October 2011 -- 13; Death
Between waves of sadness and hurt, let in as much light as possible.
The first weekend of October I taught Star/Tower, but I did not write anything about it. Instead the first thing I wrote about was being happy for the first time in forever (with Li, Weaves, Debi, Ana, and Becca. And realizing two days later that I had gone three weeks without writing a single Media Consumption post. I revealed my ineedmyfics pieces, and talked very, very, very barely about ordering my iphone and my second laptop screen.
And then without any warning, or explanation, on my smallest filter, I announced I left my girlfriend. In exactly thirteen words. (Which wow, in my thirteen month, with thirteen words.) Then I left for two days to Festival of the Goddess, which I only wrote a very little on. I talked about what little I could. A so little it was.
I wrote about Red & Green and my Slow Down & Savor Swap, that I'd received the earlier weekend right before leaving for Festival of the Goddess. I watched tv, bought fruit. Of incredibly important substance, I wrote a you letter to songtoisis, mermaiden & willow_cabin.
I didn't talk about the break down going on. At all. I wrote a whole lot. I watched tv a whole lot. I started writing the 40 Days of Gratitude posts, because it had me writing and focusing on the good things in my life. And they happened often, helping me to keep writing. Anything at all. For almost ten days this is all there is. Twitter posts, and Gratitude posts. But it was more real, and more effort, than anything in August and September. And it’s still barely there.
The first time I wrote about my breakup after the announcement of was almost two whole weeks later, and this time is was because RCG's Samhain left me shattered in tears. I felt so sad, so angry, so betrayed, so guilty, so numb. Everything all at once. I wrote that "the heart break is the easiest part, since I've been living that since the beginning of summer," but how the rest of it was still problematic.
Except for the knowledge of what I couldn't let myself do. Because the song was played on repeat so often that month, off a playlist, I quoted a line that stayed with me all those days: I know better than to break the rules
Of messin' with a lesson that I'll never learn
I'll go from bad to worse and later back to better
But I'll never better bridges that I'm bent to burn
-- Anna Nalick, "Consider This"
Aside from one Big Bang quote, one poem, the swap with songtoisis, the rest of this month was twitter posts and 40 Days of Gratitude. So many gratitude posts, about important, truly deeply important parts of my life. Things I was glad for, glad to be alive with. Without announcement of the lead up, of the present being, I wrote about trelali's amazing visit that was balm to my entire existence. As she was, had been the whole time.
~*~
Closing Thoughts
I very literally do not know where to being with this one.
When I saw which card matched up with this month, I redid the mathematical equation. Twice.
The Death card in modern America is the terrible sensationalized card of terrible things. This is a completely wrong knowledge. The Death card is the bell knolling not for the ending, but for New Beginnings. (The Nine of Swords is the card you're thinking of, for the modern tv message of horrendous Doom & Gloom.) It is about very serious endings though, and the beginnings that come because of them. The wheel of it.
God. I just. It's so hard to look at this month, and breathe.
I never wrote about how beyond amazing (and traumatic) Star/Tower was.
How teaching went better than ever, and the woman I was teaching with told me "if I didn't know this was your first teaching here, I never would have been able to tell." How I was gifted a present from the Tower that day, for my dedication to the day, with the quiet sight of seeing that I was about not having a tower experience to work through that day but to see myself, in the middle of the what could be a Tower given another year. To have the ability to see the stairs, to look down, walk down if I wanted, and look up, keep walking up if I wanted. But just to see myself.
How this wasn't what made me leave my girlfriend. How nothing she did in those two weeks was why I left, nor was it anything resembling a reason to stay. It was all status quo, except that she was gone away. But she'd been gone for months, even when she was here, it felt like to me. I wish I could tell you some relevant factor happened between us that week, it didn't. Except that while she was gone I was happy. Beyond imagining. Waking up to write and talk and play and giggle with friends. Happy in a way I'd given up thinking about being possible for months.
Even this wasn't it.
If anything hit me massively, it was a panic attack on the fourth, when she told me that she was coming home a day sooner than the date we'd been talking about for weeks. When a frying pan smacked me upside the head, and I lost one day of coming free joy, and sat there, terrified of having to go back to my life one day sooner. And I suddenly knew it didn't matter anymore. It didn't matter what was causing it, who or how or where.
That if I had become panic-attack overwhelmed, scared or freaked out, about my own life, my own relationship, the person I loved, returning to its normal status quo rhythms, I had let things go on too long. All that could be offered now, in this still half a year new situation, was not enough, was not anywhere near now what I had agreed was worth it during the year before it, not at this price, not anymore.
The rest of the month was entirely brand new. It was about not going back, for the first relationship ever. If I had let goodbye's go on about as long as I ever do, I could for the first time in my life, first relationship in my life, not break up only to need to break up again in a year or two. And if I made and kept that choice, it was the hardest thing in the world to wake up every morning after it, thinking/knowing about the fact there was someone I loved more than the world, who wasn't and couldn't be mine, because I made them that way.
That I had chosen to love myself more. Take care of myself more. And even if I hated that, and myself, I had to find a way to respect it, too. It was a very hard, thorny long twist of weeks. A bit that I spent a whole lot of time, not talking about, even with those who talked to me daily across all the hours. I wrote tons during this time. And every once in a while, every week and half or so, those people would venture to ask me, very gingerly how I was doing. Several times I even said I didn't know if I was okay, because I had said I was okay for so many of the last months, and if that was 'okay' then I shouldn't want to be it.
And I would tell them, quietly, about how I was. How I expect anyone would be if they took their entire world, and most of the hours of the day, out of their entire world, and every hour of the day. I focused on getting to the end of days, and end of weeks, the end of post it note fics and on simply things, like counting down to Saturdays, and Li's trip, and then looking forward to Kansas Con Christmas, which I bought my plane ticket to while she was here.
There were the slowest of slow new beginning steps, but they were mine -- as I finally let myself feel heart broken, not about the last month, but about the last five or six, about her choices, about my own, about how long my heart had already been that way, while I let myself ignore it and wait around as though there was something more important than keeping it whole and happy. And if I needed heavy doses of fic and not talking to deal with it, everyone was happy to let me have the wake of my break, because they were all too busy being relieved I was finally out of the situation and quasi-annoyed I took two weeks to even start telling anyone in person I finally had.