Life is Beautiful
Apr. 5th, 2010 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormI always feel like I come across as either manic or trite when I write about being happy. There's some tooth to angst; there are things to dissect, it's easy to say 'where else do I want to be' and 'how can I change' and 'why are things this way'. I have much more trouble doing that when I'm happy-- mostly because I have not often given myself permission to feel purely happy.
I now have that permission. I have permission to look into dark spooky corners and to find either something terrible -- and still be happy if I wish -- or to find nothing at all, to find dust and candles and an empty room where I can curl up for awhile in peace if I wish. I have permission to be afraid of anything I wish, even if it's nothing, even if it's getting in my way, even if it's getting in someone else's way. I have permission to exist in the darkness as well as the light-- not to run gibbering through it, not to surf above it on analysis, but simply to go to those dark places and sit awhile.
This time, you see, when I went to be reborn: I wasn't. I was strapped to the wheel, it turned, and when it came back around there I was, still whole. The things I've been carrying: they're still mine. I'm more than sufficient to carry them as long as I wish, and set them down when I will. And, because I am not carrying such a terror over failing, and I am not so afraid of my own fear, these are steadying burdens instead of crippling. The loves and relationships in my life that take work and that I sometimes fuck up on and that make requirements of me are also provision against isolation and abandonment in the future. Carrying some of those weights at any time, and feeling them as weights, is merely part of the process. I have the image here of leaving on a hike and having a backpack full of food for the duration: it's something to carry. It's worthwhile later. It may well be annoying, it may hurt your shoulders a bit and sweat up your back and you may well complain about it sometimes, but it's ok. It's part of the process.
I could not stay on theme right now if I tried-- see me wander! I went into the dark and I felt welcomed. There was a smile there. I can stay there and play. That's all I'm trying to say.
There are many incidental wonderful details too: snuggling, a driving wind that literally pushed me around despite my best efforts, new faces and old ones made into potential friends, old static remade into play, poetry and song (literally!) and light and clarity and the resurrection of Blue Girl. It was, as they say, all good. I even got to talk a very little about agriculture and gut ecology at one point. I got to watch Angus in a makeout/painplay puddle which was totally involved and totally beautiful. I got to commune with a rosebush. I had conversations and I had silent being-togethers. Oh, words, how impossible you are as tools here. The things that happened, the feeling of them, can't be communicated-- they only sit inside me and influence my actions and maybe you'll see hints of them sometime in my actions, or maybe in a little bit of peace around the corners of my eyes.
In home news I lost Mikaela and Princess before I left, and Rocky when I got home. It's a sad thing. We think it was his heart, and perhaps it's good that he didn't get bred, but he was a sweetiepants. My flowers are starting to die down in the deck, just in time to move. I have trouble re-engaging my mind with the list of things I need to do (pay tuition, change address on drivers license, get contact lenses, maybe get a bus pass: all that busywork which takes so much of my space).
Now I have the urge to do some sewing (!!!?) and rest a little more, then go out into the world. My bosses left the day open as to whether I wanted to work or not, and the weather has confirmed that it would be okay for me to take this day to myself.
Really, Greenie? Sewing? How about a shower first? I know those skirts are already cut out, but don't you want to wait till your machine is up and running again?
I now have that permission. I have permission to look into dark spooky corners and to find either something terrible -- and still be happy if I wish -- or to find nothing at all, to find dust and candles and an empty room where I can curl up for awhile in peace if I wish. I have permission to be afraid of anything I wish, even if it's nothing, even if it's getting in my way, even if it's getting in someone else's way. I have permission to exist in the darkness as well as the light-- not to run gibbering through it, not to surf above it on analysis, but simply to go to those dark places and sit awhile.
This time, you see, when I went to be reborn: I wasn't. I was strapped to the wheel, it turned, and when it came back around there I was, still whole. The things I've been carrying: they're still mine. I'm more than sufficient to carry them as long as I wish, and set them down when I will. And, because I am not carrying such a terror over failing, and I am not so afraid of my own fear, these are steadying burdens instead of crippling. The loves and relationships in my life that take work and that I sometimes fuck up on and that make requirements of me are also provision against isolation and abandonment in the future. Carrying some of those weights at any time, and feeling them as weights, is merely part of the process. I have the image here of leaving on a hike and having a backpack full of food for the duration: it's something to carry. It's worthwhile later. It may well be annoying, it may hurt your shoulders a bit and sweat up your back and you may well complain about it sometimes, but it's ok. It's part of the process.
I could not stay on theme right now if I tried-- see me wander! I went into the dark and I felt welcomed. There was a smile there. I can stay there and play. That's all I'm trying to say.
There are many incidental wonderful details too: snuggling, a driving wind that literally pushed me around despite my best efforts, new faces and old ones made into potential friends, old static remade into play, poetry and song (literally!) and light and clarity and the resurrection of Blue Girl. It was, as they say, all good. I even got to talk a very little about agriculture and gut ecology at one point. I got to watch Angus in a makeout/painplay puddle which was totally involved and totally beautiful. I got to commune with a rosebush. I had conversations and I had silent being-togethers. Oh, words, how impossible you are as tools here. The things that happened, the feeling of them, can't be communicated-- they only sit inside me and influence my actions and maybe you'll see hints of them sometime in my actions, or maybe in a little bit of peace around the corners of my eyes.
In home news I lost Mikaela and Princess before I left, and Rocky when I got home. It's a sad thing. We think it was his heart, and perhaps it's good that he didn't get bred, but he was a sweetiepants. My flowers are starting to die down in the deck, just in time to move. I have trouble re-engaging my mind with the list of things I need to do (pay tuition, change address on drivers license, get contact lenses, maybe get a bus pass: all that busywork which takes so much of my space).
Now I have the urge to do some sewing (!!!?) and rest a little more, then go out into the world. My bosses left the day open as to whether I wanted to work or not, and the weather has confirmed that it would be okay for me to take this day to myself.
Really, Greenie? Sewing? How about a shower first? I know those skirts are already cut out, but don't you want to wait till your machine is up and running again?
