outside of the trans* issue, it unsettled me that I had to seek permission to make my own personal choices.
I was raised to pick up after my brothers, to be their role model, to be a good and modest example. It shocked me when they were not held to the same standard, when my family let them do things and get away with things that I would never have been allowed to do. That was Problem #2.
I don't know when Problem #3 hit but it was likely tied to the job and later upbringing as well. All I know is that it is very pronounced now.
Problems #4 and #5 are inherently tied. They have their roots firmly in Julie, my mother, and my grandmother. Those three were the ONLY females in my life, really. Up until 2007 or so, I didn't even know how "other girls"
acted. It took long-term unwilling job exposure for me to realize that society was
very different from what I expected. And people expected very differently of me than what I was capable of being. You get the picture.
Anyway, that whole mess is what Jessica holds, more than any of us. It is what Spinny was created to adhere to, for the sake of survival and "friendship" and "love." And it is what Cannon loathes with bitter sadness, hating herself and the world for what seemed like an inescapable curse, for trapping her in this hell just because her body was assigned female at birth.
I don't know what else to write about that.
I don't want to talk about the problems. I want to talk about
solutions. I want to focus on
healing, not on pain. We've had enough of the latter.
We are understanding this better now, in a compassionate way, in a forgiving way. That's really what I want to say here: that I never quite had a comprehensive grip on this before, not from a stable state. These issues were always viewed either at an uncrossable distance, or through eyes burning with rage and tears. It's only now, having my feet on solid enough ground, that I can view it with a mix of peaceful detachment and just anger. It's a paradox, I guess, but it's true. "This should not continue," but "it is happening." So fix it, bit by bit, in ourselves first.
Jessica is where it starts. She was the "bottom of the barrel" body core, the social fronter tied to the given name and physical form. She was defined by emptiness, self-loathing, depression, purposelessness, the feeling of filthiness. She wasn't born until 2003 or so, really-- she has no memories prior to that, as those feelings did not exist in the child-cores.
I'm just so sorry that we viewed her as a villain this whole time. Yes, she was a negative, unhealthy influence; yes she was a destructive force. But she was only those things
because of the pain she held, that she felt shackled to. Again, it's about time she was let out of that mental jail. There cannot be peace outside unless there is peace inside. If we want to see anyone else healed and happy, we have to allow the most twisted parts of ourselves to taste that same thing first. We have to shine a light in the darkest corners of our psyche, not in rejection of the shadows, but in order to fully
see and
accept what is back there. Then we can start transmuting that lead into gold. But rejection won't get us anywhere.
...On that note.
Jessica HAS an "inner demon," like Infinitii. I saw him for the first time on Friday evening, I think.
He's BIG-- thin but broad-shouldered and very tight-muscled, with long ribbon-like arms-- they're almost flat, very long, and move completely freely of joints or bones. Proportion-wise, from the waist up, he actually reminds me of
Antylamon, and I just remembered now that that Digimon eventually can become Cherubimon… one of our all-time favorites. I'm sure that's notable.
…Also, looking up that Digimon the similarities are already uncanny.
"…it is the owner of a gentle spirit. It likes small things, and because it attends to them with profound tenderness, if anything appears that tries to tread on them then its personality is completely reversed, and it attacks with… its arms transformed into razor-sharp axes. Once it loses its temper and starts spinning it doesn't calm down until the opponent's figure is no more." "It is able to freely manipulate the "qi" flowing within its body, allowing it to interact with softness as well as hardness, so that at times it moves flexibly as if it were flowing, and at other times it unleashes heavy blows like iron." I don't know, I just felt that was interesting. Things tend to line up so I figured it couldn't hurt.
Perhaps most oddly, though, this guy also seems to be made entirely of
chocolate. It's probably a joint comfort/forgiveness thing. Chocolate was tied explicitly to femininity in our past--
especially as it related to the mother-- and so it was hated for years. However, it was also sweet, something handed out on joyous occasions, or as a reward or gift… it was something bizarrely comforting, even if we didn't quite
like it. It just had that joint association, turning itself into a battlefield, just by existing. So this demon of hers… is made of it. He smells like rich chocolate, with something extra in it like in a coffeeshop, comforting and dark and warm. He has not yet spoken-- not to me at least-- and I cannot see his face yet, or his legs for that matter (so far Jessica has always been sitting in his lap). But he's real, deep within her soul he is VERY real, and he loves her just as simply and completely and quietly as Infinitii loves me.
Maybe I should talk more about that, too… the whole "daemon" thing.
It existed
long before we read HDM, that series just put the phenomenon into heartwrenchingly accurate words, for the most part at least. Of course they are two completely seperate concepts, but the idea that this little creature is a part of your
soul, that reflects that raw part of you unflinchingly and yet with total compassion towards you... it fit, perfectly.
However, it's all theory right now. But one thing that is standing out is that it's tied to the Outspacer "
split self" thing, both in the sense of having a "personality break" AND in the sense of "dreaming a new life," of expanding one's existence beyond the timeline they were born in. Daemons are arguably a solidification of both those things. More than that, though, they are personifications of their
challenges-- the bridge between their deepest vices and their greatest virtues, so to speak. A "daemon" for us is the archetypal shoulder demon and angel both. It is a monster that wears the face of our greatest fear, of our greatest failing... but it is a monster that glows in the dark, and it can be the greatest catalyst to your becoming your truest self. They are our biggest fears and biggest hopes for ourselves, given their own face, so we can learn to love them... to love ourselves entirely.
On that note, this appears to be only attached to
humans right now. No headvoices or other creatures. Genesis and Chaos both have their "dark side splits," and powerfully so, but they have no daemons. They might have a different path to walk, who knows.
Also, now I can't help but wonder if our original "Gens" fit this category, at least slightly? Cannon had Gamboge and Jayce had Pinstripe, and both of them ultimately held surprisingly negative qualities, disguised as positive traits-- 'sacrifice' and 'purpose,' respectively, but both pushed up to eleven and skewed until they became outright destructive. They never really "synced" with the Engelbaum story so I'm curious now, if they were ever anything else. If not, then that's fine too. It's just a theory I'd like to pursue.
Sorry, I'm rambling again. But it's interesting stuff. There's so much interesting stuff up here.
As for who has a daemon so far...
Infinitii is obviously mine, although ze was born
before me, technically. Nevertheless our souls are still made of the same stuff. I can't say for sure what my vice/ challenge/ truth thing is, because to be blunt I've never
thought about it... and I should. But I know, intimately, what Infi's purpose is with me, even if I can't put it into words. Again, though, I should, especially because I've been
so splintered and disconnected that my own self is rather damaged in my own perspective. So looking at the both of us in this way would probably be profoundly helpful and healing for us both. Remind me.
The chocolate-creature I was just discussing is Jessica's daemon, however he came to be. I have no idea what her vice/challenge/truth lineup is, let alone if she even
has one, not being an Outspacer... that's why this is all theory; I am honestly just making educated guesses until I get more data. But I want to add that this daemon has a very unsettling vibe, at least to me. He radiates a sort of "horror movie silence," this dead quiet that isn't threatening to explode, because its power lies
in its charged stillness. But he's nice to her, entirely, which is what matters. Nevertheless, no clue what her V/C/T lineup is, although this entry feels like a big nudge in that direction. We shall see, in time.
Jewel
does have something similar to a daemon; she's said so to me. I don't know who or what it is but she prefers not to talk about it. If we look at her from an Outspacer perspective, though-- she DID have a "Yami" in the old days and she
never followed up on that-- her vice would be tied to negating Heart, and her challenge would assumedly be tied to Love. So, her theoretical daemon would probably deal with unconditional and/or fearless love, especially applied to self? I'm not sure. Jewel still doesn't like to get involved with headspace at all, so maybe that's part of it too.
Markus has a daemon who I have clearly seen. She (?) is
creepy as hell, this big gangly golden thing with an unblinking gaze. Now Markus's vice is tied to Mind, and his challenge is tied to Hope, which I've discussed. And, I don't know how to put it into words, but I can
feel what his daemon's deal is, and it fits
perfectly with Markus's "Pharaoh" god tier. I think it's
trust? Markus has confessed his problems with trust before, notably to Infinitii, so that would make sense for his daemon. She's still terrifying though! I wonder how they get along. I wonder how long she's
been around. I'd like to talk to them both.
I don't know about Ryman; that boy has an interesting relationship with shadows the way it is, to say the least. His vice is tied to Soul and his challenge is tied to Void, so he's grappling with existential peril with this. That'll be one hell of a daemon.
Oh geez this is making me miss those two so much, I need to write another entry about them sometime soon.
I am
extraordinarily tired though, so I'll have to do that some other time.
Sorry for the abrupt end to this entry, and all its data. I've been doing that a lot lately. But, it's because now I just type like water flowing from my hands, and when it's done it's done. And this is done!
The topics are not, however. They will be revisited whenever they need to be, but I won't set deadlines. Focuses shift, time does what it will. Tomorrow morning I have no idea what the day will demand of me, so we will find out when we get there.
In any case, though, I am very thankful this gender-issue stuff was all brought up to awareness, even if it was just to fully acknowledge before letting go of it completely. I hope that's the case. It feels so good to let go of old pain, now that we're
able to, sincerely so. I want happiness for everyone inside, happiness and peace, and I want it for everyone outside too. We'll get there. Sooner or later it's inevitable, as it doesn't have to be
created, just
found again. We just need to get rid of the obstacles separating us from it is all.
Have a good night, everyone.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@ 01:58 am
There has been
so much synchronicity this evening.
I think it's because I took the chance to reconnect internally, even though I was scared and felt unworthy. I showed up regardless, and things feel so much more in-tune right now.
"
All growth begins at the end of your comfort zone." All great changes are preceded by chaos.
I've been misinterpreting the words of the people I've been looking up to. There's so much talk of total peace and happiness, I keep forgetting that those things are
not dependent on outer conditions. Problem is I've immersed myself so thoroughly in the painless utopia I keep reading about that I forget that we're not there yet, so to speak. Pain has its purpose.
This is why headspace is slipping. I'm rejecting too much of life thinking that "it's the right thing to do." It's not. Rejection is not healthy, nor is it wise. I need to embrace this like I do Infi, that's what we need. I need the full picture again, the bigger understanding, the complete focus.
I need to take more risks. I need to challenge myself more. I need to let go of this fear of success, this fear of being the hero to myself that I want to be... and yet feel too humiliated and ashamed to reach up to. Small steps.
I'm getting back in tune with my
good intuition, not the screaming voices. It's tough, though, to be so trusting. It does require obedience to the little nudges and words of warning. That takes guts at first, especially when there's a past of fear, of being misled. But the trust pays off. Small steps. It won't happen overnight, but every tiny little change, every good habit rooted a little more, helps.
Every "bad thing" is a lesson. It's not a death sentence, like the bad voices said. Every "mistake" is a signpost, a lesson to learn, a tap on the shoulder to get me to pay attention. It's a good thing. It's a chance to become wiser, to grow. No, it's not going to be comfortable, no it's not going to be all sunshine and daisies like I've heard it will be. But perspective is key, and it does
not mean "pretending something else is happening." No. You
accept where you are and what is happening, totally, without judgment. And then you act from a place of love and wisdom. You don't try and twist reality to some misguided ideal. I need to remember, the universe is a benevolent paradox, and everything is perfect just as it is now. We are always right where we need to be. It's true.
I got pushed to take another 2+ hours off this evening, as I ended up eating fruit too late in the day and wasn't listening to my intuitive voices telling me to quit. Anyway I ended up somewhat sick so I had to lie down for the body to recover, and since my iPod was charged for the first time in weeks, I put that on to help me calm down.
Well, the first song that came up was
Jojoushi. Chaos' favorite song.
I considered skipping it. I just felt too
filthy, too ashamed to listen to it, to even
acknowledge it. But then I paused, and realized I would get nowhere by ignoring him again. Doing that only pushed me further away from healing, from compassion, from acceptance of what was still good and bright within me even when I felt like
that. So I let it play.
I forgot how relevant the lyrics were. Hearing them, a spark came back. Maybe I'm not so bad, I thought.
I left it on shuffle. The universe responded as always.
Virtually every single song that played was relevant, several directly so:
This Is England, When We Reach You~Could It Be Right, This I Love, Metaphorically Yours, and then a ridiculously well-timed
Open Your Heart that actually had us laughing. You get the picture.
But it's been
so long since anything like that has happened to me. I have been utterly, disastrously unplugged from that sort of synchronicity and love for
months. No wonder I've been sick. No wonder I've felt empty and useless. I've been running from this, solely because somewhere along the line, I became too afraid to risk it being
real. God knows why, but there it is.
It's funny, how we're often more afraid of the
good than we are of the bad. We've been taught that it's "too good to be true," or that we "don't deserve it," et cetera. So we push it away, even when our heart is reaching out to it, and then we call the resulting misery a justification for how "undeserving" we are. It's bullshit, says Laurie, and I agree. She is always vehemently insisting that I
do deserve to follow what my heart really wants in life, that I
am the hero I want to be, that I am
not the wreck I've convinced myself I am lately. I have the courage to listen to her, but the belief hasn't locked in yet. It'll take practice, and more small steps, to let go of this old conditioned condemnation response. It's sad, hopeful in the wrong way. "
Maybe if I hate this bad thing, it will go away..." I'm sorry, but that does not work. It never has and never will. If Infinitii has re-taught me anything, it is this: you must
embrace all things, and
transmute their role in your life. Do I view this part of me, this action, this choice, this memory, as "bad," as evil and dirty and shameful and wrong? Well, step one is getting the guts to accept it
just as it is first,
without labeling it as those things. Just
look at it. Look at it until something inside you can look at it the way you'd look at your best friend, or your child, or your partner. Realize you are
just as deserving of that compassion, of that gaze that can see
beyond the self-loathing labels down to the unchangeable core, the part of you that will
always be worthy and lovable and bright. Look at yourself that way, even for just a moment. Then repeat that, day by day, until you cannot fathom hating that part of yourself anymore.
Sorry, I'm rambling a little. I've just been feeling that a lot lately. It's a tough lesson, ironically.
Chaos and I were talking to Nebisai at one point. He kept calling me "
the Jewel Lightraye," in a manner that sounded like saying "the President" or the like. At one point he said "the Jewel Lightraye, Jay Iridos," and that felt so
correct it shocked me. Just wanted to mention that.
Nevertheless he was jokingly running CZ and I through marriage vows and then he got really serious and started asking us deeper questions.
"Do you promise to love him even if he doesn't remember you?" Even if I refuse you, even if you turn against me, even if we lost sight of who we are... do we promise, do we take a
vow, to remember the love that led us here, towards ourselves as well as each other? Do we promise to look our fears in the face, when we feel incapable of love, and remember--
acknowledge-- this entirely?
Of course the response was mutually affirmative on both our parts, but again... it took guts. To have to actively
remember those times with Perfect, and the Plague, and the numb periods and the hack attempts and misunderstandings... to realize that there was a
lot of pain between us and not sugarcoat the fact that we both had our own issues that still needed to be healed... it took a
lot of guts.
But that was Nebsy's point. How in the world are you supposed to love someone,
really love someone, if you're blinding yourself to the totality of their existence?
Yes, we're flawed.
Yes, at that very moment I felt utterly disastrous and didn't want to be near him solely because I felt completely
irreverent, like my foolish self-ignorant decisions were insulting him, demeaning this. But I had to learn to forgive myself for that, just like I'd forgive him, just as effortlessly and sincerely. I had to learn to love myself in sickness and in health, too. Knowing that he was willing to do so, hearing that again even in that moment, helped so much.
I keep forgetting just how powerful love is, in all its forms. Even just the tiniest glimpse of it is enough to completely turn the tide.
Why am I so afraid of it?
Because in acknowledging it, in
accepting it into my life, I
cannot treat myself like dirt anymore.
Love demands impecccability of the soul. You cannot feel love, for anything, and then step all over yourself. It's impossible.
But some part of me is still frail, is still frightened, of that statement: "
you are just as bright as the ones you look up to." And it is only afraid because then
why have I been abusing myself for so long? The guilt is a heavy burden, and it goes both ways. Forgiveness, it all begins with forgiveness...
.
I realized what forgiveness really meant yesterday, when thinking about
Dream World (unsurprisingly).
Forgiveness isn't turning a blind eye to wrongdoings, or saying harmful behavior is "okay."
Forgiveness is seeing the inherent light within a person
despite their transgressions, therefore not defining them by such behavior... BUT it is ALSO then holding them to that standard. "I forgive you" basically means "You are more than your mistakes." It should also mean
I love you. Just remember, real love is tough as nails. Real love forgives,
always, but then it doesn't allow itself to be stepped on. I forgive you, of course, I can't
not forgive you... but I will also
not tolerate any more unloving behavior towards yourself or others. And saying that isn't hateful, either. It isn't scornful or condemning. Think of Laurie, really. Think of her, and Infi, and Xennie. Think of your own people, who see the best in you even at your worst, and then promise yourself to sincerely try and live up to that light you see reflecting in their eyes when they look at you... to honor that light in yourself as well as in them.
That's forgiveness, to me.
I guess that's it for tonight. I have a huge entry in the works for tomorrow concerning the psychological healing we've been working on lately, so that'll be up when it's done.
Some notable stuff happened in headspace last week, but I 'forgot' to write it down, because it happened during a time period where I kept flip-flopping between "this is undeniably real" and "all of this is fake." The latter is false, by the way.
I've also been forgetting to write my dreams down, for somewhat different reasons. One, recall is funny because I keep waking up during the night and losing recall. Two, there have been nightmares that I'd rather not remember in the long-term, hacks included sadly (there was a
bad one last week that had Wreckage in a fury for the whole morning, and had me a total mess for about three days). Three, sometimes I just shrug it off. That's not good. But, I'm taking small steps (yet again!) to make a better habit of writing down notes as soon as I wake up, even if it's just one or two descriptive words. Everything starts with habits, it seems.
Either way things are being written! I'm going to update as regularly as possible from now on-- that's why I'm here tonight. I experienced something truly lovely, and instead of brushing it off, I decided to pay it due attention and respect. If I did that more often, if I decided to treat my inner life with that sort of joyful gratitude again... I bet you, things would get so much brighter, so fast.
Oh, three more good things to close this up.
First off I am doing TONS of work for
Dream World and it is GREAT. I am so happy when I work with them, it's amazing. There are some notable bits and bobs on the League
Tumblr so far, but honestly most of the work I'm doing is on paper. It's all names and sketches and technical work, no surprise. But it makes me
so happy when progress is made.
Second, today I went outside and lied down on the front hood of the car for two hours while I read
Dune. It was sunny and the sky was blue and it's starting to smell like autumn so it was great. Then later I went to my dad's place for three hours, which is always great. He repainted the dining room so now it's all cream/ auburn/ lilac and it looks absolutely lovely. Then he gave me an entire plastic bag of pears which is hilariously
why I was sick this evening, haha. I swear I didn't eat the whole bag, it just wasn't smart to eat any of them at 8PM. See,
now I'm laughing at the situation! Really I don't regret it-- everything worked out for the best-- but I do wish I had at least been wiser at the time. Ah well. The growth is in
remembering that and applying the lesson
next time. The past is still important as a teacher! Just don't get tangled in it, because it's only ever relevant when it's being applied to the
now. Yasmin Mogahed puts it well:
"Gain the strength of rising after a fall. But never lose the humility of the fall." Both elements are vital. It's like a taijitu... oh! Dude! Infinitii actually said something to me about that today that was rather profound in its simplicity. Ze was 'lecturing' me on self-love again, but then ze made a reference to the childhood fear of "black marks" and the like, and how I was still afraid of making mistakes, or having flaws. Then ze held up a small taijitu image, said "you have to love your black spots too, just like
this," and pointed to the yin within the yang. And it was like a lightbulb went on, big-time. I daresay I don't have to mention the double relevance of using that symbol, either. So I need to hold that statement in my heart.
Thirdly, and lastly, I seem incapable of bad moods anymore. Yes, even with all the depressing entries as of late. Within an hour or so of posting them, even if I'm still in the throes of depression or hopelessness, this snowflake-colored sparkle will rise up in my ribs nevertheless, and I'll just smile like a kid on a snow day. The happiness, that peace unfettered by circumstances, doesn't ever leave anymore. And that is
awesome. So yeah, the universe has tossed a lot at me lately, but I am perfectly capable of catching and carrying it with a smile-- because I'm being smiled
at even in the tossing. You're only given what you need, and things are only taken or removed once you no longer need them. Life knows what it's doing. I trust it in that. I just keep forgetting that it trusts
me in the process, too.
Have a good night, everyone.
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LAURIE UBERICH 
JEWEL LIGHTRAYE 
CHAOS ZERO 
