TM

Jul 01, 2005 22:28

When in your life did you feel the most alone?

I once took a trip with my mother, we went to Olympus. It was during spring or summer, when my mother usually goes to visit my grandmother, Demeter. I was only a little girl at the time, and rather than leave me with Hades (who had a habit of teaching me to play an early form of ’pop goes the weasel’ on various instruments when he was drunk- and people wonder why I describe my stepfather as ‘quirky‘), she took me with her. We went to Olympus to visit some of my mother Persephone’s half siblings (who also happen to be my half siblings, thanks to Zeus), and to generally just spend time outside of the Underworld.

She talked to some gods for a while, but I’m not sure who they were. As I said, I was a little girl, so I really don’t remember much of meeting others up there. One thing I do remember is the way that the deities looked, and the way that they looked at me.

I doubt that many people have visited it, so to fill you in, I’ll explain it in more detail. Olympus is perfect. That’s the only way that I can describe it, Perfect. It’s quite like Hollywood, only everything is real and everyone is beautiful. Gods ad Goddesses are models of inhuman perfection. They’re glamorous. They’re noble. They’re perfect. They have their scandals and wars and everything else, but they’re a far cry from those who dwell in the Underworld.

That was when I felt loneliness to the greatest degree.

I am alone quite a lot at home, but I’m used to that. Up there, I just didn’t belong. My mother, though part of the Underworld, could still mingle with Olympians. She could fit in with them, if she wanted to. I never could. I never will. When I watched their tall, shimmering bodies, sailing past me like ships, and then looked at myself, I knew that. I felt like an outsider. I felt inferior. I felt alone.
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