bloodteethandflame

My heart really hurts today; a physical pain.

Maybe I’m mis-reading it.

Maybe it is nothing more than a pulled muscle, or maybe even indigestion.

It could be a sort of indecision, or possibly, stress.

Either way, my heart hurts today.

~~~

Things have been tense.

I’m not sure if it is that things are moving forward, and I am fighting it, or if things aren’t moving at all, and I’m being stubborn, or subconsciously blocking the message/being willfully blind to seeing what I need to see.

I have felt this way before, and looking back on it, it was always when something in my life was out of whack and needed to be confronted.

My body manifests physical pain long before I notice the reasons why, long before I think about finding the root cause of it.  I deal with it, thinking I’m being brave or strong or whathaveyou, and then, I start to realize:

“Shit, it seems like I’ve had a headache for weeks.”

or

“I can’t remember how long it has been that I’ve been feeling this ‘tightness’ in my neck/shoulders/chest/upper back,” as I consider yet another day, feeling keyed up and run down at the same time.

(Once I had a massage therapist tell me that it is as if I have a small knotty animal that lives in my upper back to the left of my spine, and ze needs a lot of vigorous prodding to unwind.)

And when I realize that I’m feeling pain — and can’t ignore it anymore — only then do I start to examine what I’ve been focusing on lately.

Usually, I find some sort of pattern of negativity, of worry, of doubt somewhere.  I’ve had enough therapy in my life to learn how and when and where in my body that my emotional pain manifests itself physically.

In my head.

In my heart.

~~~

Here is an excellent post from P. Sufenas:

http://aediculaantinoi.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/paganism-and-privilege-visible-and-invisible-privileges-discussed/

~~~

I have to say that this post hits me with food for thought on so many levels, that I am still untangling exactly on which level it inspires me first.

The reason that I link to their post is because it is an amazing post on privilege, passing, and thoughtful discussion on how interactions with others can require that an individual make decision — sometimes daily — to either wear or *not* wear various ‘masks’ that denote ‘normalcy’ in our culture.
Very thought-provoking stuff for me today, as I consider the changes that are manifesting in my own life.
~~~
To be perfectly honest, I have been struggling lately with several key situations and changes concerning my job, my marriage, my gender, and my spirituality.
It seems almost more than a coincidence that we are coming up on a year since I participated in a very moving mask ritual in honor of Loki and April 1st.
I realize that, last year, there were a few masks that I had decided to discard, and in that regard, I feel that April 1st 2012 was a significant ‘coming out’ for me in a few, very important ways.
I discarded two significant ‘masks’, and yet, I realize that there remain several other masks firmly in place.
In that vein, I am thinking on what masks still serve me, and what masks I am willing to discard for the sake of authenticity.
I may not get to choose, and so, I sit with the possibilities.

Ugh.  It’s been quite the emotional rollercoaster of a day today.

I’m so glad that it’s almost over.

I thought that I had a new episode of Game of Thrones to look forward to — what made me think that the new season would begin March 13th rather than March 31st? — but, as you may have guessed, I do not.

Another good thing is, that my job might be saved for another quarter.

It looks like I will have enough hours this go-round to hold onto my position for a few more months.

🙂

(But if I don’t make it the next quarter, it’ll give me a good reason to shave my head and pierce my nose. I have been wanting to, for a while now.)

Yeah, that’s what my mid-life crisis looks like.

OK, so I guess that I’d better point this out.

Ugh.  After all that writing, one thing becomes clear:

Loki giving me cuddles and forehead kisses *would be* hard emotional work for me.

So maybe I shouldn’t snark that concept, after all.

.

(With much thanks to crazy dumbsaint of the mind. )

1.  Where were you born?  Boston, MA.

2.  Were you named after someone?  No, not someone.  Some thing, I suppose.  My dad wanted to name me Angela.  My mom wanted to name me Sabrina.  And they couldn’t agree; each one disliked the other’s suggestion.  So they left it up to my two oldest siblings, my brother, aged 5 and my older sister, aged 2, at the time.  (I have another older brother, but he had just turned a year old two weeks before.  As a matter of fact, today — March 6th — is his birthday.)  They both liked the sound/concept of ‘Heather’ — a pretty purple flowered shrubbery.  <–(A shrubbery! Not too tall, not too short, and not too expensive….*grin*)

(It was the 70’s, so it is also very possible that my older sister might have also had a Holly Hobbie doll.  Holly Hobbie’s little sister/friend, by the way, was named Heather.)

3.  How many children do you have?  Two

4.  How many pets do you have?  I have one dog, three cats, and one ferret.

5.  Your worst injury?  Probably that time that I knocked out both of my front teeth trying to ride a wooden wagon down Harmony Lane (which was a very steep hill) when I was 7 years old.  There was a line of fence posts at the base of the hill.  Gah. I suffered a concussion, too.

6.  Do you have a special talent?  Huh, probably.  I make a really delicious apple pie, among other things.

7.  Favorite thing to bake? Chocolate chip cookies.

8.  Favorite Fast Food? Anything with bacon, I suppose.

9.   Would you bungee jump? I really don’t think so.  (As Rebecca had said, I think that there’d have to be a sizeable cash prize for doing so, if ever, at all.)

10.  What is the first thing you notice about people?  I notice how people treat each other in their personal sphere — especially how they treat service personnel that they come in contact with (waitstaff, checkout clerk, the door greeter at a hotel).  Maybe it’s because I’ve worked in some form of customer service all my life.    Other than that…I know that it’s going to sound shallow, but usually I notice people’s shoes.

11.  When was the last time you cried?  Last night.

12.  Any current worries? How my son K is going to do on the FCAT.

13.  Name 3 drinks you drink regularly.  Coffee, water, whiskey.  Though, not usually, all at once.

14.  What’s your favorite book?  Gah.  As if I could pick just one.   Several of my all-time favorites: Galina Krassakova’s Feeding the Flame,  James Thurber’s The Thurber Carnival, Angela Carter’s Saints and Strangers, Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find, and…. any short story anthology written by Ray Bradbury.

15.  Would you like to be a pirate? Possibly.   I mean, I’m not so great at the hand to hand combat, but I can wear an eyepatch with little to no ill effect to my depth perception.

16.  Favorite Smells?  Popcorn, leather, rain in the trees, woodsmoke, oranges, and cloves.

17.  Why do you blog?  Because I fear succumbing to Alzheimers.   Too much that I don’t want to forget.

18. What song do you want played at your funeral?  Hm.  As it is with the books (above), I love all kinds of music.  Hopefully the loved ones that I leave behind will create an interesting soundtrack of the various songs that I love, and play them.

19.  What is your least favorite thing about yourself?   Ah, Rebecca; I agree with this one: I, too, am  a slacker of epic proportions. I have great intentions but no follow through.  I routinely welcome — and often, need  — a cosmic boot up my ass.

20.  Favorite hobby? Writing.

21.  Name Something you’ve done, you never thought you would do?  I used to think that an avowed misanthrope like myself could never find the wherewithal to go to a HUGE event (like LR or DO), without a partner, and still have a fantastically soul-enriching social experience.

22.  What do you look for in a friend?  A certain level of unabashed geekiness, an interesting vocabulary, a well-developed sense of compassion, and a wry sense of humor.