in the thin spaces...
So, it's been over three weeks since I've updated. I was considering making it an even month, but that just seemed ridiculous. I've spent the time doing Ascendio planning, spending time with the kittens, redesigning my journal, not writing, and struggling with depression, woe.
Last night, a friend of mine from school sent me this really amazing NY Times piece on thin spaces, what Celtic spirituality calls those liminal places and moments when heaven and earth don't seem so very far from each other. The question of liminality and thin spaces seems to be circling around me lately, in my classes and my reading: last weekend I finished Victor Turner's The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure in which he develops his theory of liminality and communitas through rites of passage.
I think I'm seeking liminality right now. To find a place where I can slough off this sadness that's hanging on me, muffling my heart in ways that make my soul ache.
Depression is horrible, especially a full-blown bout. But what's sometimes worse, for me at least, is being functionally depressive. Being able to force yourself out of bed and to class because you have responsibilities. Being able to smile and laugh with friends when you can't feel a whisper of the happiness that you're faking. Being able to hide from 95% of the people around you that your heart hurts so badly, that you're wandering lost and adrift in familiar seas, that it takes everything you have to keep in place this calm mask. Because when you hide too well, you can hide from yourself too, and start to think that you're really fine when in actuality you're as fragile as spun glass. And then one day something comes along to bump you, and well…
I realized something had to give in that equation when I recently realized how very distanced I am right now from fandom. This space has always been my escape, my relief from sadness. I've always been able to turn here and find some sort of respite and comfort when I've struggled with depression, but this time, I feel this huge gulf. I haven't wanted to be here--when I find myself more comfortable on Facebook (which I hate) than LJ, there's something really fucked up, you know? I miss having Draco Malfoy as my happy place. Desperately. So much so, actually, that I agreed to keep on with seeing my therapist every week because that absence of Draco-as-happy-place is a glaring sign to me that I really have to work on whatever's off in my head.
I think part of that discomfort and distance from fandom is probably tied into my significantly decreased ability to feel creative or inspired. I'm having a hard time writing, more so than I've ever had. It just feels as if my creative side is withered and fragile. Easily breakable. I know that's a function of depression, but the really crap part is that losing my creativity also makes me more depressed, so it cycles into a never-ending spiral that I don't entirely know how to get out of right now. And it's breaking my heart. I've never felt so far from my creative self as I do right now, never felt so trapped and disconnected from my creative writing. I've been telling stories in one way or another since I was a child and to be blocked like this is devastating for me. I honestly don't know how to break it--even when I try to write it feels forced and stilted. Maybe I should just keep trying until it doesn't? I don't know.
Every day's a struggle with sadness right now. And grief. Odd to say that, perhaps, but I know what grief feels like and I'm pretty certain that I'm mourning some losses--of my body, of my heart and expectations of my life, and of my soul--both in the binding of my creativity and in the way my spiritual side is shifting into something more complex and individual. And at moments like this, when I'm uncertain and feeling wicked vulnerable, I tend to withdraw and just think.
So. I've been doing a lot of thinking this week.There's a quote from my beloved-if-frustrating Simone Weil that has haunted me lately, just turning around and around and around in my mind. God's love for us is not the reason for which we should love him. God's love for us is the reason for us to love ourselves. Loving myself is something I constantly struggle with, particularly when I'm struggling with depression. I'm not really good with the whole self-care thing. But maybe Simone's right; maybe it's not the great crime my head thinks it is to actually love myself; maybe it's actually what God would prefer for me--I mean how can I truly believe God loves me if I don't love myself? (There's a duh moment if ever I saw one.) And I think that's a good thing, being able to acknowledge that. And I also think it's a good thing to be able to feel a little bit angry about these losses, to be able to feel a little bit adrift now, wondering how on earth I can ever stitch these ragged ends back together in a meaningful way. Because that's where my wish for liminality comes in.
I want a thin space; I want a moment, a place where heaven and earth meet. Where something transformational happens inside of me. Unmasks me. Jolts my creativity again, not just in fannish ways, but throughout my life. But you know, I think perhaps I'm already in the middle of a certain type of thin space, and I just haven't realized it. Maybe liminality sometimes is all around us; maybe we just have to reach the point that we can actually see our thin spaces for what they are--not always pleasant and joyful and peaceful, but a place of change and renewal nevertheless. Transformation can be a difficult process, after all--just ask Minerva McGonagall.
Anyway, that's the space I'm in right now--messy and complicated and frustrating and searching and human--and, you know, for this particular moment, in this particular breath of my life, I think that's okay.
------------------
This entry was originally posted at http://femmequixotic.dreamwidth.org/494494.html where there are currently
comments. You can comment here or there using OpenID.
Last night, a friend of mine from school sent me this really amazing NY Times piece on thin spaces, what Celtic spirituality calls those liminal places and moments when heaven and earth don't seem so very far from each other. The question of liminality and thin spaces seems to be circling around me lately, in my classes and my reading: last weekend I finished Victor Turner's The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure in which he develops his theory of liminality and communitas through rites of passage.
I think I'm seeking liminality right now. To find a place where I can slough off this sadness that's hanging on me, muffling my heart in ways that make my soul ache.
Depression is horrible, especially a full-blown bout. But what's sometimes worse, for me at least, is being functionally depressive. Being able to force yourself out of bed and to class because you have responsibilities. Being able to smile and laugh with friends when you can't feel a whisper of the happiness that you're faking. Being able to hide from 95% of the people around you that your heart hurts so badly, that you're wandering lost and adrift in familiar seas, that it takes everything you have to keep in place this calm mask. Because when you hide too well, you can hide from yourself too, and start to think that you're really fine when in actuality you're as fragile as spun glass. And then one day something comes along to bump you, and well…
I realized something had to give in that equation when I recently realized how very distanced I am right now from fandom. This space has always been my escape, my relief from sadness. I've always been able to turn here and find some sort of respite and comfort when I've struggled with depression, but this time, I feel this huge gulf. I haven't wanted to be here--when I find myself more comfortable on Facebook (which I hate) than LJ, there's something really fucked up, you know? I miss having Draco Malfoy as my happy place. Desperately. So much so, actually, that I agreed to keep on with seeing my therapist every week because that absence of Draco-as-happy-place is a glaring sign to me that I really have to work on whatever's off in my head.
I think part of that discomfort and distance from fandom is probably tied into my significantly decreased ability to feel creative or inspired. I'm having a hard time writing, more so than I've ever had. It just feels as if my creative side is withered and fragile. Easily breakable. I know that's a function of depression, but the really crap part is that losing my creativity also makes me more depressed, so it cycles into a never-ending spiral that I don't entirely know how to get out of right now. And it's breaking my heart. I've never felt so far from my creative self as I do right now, never felt so trapped and disconnected from my creative writing. I've been telling stories in one way or another since I was a child and to be blocked like this is devastating for me. I honestly don't know how to break it--even when I try to write it feels forced and stilted. Maybe I should just keep trying until it doesn't? I don't know.
Every day's a struggle with sadness right now. And grief. Odd to say that, perhaps, but I know what grief feels like and I'm pretty certain that I'm mourning some losses--of my body, of my heart and expectations of my life, and of my soul--both in the binding of my creativity and in the way my spiritual side is shifting into something more complex and individual. And at moments like this, when I'm uncertain and feeling wicked vulnerable, I tend to withdraw and just think.
So. I've been doing a lot of thinking this week.There's a quote from my beloved-if-frustrating Simone Weil that has haunted me lately, just turning around and around and around in my mind. God's love for us is not the reason for which we should love him. God's love for us is the reason for us to love ourselves. Loving myself is something I constantly struggle with, particularly when I'm struggling with depression. I'm not really good with the whole self-care thing. But maybe Simone's right; maybe it's not the great crime my head thinks it is to actually love myself; maybe it's actually what God would prefer for me--I mean how can I truly believe God loves me if I don't love myself? (There's a duh moment if ever I saw one.) And I think that's a good thing, being able to acknowledge that. And I also think it's a good thing to be able to feel a little bit angry about these losses, to be able to feel a little bit adrift now, wondering how on earth I can ever stitch these ragged ends back together in a meaningful way. Because that's where my wish for liminality comes in.
I want a thin space; I want a moment, a place where heaven and earth meet. Where something transformational happens inside of me. Unmasks me. Jolts my creativity again, not just in fannish ways, but throughout my life. But you know, I think perhaps I'm already in the middle of a certain type of thin space, and I just haven't realized it. Maybe liminality sometimes is all around us; maybe we just have to reach the point that we can actually see our thin spaces for what they are--not always pleasant and joyful and peaceful, but a place of change and renewal nevertheless. Transformation can be a difficult process, after all--just ask Minerva McGonagall.
Anyway, that's the space I'm in right now--messy and complicated and frustrating and searching and human--and, you know, for this particular moment, in this particular breath of my life, I think that's okay.
------------------
This entry was originally posted at http://femmequixotic.dreamwidth.org/494494.html where there are currently
comments. You can comment here or there using OpenID.