A thing with feathers

Nov 21, 2007
Life changes so fast. (My life does, anyway, I don't know about yours.) One minute you're trying to crush a panic attack by telling yourself it'll be okay; it'll be okay, and the next minute, something in you says, Yeah, it will. Somewhere around 3:35 last Thursday, actually. I've been nervous and anxious and worried about this fucking graduate school application since then (which I have just mailed omygod), but I haven't been that strung out any more. I wish I could figure out what did that and do it on purpose; it would make my life so much easier.

My life does this all the time, actually. I am a naturally solitary person and I have a mindbogglingly mindless job, and I always have been inclined to living the majority of my life inside my own head. I'll be sitting there, doing my own thing, following a train of thought as far as I can without falling off, and all the sudden something goes click and it's like someone has...I don't know, changed the color filter or the resolution or something. Everything seems different. I seem different.

All of which means that while I feel right now like this particular instance of Getting My Shit Together is different, that might be an illusion. But it might not. I have a grad school application in, I have a therapy appointment for the end of the month, I have plans for the future that are not based entirely on a script of What I Ought To Do Next. And I feel rather competent about it all. (Competency is one of the values I most highly praise, and I think it's why I've always identified with Brighid so much. To be able to do a thing, and do it well, without throwing up a big fuss about it seems to me the height of talent.) This is slightly new, of late.

Perhaps it's just the season, and in February I'll be sitting around the house, incapable of imagining doing anything but going to work and playing video games and sleeping for the rest of my natural life. But this winter isn't getting me down like last winter did, and I've pulled through worse before. I may not have much consistency in my life, but I do have hope.
Nov 10, 2007
I wish I knew what to say about my life. This is, of course, a blog about paganism, and not my life, but the two can hardly be separated in my mind right now.

This time, the space between Samhain and Yule, has always been hard for me; the light is going away and there aren't any holidays to break up the monotony (Thanksgiving does not count) and all my motivation for the Work breaks up and floats away. I stripped down my altar to reflect this; it's beautiful in its simplicity, and looking at it makes me happy. I wish it did a bit more.

I have been distracting myself from existential angst with a much more immediate angst -- I'm applying to grad school. This is much more painful than it ought to be. I am, at this moment, avoiding working on my application letter by writing this post. My self-imposed deadline is a week from today. Oh dear.

I have rather given up the hope of finding a coven I fit, at this point I'll settle for a teacher, but I can't seem to find one of those either. I am not a very social person, you see. I don't network well. If people are not on the Internet, I am not going to find them. ...and around here, they're not. I feel very alone, despite the e-mails from two different people in my inbox that I have not gotten around to replying to yet. I simply don't know what to say.

Last week I had a dream that I have not had since the week before my last finals in college; I dreamed that I pulled my ribcage apart like a birdcage to give my heart more room. It felt much too crowded in there. In my Samhain ritual, I had a vision of Macha touching my heart to ease it and then licking the blood off her fingers. It's scary to feel this strongly and not know what I feel it about. Last month I felt like I would never feel this strongly about anything ever again, and that was scarier.

With any luck, I will have more time to think properly after my application is in and the holiday plans are all settled. Hopefully. We'll see.