Inside out, upside down.

This weekend was filled with many ups and downs. These last two weeks, I have felt very vulnerable, these emotions raw and jagged and bubbling up to the surface when I least expect it. My beloved Kajira tells me that I have been bottling everything up since April, and the numbness has been breaking through.

For the most part, I had several amazing adventures. Angelboy and I had a lot of fun, having a Mad Max movie night and gorging on post-Apocalypse goodness while creating ATCs. I have gotten him addicted. I love that we can spend hours, side by side in a world of creations. Fingers stained with inks and acrylics and losing scisssors and glue in our hair, just laughing and inspiring each other. I love those moments.

We rounded up the last harvest from my garden, before dismantling everything and sweeping the earth under protective piles of leaves. Then we had adventures in the kitchen with my mother while she taught us how to create a feast of green-fried tomatoes, and homegrown sweet-potatoes and carrots drizzled in orange juice and cinammon, plus fall-time apple crisp!

Those are some of the good things. Some of the bad things included one really bad breakdown, just me bursting into tears while Angelboy tried to comfort me, looking boggled and confused. I came to the realization that I have spent these past few months just distracting myself from... myself. Searching for books and movies and silly facebook games, desperate to fill the hours with activities that keep me from thinking and feeling and being in my own skin. I told him how I hate that I have been a super hermit lately - in the last two months, I have only hung out with my friends once. But it has all been by my own choice.

I told him how I am not over what happened in the spring, and there was a blankness in his eyes that cut me to the core. He actually had to think back, recall the badness. And it just drove the point home - I don't think there is anything so isolating and painful as losing your baby before it can be born. And it will never hurt anyone as much as it hurts you - they can move on, it doesn't really affect their lives. Even Angelboy doesn't think about it anymore. It doesn't hurt him at all.

But these past two weeks especially, I keep remembering.

I want to scream at everyone. I want to punch walls and scream until my throat turns raw, I want to shout and break glass and snarl obscenties and destroy everything around me. I want to lash out. I want to just cry and cry and cry, until all of these salt rivers in my veins dry up. I want to hurt myself, that itch beneath the skin that always comes when things get too bad.

I am stronger than these urges, though. I haven't hurt myself in several years, and I don't plan on starting now. I just feel like a ball of bad emotions, of rage and pain and sadness. Because I feel like I am existing in a world that is comprised of emotional agony or total numbess. And nobody understands. Even my loved ones are confused, even they don't know what to say. There is just silence, and I feel pressure to keep silent, keep it all bottled up. Like it's been months, so I should have moved on....

But I can't. And none of them understand. And I have never felt as alone as I have felt these past six months.

And for once, I am tired of pretending to be positive, pretending like I am totally a-okay. Because I have been in pieces for months, and sometimes, just making it to the end of the day is a victory that no one else appreciates.


Blah. I think I am going to pick up journaling again, physically keeping a book and trying to create a visual journal. ATCs were the only thing that kept me sane and balanced this weekend, which reinforces the fact that I need to stop avoiding these emotions using books and internet games, and just deal with it head on. Preferably channeling all of this negativity into something productive, potentially beautiful.

We'll see how it goes.

Grateful

Fall always makes me feel sad, easily disrupting the emotional balance I have worked hard to forge together this summer. Winter always makes me sad, always brings on panic attacks and overdramatic fears that I will not last to see Spring.

Sooo, in an attempt to thwart such silly gremlins, I am going to make a gratitude list! Here are some things that I am grateful for this week!


Things I am Grateful For:

1. It has been a week and a half since I have smoked a cigarette! And after that single bad day last week, I haven't craved another one!

2. To reward myself for a week of no smoking, I bought a pair of 0g tribal spiral horn earrings. They arrived on my doorstep last night. Can you say BEAUTIFUL! It is soooo hard to find decently priced tribal earrings for 0g.... I will post pictures of them soon. :)

3. My friend Kanyon was in a really bad accident a few days ago. He got thrown from a rollercoaster and fractured his spine in three places. But he isn't dead, he isn't paralyzed, and we have been talking a lot, especially today. I am grateful for his life, grateful that he will make a full recovery, and grateful for his friendship.

4. I am going to make some practice poi this weekend! Kanyon invited me to the circus practices that are held every week in Ann Arbor, filled with beautiful people who learn hooping and poi and fire fans and rope dart, contortionism and contact juggling and all sorts of amazing things. Kanyon also offered to give me private lessons. He is an amazing performer, absolutely stunning. I am honored that he would help me out!

5. I get a three day weekend with my Angelboy! Whootwhoot! We are going to be doing a lot of crafting, cuz I have to send out some ATCs. Then my family is going to the National Daschund races that are held in our city every year (my niece and nephew go ga-ga over this - especially now that they have a daschund of their own!). So this weekend is going to be nice and relaxing and filled with the best of people!

6. I have been busy lately learning tarot! Or attempting, at least. I am pretty good at guessing the meanings of the Minor Arcana, but a lot of the Minor ones are a bit beyond me. But hey, I am learning and working with it every day, and it has been making me really happy!


Whew. See, silly gremlins? I have a lot to smile about and a lot to be thankful for! I would write more, but I probably should actually get some work done today. ;)

What are you grateful for?

Withdrawal

Today, this Starchild isn't shining too bright.

Yesterday was a fantastic day. I got some time in with my two favorite kidlings, I came home to find an amazing package filled with delightful goodies on my porch, courtesy of the amazing Karen who was my swap partner for the WWP Mabon Swap round. She put a lot of thought and effort into my gifts, and I don't think I stopped smiling for the rest of my night.

That was the highlight of my week. Then enter today. This is Day Two of me not smoking... I had quit for a long time this spring/summer, but I started up again in July after my grandfather and my grandmother died within three weeks of each other. Cigarettes are my family's way of dealing with stress, but I don't feel healthy anymore. I miss that feeling.

So, I am quitting. And this is the day that brings on the anxiety, the frustration, the fear. Panic fluttering against my veins, throbbing against my throat until I want to scream and punch things and run away. Gremlin sadgirlthoughts circling my brain, and while I know that all of these negative emotions are just a symptom of nicotine withdrawal, it is still tough to handle.

I just want to curl up in my bed and cry, feeling overwhelmed by this discontentment with my life, of feeling like I was supposed to ride that train on down the track, but I fell off somewhere and now I just feel... lost. Waiting. Waiting for something to happen. But nothing happens because I am not out there MAKING it happen... A vicious cycle.

I am trying to focus on positive things, but it is hard. I think that soon, I want to go on a master cleanse diet, drink only the syrup/pepper lemonade mixture for about ten days. Tons of my tree-hugging friends swear by it. It cleans the toxins right out of your body, gives you energy and when it is done, your system is clean and ready to start over. I want to start eating healthy again. I have been a vegetarian for nine years, but my body doesn't crave veggies or fruits. It likes carbs and processed food and tons of soda. I want my body to WANT to eat healthy foods.

I want to start taking care of myself. I never have a problem taking care of others, but I never take the time to take care of myself. There are times when I just don't think I am worth it. I don't want to be like that. I want to be healthy. Reenergized. I want to wipe the two-months of dust off of my hula hoop and enjoy the sunshine before it disappears beneath snow. Get back into yoga, start meditating. Find that balance again. Learn to find the beauty underneath my own skin. I haven't felt that in a while.

Maybe if I start taking care of myself, some of these Anti-Starchild gremlin thoughts will go away.

Bah. Nicotine withdrawals, get over soon, please? I don't like these emotions right now.

The Beautiful Thing about Ashes...

My friend Kanyon is a firespinner, and he posted this video. He said that it helped him a lot when learning poi. I watched this and I literally burst into tears. Beautiful.

Life is a series of blurs...

I finally managed to snag a few spare moments to write. Life has been busy in the most amazing of ways. There is always so much to do, and at the end of the day, there is always so much left over to be finished. These days have turned into blurs of work, of driving, of fingers nimbly trying to tie off threads or wield needles without stabbing myself, of hours in the kitchen with glasses of wine and the most amazing aromas rising off of the stove to tantalize my tummy. Filled with crafting and phone calls and visits, trying to balance all of these responsibilities at once. The evenings are gone in a flash and then it is time to tumble into bed again, scrape together enough sleep to rise alongside of the sun the next morning.

Life has been crazybusy but filled with so much positivity at the same time. Work takes up most of my time, and while I know that I don't want a longterm career stuck in an office, it is nice to have a stable job and the ability to feel a bit productive. On the side, I have also started doing some freelance writing, which is both terrifying and exciting. I have two major jobs that will be due in the next three weeks, demanding a lot of my nonexistant spare time - but it will pay off majorly. Two projects will equal almost two months of pay at my dayjob, and my mind almost dizzy with gratitude. I can use those dollars to pay for the medical bills from unisured hospital visits this past Spring, to start paying off this strangling debt and finally find balance.

Then I can start finally saving up, so Angelboy and I can leave Ohio when he finishes school this upcoming spring. We can head to the West Coast, I can work on my computer, we can travel and see the world. I can get my tattoos and my dreads and follow this silly heart, find freedom while balancing responsibility.

But starting a freelance business is scary, especially when I am constantly battling against low-self esteem, chittering voices that warn me of failure and cruel mockery. Nevermind the fact that I have been doing editing, proof-reading, and technical writing for my mother's company since I was about thirteen years old... I am still plagued with these worries that my attempts and my work will just be plain... not good enough.

Sometimes, it is hard to tell gremlins to shut up and go away.

So, yeah. My free-time is going to get a lot more limited, but all for positive reasons. I just hope that I will be bale to find enough moments to merit joining the Crafster Samhain swap that will be coming up soon. I don't want to join unless I am positive I will have enough time to put a lot of work into my crafts. Samhain seems to be the most popular WWP swap, and I already have some ideas, so I would be sad to miss out on this one. I am having an absolute blast will the Mabon swap - there are just so many wonderful, beautiful souls in this community and I feel honored to slowly be getting to know them.

All of these ideas and crafting have been making my heart shine and my smiles constant. Since Spring, I have been letting myself rest in a fog of shadows, cut off from the world and myself, and lost to all creative impulses. I still feel rusty when it comes to crafting, and a little anxious that my projects won't be quite up to par (again, silly self-esteem gremlins rearing their ugly heads!). But regardless of all of that, it feels good to craft again, good to be inspired, good to be getting in touch with my spirituality once more.

I really missed this. :)