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.

Little conversations

 I know, I know, I can be inconsistent. The thing is, I know all of the reasons that I'm unlovable. I'm awkward and weird. I can be contradictory. 

I've spent today working on some things to occupy my mind. There's a few things I want to say to the one that I lost, but I can't. Or won't. Or whatever. I have a project that was going to be a gift, that I've put about 100 hours of work in. I just look at it and cry. I put it away. I'll never finish it. It was very specifically for him. It basically is him. I've been working n it for months, between other things. I wish I had one more night. Not to try to undo the undoing. Just for closure. A few things I wish I'd experienced. I would give almost anything. Just a little comfort. 

The two songs I've always most identified with in life are Alice by Sisters of Mercy and Pretty in Pink by The Psychedelic Furs. I'll put the lyrics at the end of this post. If I don't, you can always google them. Maybe I'll make another post.

I need adventure. I need friends. I need a fucking hug. I'm going to try to start writing more again. I used to make up stories about my favorite photographs that I've taken. Maybe I'll start posting those here. 

I'm researching the best ways to sell things online, Etsy and other options. I have no idea what I'm doing, and Etsy takes a lot of fees.

A relationship is choices. Every morning, every day, you choose someone. You can be attracted to other people, it's only human, but you choose how far to let that go. When put to that choice, historically I come up short. I think about him so many times a day, something I want him to see, something I want to share with him. A thought, a meme, a spicy doughnut. He's my first thought in the morning, still. I know it's been less than a week. I want to scream. But, I understand. That's the thing. I understand. I hate it, but I do. I drive people away. I inspire no loyalty, I'm not worth that choice. I've known it for a long time. I know that I'm overwhelmingly sad. I'll be okay.

A few months ago, I asked him for help with something that was too much. I knew it was too much. He never came back to where I live after that. I got it taken care of a while back, but I couldn't say anything, because I knew I had asked too much, but I also couldn't seem like I was upset at nothing happening. I wasn't. It was too much.

I still want to fight. But, choices. I have to respect that, right? 

Just crying into a void.

I'm aware it makes people uncomfortable. Imagine what it's like to live it.

I'm not looking for sympathy. I certainly don't want pity.

I'm looking for a non customer service job. I'm working on things.

I've changed my mind. You get a different song for this one. From the most influential album of my life.

Little Conversation-Concrete Blonde

The little conversation
Is over very soon
And I watch in admiration
From my corner of the room.
They shine on you with starry eyes
They rain a friendly storm.
Like kids around a Christmas tree
And then you smile all nice and warm

The little conversations
If I tried my very best
You know I never could say anything
In twenty words or less.
Somewhere, sometime, down the line
Someday I may confess,
And spill it all. that's all

The little conversations
On me are very rough
They leave me all in pieces
You know there's never time enough
Like a book with missing pages
Like a story incomplete
Like a painting left unfinished
It feels like not enough to eat.
Starvin'

These little conversations
Well for me they'll never do
Now what am I supposed to do with
Broken sentences of you?
I'll stay in my corner 'cause
That's all that I can do
And let the others speak for me.
Little conversations
Are we.

https://youtu.be/9E8sA_g0BcY

Doorways, Sadness, the state of me

Every doorway is a choice, every choice is a doorway.

This is a key piece of my personal philosophy. I am a result of my choices, as are you. I am, at heart, an existentialist, constantly searching for some sort of meaning, that I'm not even sure exists. I identify as a witch, I firmly believe that some magic is science that we don't understand yet. I also believe that visualization is a powerful tool that can appear to be magic, if our belief in self falters. Much like my relationship with my vanquished loved ones, my relationship with certain deities is quite conversational. I fully realize that they are representations of aspects of things that provide focus. I follow no defined path. The deities that call to me are from vastly differing pantheons, but quite a few of them are associated with doorways and crossroads. Anubis is usually associated with being the Egyptian god of the dead, but he is also the god of divination and doorways. Death was a doorway to somewhere else for the Egyptians, after all. Papa Legba is the Keeper of the Crossroads.
I speak to quite a few Voodou loa, but always Papa Legba first. I have a large Anubis tattoo, with a matching tattoo of Sekhmet. Most people assume that it's her sister, Bast. Bast is a motherhood goddess. Nurturing and caring. Sekhmet is a war goddess, goddess of wrath and vengeance. The only way to stop her vengeance is to mix beer with the blood she has released into the streets, so she drinks it until she passes out. Sekhmet is to remind me to slow my roll.

Doorways. Each is a choice. Doors can be opened to something new. Doors can be closed, to keep one hidden or sheltered. Doors can be opaque, translucent, or transparent, just like choices. Doorways are deeply mystical, to me. I speak in my head to Anubis and Papa Legba, to articulate needing help with choices.

I am deeply unhappy, and catastrophically unfulfilled, at this point in my life. I made the choices that got me here. I do not know how to get out in a satisfactory manner. I take care of my Grandmother. I am her only caretaker. I receive exactly zero income from this. I pay the bills from her social security, which leaves very little. I am poor. Devastatingly so. Several friends unexpectedly gave me money in December, which allowed me to get the final heaters that we needed for the winter, and restock basic pantry necessities. I am grateful beyond words. Truly. I am left, now with a series of choices, from here.

Do I find a job, to bring in money? (I am looking) If I find one, then I leave her alone for part of the day, putting her, my pets, and everything I own in danger. Her dementia is advanced. Also, I could face neglect charges if anything happens to her.

Do I focus on making my jewelry, and trying to sell it? Like anyone who makes things, I have stuff, still, collected over years, to keep creating. However, it doesn't seem to sell. I know that I'm supposed to keep trying, in the face of complete rejection of my craft. If I wear any of it, people ask where it came from, I give them cards. Nothing. I have sold a couple of pieces, but not nearly enough. I am going through the process of getting what I have out there on social media, again. Making things brings me some amount of peace. I can't start an Etsy store, because of money. I have to do everything by PayPal, which I'm okay with. I don't even have Netflix, because I can't guarantee having the $10 or whatever, in my account each month, I definitely can't do Etsy fees. I am looking for places to carry it, in boutique stores, but that requires gas money and such. Vending events needs upfront money. Unfortunately, and not melodramatically, food comes first, these days. There are many days a week that I never even get dressed, and I go nowhere at all.

I have tried to do the state and federal forms for all kinds of assistance, everything that's been suggested to me. I can't even fill out most of the forms, because a lot of the info needs to come from a woman who can't provide it. I need a lawyer, I guess? That needs money. Find my ombudsman? I've left messages and sent emails and I get no answer. Call this person...I promise that I have tried. I don't know why I can't make it work, I promise you that I feel really fucking stupid, so I don't talk about it much, anymore. The dismissive answers I receive feel really judgmental, sometimes. I'm aware that I'm failing horribly. I know I chose this, but now all of my decisions involve, fully, the welfare of another human, and now I feel just as abandoned as she doesn't. It's just like having a toddler that remembers being completely in charge for forty years, with zero concept of how much she has changed.

My personal life is fairly nonexistent. I feel like no one wants to really spend time with me. I can't really afford much, anyway, sometimes not even gas money. It's weird for me to contemplate how many people are leaving facebook. I understand the reasons, I do. But, then, those people will just be gone from my life, as it's most of my social interaction.

So, I'm looking for doors, and contemplating the consequences of going through them. My drug of choice, that brings me peace and clarity (and isn't a drug or a substance at all) is unavailable at the moment. I dance. A lot. Around the house and yard, which is great, but isn't what I need. I see exactly one person, other than my Grandmother or Mom, regularly. One of my oldest and most consistent friends. I try for once a week, to get that hug I know is coming. It costs me nothing but gas, and the smile I get upon arrival is everything, and is holding me together right now. It's not like I'm turning down invitations.

I know I'm sad. I know it's unpleasant. I'm doing the best I can from being squished between a rock and a hard place. I know my best isn't good enough.

I know.