Sugar Trap

Tue, 15 Jan 2019 02:21:37 GMT

Today was a rollercoaster day, so it was no surprise when I drew the reverse VII of Wands at the end of it. I was ready to indulge in a night of heavy wallowing and anxiety, as my neurology appointment is tomorrow and my mom is going with me (which could be, like, a book-length post). Instead, I decided to make a playlist that might make me feel stronger. I'm listening to it right now, and it's working.

I'm thinking about the Then/Now memes going around and how many people disdain or cringe at their former selves. I don't feel that way, despite the fact that Previous Me's did things that I'd never do now. I know why I did those things, and how they contributed to who I am now--I don't flinch when I look back. Right now I'm channeling a version of me that survived some shit that Now Me probably could not. That version of me bore me to a place where I wouldn't need to be so hard. But I still need that strength sometimes, and if I hadn't been through all that, I wouldn't be able to call upon it now. So I'm grateful. And those Previous Me's weren't all terrible and miserable! They were, and are, me.

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in dreams

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 14:32:40 GMT

Normally, my dreams are incredibly boring. I dream about things like putting away laundry, waiting in line at the bank and going to the grocery store. It's embarrassing. Last night, though, I had two exciting ones! In the first, I was traveling to California through what looked like Moab, Utah. I'm not a particularly adventurous person nowadays, and I'm physically disabled, but in the dream, it was like I was my Former Self. I was trail running and sliding down these big hills and climbing--I woke up wishing I could do those things again. Maybe I can, if I modify them somehow? Anyway, there was a sense of urgency about the journey, but I don't really know why. When I got to California, I checked into a fancy hotel, but then the dream shifted so I don't know what was happening there.

In the other dream, I was part of the Harry Potter cast (which makes sense, because Jeffrey and I have been re-reading those books together and watched the first movie again after finishing the first book). We were having a set teardown party, but it was at a gigantic shopping mall. I was saying tearful goodbyes to everybody, but I was supposed to get on the bus to get to the airport. The bus left without me, so I chased down another one on foot and jumped onto it, clinging to some post or something, begging the driver to take a detour. She did, and I raced through the airport, Home Alone-style, to find the person I was traveling with. We met up and boarded the plane. The interesting thing here is that the airport I was flying into was Chicago Midway, and that was "home." I think my unconscious is putting homesickness into overdrive now that I've reinstated my Illinois teaching license.

I think part of the message my unconscious is really trying to send, though, is a sense of freedom. I'm breaking up with medical science, which is allowing me to shift how I take care of my body to something more intuitive and less pathologized. I've gotten my license back, which means I'm very close to getting out of a job I hate. I'm also doing a lot of work on a personal level to remove barriers that I erected myself (for good reason, but they're no longer needed). Yesterday, I did a three-card tarot spread to get myself thinking about the paths I might take. I won't go over the two I did not choose--suffice to say they were grim trudges, much like what I've been slogging away on for the last, oh, 17 years. The third path, the one that made me feel hopeful and probably gave my brain permission to dream about things like travel and adventuring and trail running, was the Page of Pentacles. Here is Rachael Anne Jolie's piece on the Page of Pentacles from her Comrade Femme Tarot series.

I've always wanted a tattoo that said "MANIFEST." Maybe now is the time? It's been difficult to accept that one of the biggest obstacles to living my best life, as the internet says, has been me or, more specifically, my fears. That's understandable, given Reasons, but it's time to face those. A very nice palmist once told me that my cane was a crutch from the past, and that I needed to stop leaning on it. She understood that I needed it sometimes because I do actually have a Disorder. However, she was absolutely right that I have leaned heavily on the notion of being sick, broken, too different to fit in--it's made me feel like a frail outsider, unwelcome everywhere I go. Fear of being torn down, of rejection and of failure has made me unwilling to try, gesturing vaguely at my various disabilities and differences as justification for remaining on the margins when that isn't 100% my situation. It's true that it's probably a bad idea for me to go trail racing through Canyonlands in midsummer. But that doesn't mean everything I long to try is a bad idea. It's time to get out there again, but to consider this time not what everyone else might want or expect, but what I want and need, and to trust that if I get out there in good faith and reach out, friends will be there, not just harpies and vultures waiting for me to fall.

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adventures in elementary polychromatism

Sugar Trap

in dreams