Monthly Archives: September 2011

Luckiest girl in the whole world

We kind of ignored our fifth wedding anniversary.  We were busy.  I’m not actually sad about that because the party was fun.  Last night I was told extensively how much I have changed since marrying Noah.  I agree.  For the first time in my life I know what it is like to have someone unreservedly like me.  It’s a novelty.  And Noah doesn’t just like me.  Noah is kind of obsessed with me.  We have spent hundreds of hours talking about my life and history and psychological health.  There are not enough hours in a day for me to tell him more about the inner workings of my brain.  I was informed that is not normal.  Ok.

It’s weird to live with someone who likes me but has no compunction pointing out where I am doing something badly.  It’s refreshing.  After five years together, I even prefer his voice in delivering criticism.  When he’s consciously trying he’s good at being gentle with me.  We have a lot of verbal conversation short cuts that help with my layers of emotional baggage.  That was hard to build.  It is amazing that at this point we can have these massively intense conversations because we can reference this long history of conversations.  I’ve never really had that before.

It’s weird how this relationship is really my “college” education in the sense that most people have them. Noah has encouraged me to learn about things I actively shunned.  He has read books to me and articles and blog posts and comics and we have watched movies together.  We have built this weird unique little subculture just for us.  I imagine this is what growing up in a family is like, because we include the kids whenever we can.  This will be their weird little subculture.  I think about that.  My children will never have normal.  My children will be in the 5%.  Probably.  Maybe.  I hope.  I hope they know that the 5% exists and that they have the courage and fortitude to do anything they want to do.  I want children who are so courageous that there really isn’t much chance they will meld into the crowd.  I have that already.

Noah encourages me to feel really happy about being me.  He thinks I should grin when I think of something clever I said.  It’s kind of an odd feeling.  He likes it when I am cocky and arrogant.  But then I later collapse in private and have to breathe through my panic attack.  Noah is definitely a mixed bag for my personal development.  Sometimes I wonder if part of what makes me so uncomfortable when I go out into the world is the fact that I know that no one has ever liked me how Noah likes me.  I feel like other people dislike me in contrast.  It’s not true.  But it is true that I am starting to run into conflict with friends because Noah has influenced my behavior.

I have Noah at home telling me that conflict is an ok thing.  It’s hard to believe him.  It’s hard to believe that getting better at arguing is really going to earn me more friends.  Noah is trying to convince me that it will absolutely chase off some of my current friends but it will earn me friends who actually like me more rather than what they are projecting on to me.  I think that is what he is trying to convince me of.  I could be wrong. There is no way for me to remember everything we talk about with super concrete details.  I am out of tapes.

Why is being avaricious in a woman so threatening?  I’ll tell you flat out that if Noah gets to the point where he is offered $250k/year in salary, hell yes I’ll do anything he wants.  That kind of power and influence is highly erotic to a dirty little street kid like me, what can I say?  He can have a weekend where I do anything he wants.  And the current potential ideas are the kinds of things nice normal housewives should be degraded by.  I should feel devalued and lessened.  Cheapened.  Instead my response is: hawt.  It gets me off to think about it now and it will really get me off to do it.

My marriage wouldn’t work for everyone, but we’re having fun.  I can’t really see another way for me to deal with my class issues, really.  I could pretend they don’t exist… but they do.  We like looking at things head on.  I don’t see the value in pussyfooting around my stupid little landmines.  If I’m going to set them off, let’s go kablooie.  Why not do it in a way that maximizes the fun.  Seriously.  I don’t consider that a real question.  This is work I need to do in my life.  I need to deal with my class issues.  Mostly I talk about them in therapy, on the internet, with friends, with Noah, and I think constantly about them.  Ok, not constantly.  But they come up and I address them.  And every so often I go and play some dramatic game about sex exploitation.  So what?  I think that giving my husband a weekend for sex that we will both find really hot is a pretty reasonable reward for him being a fan-fuck-ing-tastic provider.  I don’t really care if anyone disagrees.  (Then why am I writing about it on the internet.  *sigh*)

I want to try to explain how I see Noah.  I really do.  I don’t have the words this morning though.  He’s such a big concept in my mind.  I watched this bad bad movie recently about 20’s relationship angst and the big whore butch dyke finally settles down into a monogamous relationship because “You hold my interest.”  I like the fact that sleeping with other people reminds me that I married the right person.  I enjoy it.  I want to do it again.  But I married the right person.  Never before in my life has anyone cared enough about me and my happiness to change their behavior for me.  That’s the part that other people don’t get.  That’s why I keep them at a distance.  They think I have to just “learn to accept them”, which means that I have to change to suit them.  Noah looked at me and thought that keeping me and making me happy was worth making dramatic bone deep change.

I am the luckiest girl in the whole world.  He has absolutely changed for me.  Yes, I’m going to change for him too.  Because I want to validate the important parts of him that much.  Because I think he is worth it.

We kind of ignored our fifth wedding anniversary.  We were busy.  I’m not actually sad about that because the party was fun.  Last night I was told extensively how much I have changed since marrying Noah.  I agree.  For the first time in my life I know what it is like to have someone unreservedly like me.  It’s a novelty.  And Noah doesn’t just like me.  Noah is kind of obsessed with me.  We have spent hundreds of hours talking about my life and history and psychological health.  There are not enough hours in a day for me to tell him more about the inner workings of my brain.  I was informed that is not normal.  Ok.

It’s weird to live with someone who likes me but has no compunction pointing out where I am doing something badly.  It’s refreshing.  After five years together, I even prefer his voice in delivering criticism.  When he’s consciously trying he’s good at being gentle with me.  We have a lot of verbal conversation short cuts that help with my layers of emotional baggage.  That was hard to build.  It is amazing that at this point we can have these massively intense conversations because we can reference this long history of conversations.  I’ve never really had that before.

It’s weird how this relationship is really my “college” education in the sense that most people have them. Noah has encouraged me to learn about things I actively shunned.  He has read books to me and articles and blog posts and comics and we have watched movies together.  We have built this weird unique little subculture just for us.  I imagine this is what growing up in a family is like, because we include the kids whenever we can.  This will be their weird little subculture.  I think about that.  My children will never have normal.  My children will be in the 5%.  Probably.  Maybe.  I hope.  I hope they know that the 5% exists and that they have the courage and fortitude to do anything they want to do.  I want children who are so courageous that there really isn’t much chance they will meld into the crowd.  I have that already.

Noah encourages me to feel really happy about being me.  He thinks I should grin when I think of something clever I said.  It’s kind of an odd feeling.  He likes it when I am cocky and arrogant.  But then I later collapse in private and have to breathe through my panic attack.  Noah is definitely a mixed bag for my personal development.  Sometimes I wonder if part of what makes me so uncomfortable when I go out into the world is the fact that I know that no one has ever liked me how Noah likes me.  I feel like other people dislike me in contrast.  It’s not true.  But it is true that I am starting to run into conflict with friends because Noah has influenced my behavior.

I have Noah at home telling me that conflict is an ok thing.  It’s hard to believe him.  It’s hard to believe that getting better at arguing is really going to earn me more friends.  Noah is trying to convince me that it will absolutely chase off some of my current friends but it will earn me friends who actually like me more rather than what they are projecting on to me.  I think that is what he is trying to convince me of.  I could be wrong. There is no way for me to remember everything we talk about with super concrete details.  I am out of tapes.

Why is being avaricious in a woman so threatening?  I’ll tell you flat out that if Noah gets to the point where he is offered $250k/year in salary, hell yes I’ll do anything he wants.  That kind of power and influence is highly erotic to a dirty little street kid like me, what can I say?  He can have a weekend where I do anything he wants.  And the current potential ideas are the kinds of things nice normal housewives should be degraded by.  I should feel devalued and lessened.  Cheapened.  Instead my response is: hawt.  It gets me off to think about it now and it will really get me off to do it.

My marriage wouldn’t work for everyone, but we’re having fun.  I can’t really see another way for me to deal with my class issues, really.  I could pretend they don’t exist… but they do.  We like looking at things head on.  I don’t see the value in pussyfooting around my stupid little landmines.  If I’m going to set them off, let’s go kablooie.  Why not do it in a way that maximizes the fun.  Seriously.  I don’t consider that a real question.  This is work I need to do in my life.  I need to deal with my class issues.  Mostly I talk about them in therapy, on the internet, with friends, with Noah, and I think constantly about them.  Ok, not constantly.  But they come up and I address them.  And every so often I go and play some dramatic game about sex exploitation.  So what?  I think that giving my husband a weekend for sex that we will both find really hot is a pretty reasonable reward for him being a fan-fuck-ing-tastic provider.  I don’t really care if anyone disagrees.  (Then why am I writing about it on the internet.  *sigh*)

I want to try to explain how I see Noah.  I really do.  I don’t have the words this morn

How it becomes enough

I have this user icon on a website.  It says: Everything is always okay in the end.  If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.  I have a doctors appointment for the 14th.  I need to get a physical and get a referral to a psychiatric doctor.  I need to get the manic cycles under control.  I did not sleep for over a week of June.  I also did not sleep on five nights in August.  On nights when I do sleep I often only get four hours of sleep.  This isn’t healthy.  I broke my manic cycle in a burst of body depletion at the party.  I don’t want to do that again in that way.  I don’t think it is awful that I did it.  It was actually wonderful.  I did get what I wanted out of it.  I know how it is enough.

I would like to have more tools for dealing with my anxiety and PTSD.  Refusing to ask for a doctors help is part of the bad message stuff from my family.  It’s ok that I need help sometimes.  Everyone does.  Cue defensive language.  The party was really great because my only goal was to let go of the anxiety and I not feel responsible for anyone and I not steer the bus.  I had a lot of post-party jitters and I ranted heavily at one of the participants about how I should have manipulated the situation more to control more about what other people experienced.  He was great about patting me on the head but mostly ignoring me.  The ritual portion of the evening went about as fantastically as it could have, actually… on reflection.  Over the course of the evening I had a really hard time staying in headspace.  I am horrified by how strong my anxiety was even though I had taken heroic measures to overcome it.  That is absolutely the limit of my ability to self medicate for my anxiety and it wasn’t enough.  I need to try something else.

Every single person in my house this weekend likes me.  Many of them love me.  I was able to move through that crowd and feel intense irritation from more than half of the people there.  That’s not rational.  That’s not real.  That’s me having trouble perceiving what people are freely offering out of love.  Which is not to say that I didn’t have fun!  I did.  I had a wonderful time and I metaphorically smacked myself in the ass and ignored my anxiety and interacted with people even though I felt anxious.  I wasn’t defensive.  I wasn’t aggressive.  When I started to try to control what people were saying/doing/thinking I tried to back off and just listen for a while instead of projecting onto other people.  It was a very conscious effort and that’s not something I can sustain.

I loved my party.  I had a great time.  It felt so good to connect with people who love me so much.  I’m going to have to rest a lot to recover from this though.  And my anxiety isn’t lower despite that much love present in one place?  I need some help.  That’s how it becomes enough.  Because life is what it is.  If I am a gaping maw of need I have to figure out how to deal with it on my own.  I cannot ask for any more of the people in my life than they already give.  I am very supported.  This is about me and the chemicals in my brain.  This is about a lot of years of being abused.

Everything is always okay in the end.  If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.  I’m spending a lot of my current anxious cycles thinking about how the ritual worked for me and why I’m having so much internal pushback on wanting to present it properly to the world.  I feel very vulnerable about it and I’m struggling with it.  The obvious answer is to just not write about it, right?  If it causes me anxiety to think about writing about it then I shouldn’t do it.  There is no need to write about it.  The only problem is, this is being me.  The writing about it is as integral to the process as doing it.  I don’t know why, but it is.  Thus the current massive anxiety.  I don’t believe in the pit of my stomach that what I did was ok.  Do you know why?  Because like all things in life it was a mixed bag.

The sex was good, I’ll say that unreservedly.  I shouldn’t have tried to do that specific flavor of sex in a group environment.  I did it because I wanted to do it in front of other people… I don’t know… to prove that they would still love me and want to cuddle me when I am that person?  I think that one of the best parts was when a very sweet man told me in the morning that he is still interested in me.  It was this interesting validation.

I tried as hard as I could to engage in self-harming behavior.  Oh that’s melodramatic.  I tried to break taboos.  That’s more true.  I engaged in unprotected sex before having a medical procedure done to ensure my own sterility.  I think breaking that bit of my worry around extra-marital sex isn’t worth it again.  I don’t have space in my life for the extra processing time it requires.  It makes things more complicated.  By that I mean, I’ve sat here thinking for at least several minutes each day freaking the fuck out about a vasectomy failing and not knowing who the father is.  I’m not comfortable in my body right now.  I feel like I violated something sacred.  My baby machine is one user only, damnit.  That part of me feels monogamous and kind of freaked.  It’s not particularly rational and is not a negative reflection on any one else.  But that takes up space in my emotional life and I don’t have room to give it.  So I feel increased anxiety symptoms all the time because I would really love to start having a period again any second now.  That was a life lesson.  I like condoms.  I have to get better at condoms.  Practice.  Practice.  Practice.

I will probably be lame and buy a dollar store pregnancy test in three weeks just to end this cycle of worry.  And I’ve learned an important lesson.  I had fun.  I’m glad I did it.  I learned a lot.  That’s enough.

Today is the day.  Party time.  I went to bed early, thus I am up at 4.  My body mocks extra sleep.  My body thinks that extra sleep is for lesser mortals.  You know, people with less adrenaline.  Holy moly I have a lot of energy coursing through my body.  I’m trying to bank it because I don’t want to be toast before people arrive.

I have thought so hard and for so long about this day.  I’ve been working towards this event night and day for four or five months.  It’s kind of weird to be here.  My goal today is to drown out the cacophony of voices in my head that tell me I’m bad.  I’m really not.  There are supposedly 69 people coming to my house today to tell me they love me.  My life isn’t half bad, you know?  And the only reason the party is this small is because of Burning Man.  Ok, that made my grin huge.  Holy shit.  That’s a lot of people who like me.  I don’t feel like I deserve to be liked.

Today is not about the bad tapes though.  Today I am going to plaster the biggest smile I can manage on my face and I am going to let my friends hug me.  I worked very hard for this party.  Now I get to enjoy it.  Noah, Sarah, and Kira will be the people who handle actual hosting.  They are all very happy to do so.  I prefer being a guest at parties.  To entertain and spread things out I’ve made fun play areas in the front and back yards.  The sand box is tented (I hope it didn’t fall off over night–heh) for maximum access without sunburning.  There is a secret room under the blue potato vine.  I have a cool yard.  There’s a secret room under a bush.  Yay!  Uhhhh just make sure your kids don’t eat any of the blue potato vine.  Apparently they are toxic.  The plant was here before me.  I yelled at a neighborhood kid yesterday for stealing one of my roses out of the front hedge.  It was kind of awesome.  I think that is my first “Get off my lawn” moment.

Yesterday I had therapy.  She seems thrilled with me.  She’s delighted with the party.  She is starting to direct sessions a little more and I think that’s a good thing.  I appreciate it when a therapists hang back and get the lay of the land before making suggestions.  Then I feel like they are making suggestions based on things I’m saying rather than their biases.  I feel like my therapist’s job is to listen to me tell my story and help me make connections between the various bits.  I’m too close to the pattern to see it without an outside participant.  Noah isn’t always available.  Not to mention that I have some inner conflict about a lot of things in our marriage.

This relationship is fucking work.  It’s good work.  I’m happy to be doing it.  I really and truly don’t want to be doing anything else.  The last two days were good examples.  I was uhm pretty difficult to live with this week.  I stress out about things.  And I don’t have anything that feels important in my life so this party is pretty over inflated for me.  We tried hard on all sides to really ask for the rest and help we needed.  I’m really hoping we all have enough energy to see everything through today.  Adrenaline and caffeine are my two best friends today.  I will have lots of adrenaline.  Holy moly this is a lot of people in my house.

It’s kind of funny.  I feel like I’m becoming weirder and more eccentric by the year.  I am twitchy about people in my house and yet I really want to show off all my hard work.  There.  I said it.  A big part of the reason I’m doing this is because I think my house is a fun play house and I want other people to know that too.  I want people to come play with me.  And my kids.  This is a great kid house.  Maybe it’s even a great home.  Maybe I have an actual forever home.  That thought makes me cry.  What does “forever” mean with regards to where you live?  I feel like an unrooted person.  I have few ties to a particular living situation.  That sounds weird.  It has never changed my life to live in one house or another.  It would now.  I am developing patterns and routines related to where I live.

I think it is funny that having Sarah’s stuff here makes me feel like, “Oh!  Now we have actual taste in the house!”  She’s a lot more into classic literature than I am.  Think about that. (Me: graduate work in English lit; her: space science and linux sys admin.)  Hilarious.  People arrive in five hours.  I pleaded with people to be punctual.  It’s a thing.  When people are late I have panic attacks.  I feel lame about it, but it’s a fact.  And if it is true then I should treat it as true and let people know that it is a big thing to me, right?  It’s not that I actually need all 69 people to show up on the dot of 10.  But if no one showed up by 10:30 (a pretty common occurrence) I would be in the bathroom crying and I wouldn’t perk up totally all day.  I don’t want that for today.  It’s been a draining few months.  I want to eliminate angst wherever possible.  And now I cross my fingers and pray.  I think it will be a wonderful party.  I have really good friends.

I should try to rest more.  Five hours.  Oh man.

Building energy

This article is interesting.  The past six months have been very difficult on a lot of levels.  I’m starting to move into a deeper phase of dealing with my incest stuff.  I’ve been thinking about this chapter from A Wind in the Door Madeleine L’Engle:

Chapter 11: Sporos
A burst of harmony so brilliant that it almost overwhelmed them surrounded Meg, the cherubim, Calvin, and Mr. Jenkins.  But after a moment of breathlessness, Meg was able to open herself to the song of the farae, these strange creatures who were Deepened, rooted, yet never separated from each other, no matter how great the distance.
We are the song of the universe.  We sing with the angelic host.  We are the musicians.  The farae and the stars are the singers.  Our song orders the rhythm of creation.
Calvin asked, “How can you sing with the stars?
There was surprise at the question: it is the song.  We sing it together.  That is our joy.  And our Being.
“But how do you know about the stars–in here–inside–“
How could farae not know about stars when farae and stars sing together?
“You can’t see the stars.  How can you possibly know about them?”
Total incomprehension from the farae.  If Meg and Calvin kythed in visual images, this was their limitation.  The farae had moved beyond physical sight.
“Okay,” Calvin said.  “I know how little of ourselves, and of our brains, we’ve learned to use.  We have billions of brain cells, and we use only the tiniest portion of them.”
Mr. Jenkins added with his dry, ropy kythe, “I have heard that the number of cells in the brain and the number of stars in the universe is said to be exactly equal.”
“Progo!” Meg asked.  “You memorized the names of all the stars–how many are there?”
“How many?  Great heavens, earthling, I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“But you said your last assignment was to memorize the names of all of them.”
“I did.  All the stars in all the galaxies.  And that’s a great many.”
“But how many?”
“What difference does it make?  I know their names.  I don’t know how many there are.  It’s their names that matter.”
The strong kything of the farae joined Proginoskes.  “And the song.  If it were not for the support of the singing of the galaxies, we farae on Yadah would have lost the melody, so few of the farandolae are Deepening.  The Namers are at work.”
Meg felt a sudden chill, a pulling back, a fading of the Deepened farae; there was a dissonance in the harmony; the rhythm faltered.
In her mind’s eye an image was fhalshed of a troop of farandolae dancing wildly about one fara tree, going faster and faster, until she felt dizzy.
“Sporos is with them,” Proginoskes told her.
“What are they doing?  Why are they spinning faster and faster?”  The circle of farandolae revolved so rapidly that it became a swirling blur.  The fronds of the great fara around whom they swirled began to droop.  
“They are absorbing the nourishment which the fara needs.  The fara is Senex, from whom Sporos came.”  There was chill in Proginoskes’s words.
The speed of the dancing farandolae became like a scream in Meg’s ears.  “Stop!” she cried.  “Stop it at once!”  There was nothing merry or joyful in the dance.  It was savage, wild, furious.
Then, through the raging of the dance came a strong, pure strain of melody, quiet, certain, noble.  The dancing farandolae broke their circle and scampered about aimlessly; then, led by Sporos, they raced to another fara and began circling it.
The fronds of Senex greened, lifted.
Proginoskes said, “He is strong enough to hold out longer than any of the other farae.  But even Senex cannot hold out forever.”  He stopped abruptly.  “Feel.”
“Feel?”
“The rhythm of the mitochondrion.  Is it my fearfulness, or is Yadah faltering?”
“It is not you,” Meg answered the cherubim.  They were all very still, listening, feeling.  Again there came a slight irregularity in the steady pulsing.  A faltering.  A missed beat.  Then it steadied, continued.
Like a gash through the non-light of Yadah Meg had a brief vision of Charles Wallace lying in his small room, gasping for air.  She thought she saw Dr. Louise, but the strange thing was that she could not tell whether it was Dr. Louse Colubra, or Louise the actual colubra.  “Don’t give up.  Breathe, Charles.  Breathe.”  And a steady voice, “It’s time to try oxygyn.”
Then she was drawn back within the mitochondrion to Senex, the parent tree of Sporos.  She tried to convey to him what she had just seen, but she received nothing from him in return.  His incomprehension was even greater than Mr. Jenkins’s had been.  She asked Proginoskes, “Does Senex know that Charles Wallace even exists?”
“As you know that your galaxy, the Milky Way, exists.”
“Does he know that Charles Wallace is ill?”
“As you know that your Earth is ill, by fish dying in the rivers, birds dying in the forests, people dying in the choked cities.  You know by war and hate and chaos.  Senex knows mitochondrion is ill because the farandolae will not Deepen and many farae are dying.  Listen.  Kythe.”
A group of farandolae whirled about a fara; fronds drooped; color drained.  The dance was a scream of laughter, ugly laughter.  Meg smelled the stench which was like the stench in the twins’ garden when she  had first encountered an Echthros.  
She heard a voice.  It was like a bad tape recording of Mr. Jenkins.  “You need not Deepen and lose your power to move, to dance.  No one can force you to.  Do not listen to the farae.  Listen to me.”
The great central trunk of the surrounded fara began to weaken.
Meg tried to project herself into the dance, to break the vortex.  “Sporos, come out!  Don’t listen.  You were sent to the Teacher.  You belong with us.  Come out, Sporos, you were meant to Deepen!”
Then it was as though she were the end skater in a violent game of crack-the-whip and suddenly was flung so wildly across the ice that she crashed into the end of the rink.  The force with which she had been thrown was so fierce that her kything was completely blacked out.
“Breathe, Meg, breathe.”  It was Proginoskes, using the same words which Louise was using with Charles Wallace.  “Breathe, Meg.  You’re all right.”
She reeled, staggered, regained her balance.
Again she heard the ugly laugh, and the false Mr. Jenkins voice urging, “Kill the fara!”
Then came Mr. Jenkins’s own voice.  “I see.  I understand.”  She felt emanating from him a dry, dusty acknowledgment of unpleasant fact. 
She returned sharply, still slightly breathless, “I don’t understand.”
Mr. Jenkins asked her, “Why did Hitler want to control the world?  Or Napoleon?  Or Tiberius?”
“I don’t know.  I don’t know why anyone would.  I think it would be awful.”
“But you admit that they did, Margaret?”
“They wanted to,” she conceded. “But they didn’t succeed.”
“They did a remarkably good job of succeeding for a period of time, and they will not lightly be forgotten.  A great many people perished during the years of their rules.”  
“But farandolae–why would little farandolae like Sporos–“
“They appear to be not that unlike human beings.”
She felt cold and quiet.  Once Mr. Jenkins had accepted the situation, he understood it better than she did.  She asked, “Okay, then, what have the Echthroi got to do with it?  They’re behind it, aren’t they?”
Proginoskes answered, “The Echthroi are always behind war.”
Meg turned in anguish towards Senex, calm and strong as an oak tree, but, unlike the oak, pliable, able to bend with wind and weather.  “Senex, we’ve been sent to help, but I’m not strong enough to fight the Echthroi.  I can’t stop Sporos and the other farandolae from killing the fara.  Oh, Senex, if they succeed, won’t they kill themselves, too?”
Senex responded coldly, quietly.  “Yes.”
“This is insane,” Mr. Jenkins said.
Proginoskes answered, “All war is insane.”
“But, as I understand it,” Mr. Jenkins continued, “we are a minutely immeasurable part of Charles Wallace?”  
“We are.”
“Therefore if, while we are on–or, rather, in–this mitochondrion, if Charles Wallace were to die, then–er–um–we–“
“Die too.”
“Then I fight not only for Charles Wallace’s life but for Meg’s and Calvin’s and–“
“Your own.”
Meg felt Mr. Jenkins’s total indifference to his own life.  She was not yet willing to accept the burden of his concern for her.  “We musn’t think about that!  We musn’t think about anything but Charles!”
Proginoskes wound around and through her thoughts: “You cannot show your concern for Charles Wallace now except in concern for Sporos.  Don’t you understand that we’re all part of one another, and the Echthroi are trying to splinter us, in just the same way that they’re trying to destroy all Creation?”
The dancing farandolae whirled and screamed, and Meg thought she could hear Sporos’s voice: “We’re not part of anybody!  We’re farandolae, and we’re going to take over Yadah.  After that–“
A hideous screech of laughter assailed Meg’s ears.  Again she flung herself at the dance, trying to pull Sporos out of it.
Senex drew her back with the power of his kythe.  “Not that way, not by force.”
“But Sporos has to Deepen!  He has to!”
Then, around the edges of her awareness, Meg heard a twingling, and Calvin was with Sporos, trying to reach out to him, to kythe with him.
Sporos’s response was jangly, but he came out of the wild circle and hovered on its periphery.  “Why did Blajeny send you alien life forms to Yadah with me?  How can you possibly help with my schooling?  We make music by ourselves.  We don’t need you.”
Meg felt Proginoskes’s volcanic upheaving, felt a violent wind, searing tongues of flame.  “Idiot, idiot,” Proginoskes was sending, “We all need each other.  Every atom in the universe is dependent on every other.”
“I don’t need you.”
Suddenly Proginoskes kythed quietly and simply, “I need you, Sporos.  We all of us need you.  Charles Wallace needs you.”
“I don’t need Charles Wallace.”
Calvin kythed urgently, “Don’t you?  What happens to you if something happens to Charles Wallace?  Who have you been listening to?”
Sporos withdrew.  Meg could not feel him at all.
Calvin emanated frustration.  “I can’t reach him  He slips away from me every time I think I’m getting close.”
Sporos was pulled back into the whirling circle.  The surrounded fara was limp, all life draining rapidly.  Senex mouthed, “His song is going out.”
Proginoskes kythed, “Xed.  Snuffed out like a candle.”
Senex’s fronds drooped in grief.  “Sporos and his generation listen to those who would silence the singing.  They listen to those who would put out the light of the song.”
Mr. Jenkins raised shadowy arms prophetically.  “To kill the song is the only salvation!”
“No!” Mr. Jenkins cried to Mr. Jenkins.  “You are only a mirror vision of me.  You are nothing!”
Nothing  nothing  nothing
The words echoed, hollow, empty, repeating endlessly.  Everywhere Meg kythed she seemed to meet a projection of an Echthros–Mr. Jenkins.
“Don’t you understand that the Echthroi are your saviors?  When everything is nothing there will be no more war, no illness, no death.  There will be no more poverty, no more pain, no more slums, no more starvation–“
Senex kythed through the Echthros.  “No more singing!”
Proginoskes joined Senex.  “No more stars, or cherubim, or the light of the moon on the sea.”
And Calvin: “There will never be another meal around table.  No one will ever break bread or drink wine with his companions.”
Meg kythed violently against the nearest Echthros-Mr. Jenkins, “You are nothing!  You’re only borrowing Mr. Jenkins in order to be something.  Go away!  You are nothing!”
Then she was aware that the real Mr. Jenkins was trying to reach her.  “Nature abhors a vacuum.”
Calvin replied, “Then we must fill the vacuum.  That is the only thing to do.”
“How?”
“If the Echthroi are nothingness, emptiness, then that emptiness can be filled.”
“Yes, but how do we fill it?”
Senex kythed calmly, “Perhaps you don’t want to fill it strongly enough.  Perhaps you do not yet understand what is at stake.”
“I do!  A little boy, my brother–what do you know about my little brother?”
Senex conveyed considerable confusion.  He had a feeling for the word ‘brother’ because all farae are–or had been–brothers.  But ‘little boy’ meant nothing to him whatsoever.  
“I know that my galactic host is ill, perhaps dying–“
“That’s Charles Wallace!  That’s my little brother!  He may be a galactic host to you, but to me he’s just a little boy like–like Sporos.”  She turned her kythe from Senex and towards the wildly dancing farandolae who had surrounded another fara.  This time she kythed herself towards them cautiously.  How could she be sure which one was Sporos?
An Echthros-Mr. jenkins whinnied with laughter.  “It doesn’t matter.  Nothing matters.”  A harsh twang wounded the melody of the farae who were still singing.
Once again Meg felt faltering in the mitochondrion.  Yadah was in pain.  Suddenly she remembered the farandolae who had saved her from the Echthros when Proginoskes brought her into Yadah.  Not all the farandolae had thrown in their lot with the Echthroi.  Or were those who had Xed themselves that she might live the only ones who would defy the Echthroi?  
She bagan calling urgently, “Sporos!  Farandolae!  Come away from  the Echthroi.  You will dance yourselves to death.  Come to Senex and Deepen.  This is what you were born to do.  Come!”
Some of the farandolae faltered.  Others whirled the faster, crying, “We don’t need to Deepen.  That’s only an old superstition.  It’s a stupid song they sing, all this Glory, glory, glory.  We are the ones who are glorious.”
“The stars–” Meg called desperately.
“Another superstition.  There are no stars.  We are the greatest beings in the universe.”
Ugliness seeped past Meg and to Sporos.  “Why do you want to Deepen?”
Sporos’s twingling was slightly dissonant.  “Farandolae are born to Deepen.”
“Fool.  Once you Deepen and put down roots you won’t be able to romp around as you do now.”
“But–“
“You’ll be stuck in one place forever with those fuddy-duddy farae, and you won’t be able to run or move, ever again.”
“But–“
The strength and calm of Senex cut through the ugliness.  “It is only when we are fully rooted that we are really able to move.”
Indecision quivered throughout Sporos.
Senex continued, “It is true, small offspring.  Now that I am rooted I am no longer limited by motion.  Now I may move anywhere in the universe.  I sing with the stars.  I dance with the galaxies.  I share in the joy–and in the grief.  We farae must have our part in the rhythm of the mitochondria, or we cannot be.  If we cannot be, then we are not.”
“You mean, you die?” Meg asked.
“Is that what you call it?  Perhaps.  I am not sure.  But the song of Yadah is no longer full and rich.  It is flaccid, its harmonies meager.  By our arrogance we make Yadah suffer.”
Meg felt Calvin beside Senex, urging, “Sporos, you are my partner.  We are to work together.”
“Why?  You’re no use to me.”
“Sporos, we are partners, whether we like it or not.”
Meg joined in.  “Sporos!  We need you to help save Charles Wallace.”
“Why do we have to bother about this Charles Wallace?  He’s nothing but a stupid human child.”
“He’s your galaxy.  That ought to make him special enough, even for you.”
A cruel slashing cut between their kything, as though a great beak had cut a jagged wound. “Sporos!  It is I, Mr. Jenkins.  I am the teacher who is greater than all Teachers because I know the Echthroi.”  Meg felt Proginoskes’s kything clamp like steel.
The Echthros-Mr. Jenkins was holding Sporos, and speaking with honey-sweet words.  “Do not listen to the earthlings; do no listen to the farae.  They are are stupid and weak.  Listen to me and you will be powerful like the Echthroi.  You will rule the universe.”
“Sporos!” The real Mr. Jenkins’s kything was not strong enough to break through the stream  “He is not Mr. Jenkins.  Do not listen!”
Calvin’s kythe came more strongly than Mr. Jenkins’s.  “There are two Mr. Jenkinses by you, Sporos, two Mr. Jenkinses kything you.  You know that one is not real.  Deepen Sporos, that is where your reality lies.  That is how you will find your place, and how you will find your true center.”
meg’s mind’s-ears were assailed by a howling which was Echthroid, though it appeared to come from the pseudo-Mr. Jenkins.  “Reality is meaningless.  Nothing is the center.  Come.  Join the others in the race.  Only a few more farae to surround and you will have Yadah for your own.” 
“Yadah will die,” Meg cried.  “We will all die.  You will die!”
“If you come with us, you will be nothing,” the Echthros-Mr. Jenkins spoke in cloying kythe, “and nothing can happen to nothing.”
Sporos’s long whiskers trembled painfully.  “I am very young.  I should not be asked to make major decisions for several centuries.”
“Your’re old enough to listen to Senex,” Meg told him.  “You’re old enough to listen to me.  After all, I’m a galaxy to you.  It’s time for you to Deepen.”
Sporos wriggled in the clasp of the Echthros-Mr. Jenkins. “Come, Sporos, fly with the Echthroi.  Then you will crackle across the universe.  There are too many mitochondria in creation.  There are too many stars in the heavens.  Come with us to naught, to nought.”
“Deepen, Sporos, my child, Deepen.”
“Sporos!” The Echthroid howl beat against the rhythm of Yadah.  “We will make you a prince among Echthroi.”
Meg felt a gust of wind, the familiar flicker of flame: Proginoskes.  The cherubim flung his kything across the void of the Echthros-Mr. Jenkins, like a rope flung from cliff’s edge to cliff’s edge.  “Sporos, all farandolae are royal.  All singers of the song are princes.”
“Nonsense.  In Name only.”
“The Name matters.”
“Only to matter.”
Proginoskes’s kything was so gentle that it undercut the storm of Echthroi.  “You are created matter, Sporos.  You are part of the great plan, an indispensable part.  You are needed, Sporos; you hae your own unique share in the freedom of creation.”
“Do not listen to that hideous cherubim.  He’s nothing but a deformed emanation of energy.  We will give you no name and you will have power.”
Calvin pushed in again.  “Sporos, you are my partner.  Whatever we do, we must do it together.  If you join the wild farandolae again I am coming into the dance with you.”
Sporos quivered, “To help kill the farae?”
“No.  To be with you.”
Meg cried, “Progo, let’s go, too!  We can help Calvin.”  In her impetuous relief at having something to do, she did not feel the cherubim pulling her back, but plunged into the irrational tarantella and was immediately swept out of control.  Calvin was whirling beside Sporos, unable to pull him away from the circle closing in on the dying fara.
Meg was totally in the power of the revolving, twangling farandolae.  The orbital velocity sucked her in, through the circle and against the limp trunk of the fara.
Within the deahtly center of the dance it was dark;; she could not image the whirling farandolae; she could not kythe Calvin or Sporos.  She heard only a silence which was not silence because within this vortex there was an emptiness which precluded the possibility of sound.
Caught in this anguished vacuum she was utterly powerless.  She was sucked against the trunk of the fara, but the fara was now too weak to hold her up; it was she who had to hold the dying Deepened One, to give it her own life’s blood.  She felt it being drained from her.  The fara’s trunk strengthened.  It was Meg who wad dying.
Then arms were around her, holding her, pouring life back into her, Mr. Jenkins’s arms, the real Mr. Jenkins.  His strength and love filled her.
As she returned to life, the firm, rhythmic tendrils of the reviving fara caressed her.  Mr. Jenkins held them both, and his power did not weaken.  The murderous circle was broken.  Calvin held Sporos in his arms and a tear slid down his cheek.  Meg turned towards him, to comfort him.
The moment she kythed away from Mr. Jenkins and to Calvin, a new circle formed, not of farandolae, but of Mr. Jenkinses, Mr. Jenkinses swirling their deathly ring around the real Mr. Jenkins.
Meg whirled back towards him, but it was too late.  Mr. Jenkins was surrounded.  Meg cried, “Deepen, Sporos, it’s the only hope!”
The scattered farandolae darted hither and thither in confusion.  Proginoskes reached out wing after invisible wing to pull them in.  There was a frightened twingle.
“Look at the Echthroi!”  Proginoskes commanded.  “They are killing Mr. Jenkins as they made you kill your own farae.  Look.  This is what it is like.”
“Mr. Jenkins!”  Meg called.  “We have to save Mr. Jenkens.  Oh, Sporos, Deepen, it’s the second ordeal, you must Deepen.”
“For Mr. Jenkins?”
“For yourself, for all of us.”
“But why did Mr. Jenkins–didn’t he know what would happen to him?”
“Of course he knew.  He did it to save us.”
“To save us all,” Calvin added.  “The Echthroi have him, Sporos.  They are going to kill him.  What are you going to do?”
Sporos turned towards Senex, the fara from whom he had been born.  He reached out small green tendrils towards all the farandolae.  “It is Deepening time,” he said.
They heard a faint echo of the music which had been such joy when Blajeny took them to witness the birth of a star.  The farae were singing, singing, strengthening.  Sporos was joining in the song.  All about them farandolae were Deepening, and adding their music to the flowing of the song.
Meg’s exhaustion and relief were so great that she forgot Mr. Jenkins.  She assumed blindly that now that Sporos and the other farandolae were Deepening, now that the second ordeal had been successfully accomplished, all was well; the Echthroi were vanquished; Charles Wallace would recover; she could relax.
Then she felt Proginoskes pushing through her thoughtlessness.  “Meg!  You forget!  There are three tests!”
She turned from rejoicing. The circle of pseudo-Mr. Jenkinses was whirling wildly about the principal, closing in on him.
Proginoskes kythed so strongly that she was pulled back into painful awareness.  “We cannot let the Echthroi get Mr. Jenkins.  This is the third test, to rescue Mr. Jenkins.  Senex, Sporos, everybody, help us!”
Meg heard a shrill, high scream, a scream that turned into a horrible laugh of triumph.  It came from Mr. Jenkins.  One Mr. Jenkins.  There was no longer a spiral of Echthroid Jenkinses surrounding the principal.  They had closed in, and entered their prey.
Proginoskes’s kything cut like a knife.  “The Echthroi have him.  We must get him away.”

Bad decisions

In life there are trade offs.  You only have so many resources at any given point in time.  I feel like an awful lot of the problems in life are because of the fact that there are insufficient resources.  And I don’t mean oil–I’m talking about time and attention.  I’m talking about the fact that I don’t keep up with my friends as well as I wish I could because I cannot handle the fact that I am already touched and pawed at all day long.

A friend else-net got very drunk last night.  She’s at a hard spot in her life and she wanted to drink to forget.  Of course she now believes this has destroyed her value as a person.  On the kind of nights where you drink to forget you tend to believe your value was gone before you started.  I make bad decisions.  I don’t want to add an adverb describing when or how often. Because the reality is I probably make bad decisions about as often as average and maybe less.  Do you want to know why I say that?  Because something being a bad decision or not depends on your perspective.

Getting shit faced drunk and passing out seems like a bad decision.  Until you realize that the alternative may very well be ending your life.  When you realize that choosing to get shit faced drunk so that you can make it through the one bad night is actually a good choice.  At the crisis point, get drunk.  That’s ok.  Really.  It’s not a bad decision.  If that is how you are going to still be alive in the morning it is a good decision.  It’s a bad decision to do it every night.  It is a bad decision to make it a lifestyle.  Anesthetics have their place in life.  I believe it is ok to self-medicate.  But be very careful.

Does that mean it is the safest choice?  Of course not.  Drinking until you pass out is dangerous and I don’t really think people should be doing it.  Much like cutting.  It’s not a great thing to do.  I don’t recommend it as a coping strategy for people who are looking for new tools.  Sometimes people do make mistakes while cutting and accidentally die.  It is not beyond the realm of possibility.

A lot of my friends point out that their lives “weren’t that bad” so they shouldn’t be upset.  I honestly don’t know a lot of people who experienced more abuse than me… and I still don’t feel entitled to be upset.  Not really.  To me that means that it doesn’t matter whether I am entitled to the upset or not.  I am upset.  I need to not worry about whether or not I should be.  I need to not focus on how my being upset affects other people.  I need to look at how being upset affects me.  It’s hard because for all that I have been talking constantly about being narcissistic… I’m truly not.  I have a hard time paying adequate attention to myself.  I worry constantly about the happiness of those around me.  I work extensively to build up other people.  That’s just an insecurity.

It’s just as true for everyone else though.  Ok, there are people who are actually narcissistic.  Most people are just existing though.  You get upset.  It’s ok to deal with being upset.  If that upset goes on for weeks, months, years… you use up your resources.  When you are low on resources sometimes you hit the bottom of the barrel.  It’s ok.  That’s why it is there.  It is still a tool.  The bottom exists for a reason.

Why am I babbling about this.  Because I can say this emphatically when I am speaking with my friend in my head.  When I picture my beautiful, wonderful friend who is going through a very hard time and there is nothing I can do to help… that feels like I am failing in my life.  I don’t want my friends to suffer.  I want to take it away and make everything better.  I want to help build my friends up so big and so strong that they cannot be hurt any more.

I’ve been reading more in TCTH (The Courage to Heal–I’m sick of typing it out.)  I think it is funny that every time I read it I get to a few pages past where I feel emotionally that day.  When I come back and catch up I get to read on the page these testimonies from all these women describing their emotional processes and I could have written them.  It feels really hilarious and predictable.  This experience of going through this book is ensuring that I know I am not a special fucking snow flake.  Ha.  It’s nice though.  I now have this invisible group of women who know what I have been through. Healing from incest is a fairly predictable path.  I’m not lost and wandering and doing it wrong.  I am working the steps.  I really and truly am doing something that is worth doing.  As hard as this is sometimes, as bad as some of my mistakes are… I am improving.

My momentary bad decisions do not negate the fact that I am a good person.  That it is worth getting up every single day and continuing for as long as my body will let me because I add good to the world.  Far, far, far more good than bad.  I haven’t been sleeping enough and my emotions are very close to the surface.  I feel very upset when I see my friends self-flagellating in ways I also do.  It hits home for me what I need to start working on doing and that’s hard.  I kind of don’t need more pressure to work, you know?  I’m very tired.  I feel so flawed.  I feel like I will never be good enough.

And TCTH tells me that is part of the process.  It will pass.  This day will end.  Today I will get good and stoned and I will wander around the house puttering and singing and talking with my babies.  If I just putter around absent mindedly all the rest of the cleaning will magically happen.  But I have to be very stoned.  Or I will be a stress monkey and twitch and be unable to complete tasks and cry and probably scream at both kids.  I have a choice, right this minute.  I can continue to distract myself with the internet because I believe smoking marijuana is a bad choice and I am a bad person for doing it, or… I can shut up and do it.  And have a really nice day.  Bye y’all.