The Starless Sea

 I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel

I focus on the pain

The only thing that's real

The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting

Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt.

So, this is my new tattoo. I actually enjoy the feeling of being tattooed. I've wanted this one for a year, but started making actual plans for it in October. Spoke to an artist, made an appointment, etc. If you haven't read the book The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, you should. I read it the week it came out in November 2019. Then I read it again. It's a story about stories, in the loosest terms. It hits a number of my important life themes. I went out and bought a hardback copy to share with James right after I read it, and he isn't a huge reader. The imagery is stunning.

If you know me, you know that I have a thing about choices, doorways, and crossroads. Each one is always a choice, choice is sacred, the only thing we can control is our own choices. My love and consideration of every door has led to a love of keys, and doorknobs. This book speaks to me on a level I cannot properly express. I looked at art and artists intensely to find one local to me that could do what I wanted. I spoke to a couple who told me what I wanted wasn't what I wanted. After many emails, phone calls, and a consultation, I decided on Emily Page at Rat-A-Tat-Tat's in downtown Cary. Her art is amazing, and can be so delicate. Sebastian, who handles the emails and phone provides amazing customer service, and comes across as patient, and non judgemental of the crazy. The shop is cute and clean and unintimidating. They are taking every possible safety precaution.I love tattoos, and tattoo shops, but some are intentionally dickish and can make people feel less than for what they want. 

The bee symbolizes community, industry, personal power, spring and summer and flowers, the goddess and fertility, sweetness and honey, you can follow a bee to a new destination. Bees are always a positive symbol. Bees are omens of good luck and prosperity.

The key is an opener of locks. It can be freedom, or the safekeeping of something sacred or precious. It's a moment of pause, to contemplate a door. They are symbols of gateways and choice, mystery, knowledge, initiation, growth via unlocking. Gatekeeper deities keep sets of keys as symbols. Different keys do different things. The correct corresponding key is required for each lock. If you have the key, you can access a new path or room. A key is access.

The sword is a symbol of might and strength. Power and authority. It can be seen as a phallic symbol, with it's corresponding sheath being the yonic. In alchemy, they are the symbol of purification.

What do they mean in The Starless Sea? There are three paths. The acolyte. The guardian. The keeper. They all involve you reading the book.There are owls and muffins and cocktails and door knobs and deception and books and pirates and labyrinths and masks and libraries and video games and tea and snow and ice and a dollhouse. A lot of people really dislike the book, I find the bad reviews as illuminating as the good ones.  I loved her first novel, and an NPR interview led me to getting this one the day it came out. I can't really explain what the book means to me, how it affected me.

It's a story of time and fate and struggle and beauty and loss. I was in a completely different place when I decided I wanted a personalized version of this. There is a sentence that makes me ugly cry, every time that I read it. Which has been a few now. The struggle seems unbearable. The losses and gains unimaginable but the bit that gets me, why this is here, on me, so that I can see it? This is by most tattoo standards upside down. It is for me and me alone, even if it is my most visible tattoo now.  It is a reminder. For me. That line? it's after the spoiler alert. It's your choice to read from there.

On a relationship note, I suppose there is none. It's been a week since I've seen his face. A week since I've had the lingering scent of his skin on mine from a hug. I miss memes and videos that he thought I'd like, or that he wanted to share to make me smile. I miss knowing he was thinking of me. Maybe he doesn't.  It's been 4 days since I sent a good morning. Which has always meant i love you and I choose you. I really want to run to him, to share this with him. To get that giant hug, be wrapped in him. I did send him a message on Sunday, with a blog link, and saying that this is in his hands now. Rebuild, or whatever may come. I've fought with every fiber of my being for months. I don't know what happens now. I release any semblance of control. Which doesn't mean anything has changed about how I feel. It hasn't. He's not a bad man. He's a very good man. He handled a situation badly. So have I. I love all of him. Even mistakes. Not that breaking up with me was a mistake for him, I believe he stands behind it. I wish I knew what he really thought. I may never. Or, nothing has changed from the original, devastating, statements that he made. I deluded myself into thinking he was considering my words. I asked for a choice, he had no intention of restating. I don't know.

Miss is a highly insufficient word.

I will still say good morning. Every morning. Which means more. I'll just say it aloud.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

This book could be a tragedy so easily. The line that makes me cry?

"He never expected a happy ending."

When I first read it, I was in a completely different place, I thought , just maybe, I'd found that unexpected happy ending in the man that took my breath away. Things are different now. I have no clue what the future holds. My present isn't very happy. I'm still shattered and damaged and so fucking confused how exactly this is where I am. I desperately wanted that happy ending that I thought I had found the beginning of. I needed it. You know what else the book reminds me of?

To keep seeking.

So I will try. I will look at this tattoo, and remember that.