measi's diary

measi's Diaryland Diary

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Blessed Samhain...

This is my collaborative for Pagan Speak for October.

Samhain, 2001.

Has it been a year already? A year since that freakish Halloween party that set off my year of journaling my life again? Dear Goddess... what a long, strange, and tumultuous year it's been. If I didn't know better, I'd say my guardian animal decided to throw me a year-long bout of bi-polar disorder.

As I've mentioned in a couple entries this past month, October is a time where I automatically go into reflection mode. It's gotta be the leaves turning and then falling, and the brisk evening winds. I instinctively get out the flannel pj's right after work, rinse out the huge mug for my evening cup of tea, and curl up among the pillows on my multi-purpose bed/couch with soft music playing for a couple hours.

So my reflection has brought me to tonight. Samhain. Where the veil is thinnest between the worlds, and the touch of my ancestors brushes my shoulder, helping me to put this year into the past and move forward. So let me go through this year, archive it, and make it history....

November, 2000: Grace and I have the final falling out when she tells me my soul is so dark that I wouldn't see reality if it were in front of my face. I'd had enough, and wasn't interested in accepting any more of her insults. LGM starts accusing me of yet again hating all other women in my life. *shrug* Despite this, I meet up with the two of them in Times Square on the Saturday after Thanksgiving for dinner before I catch the red-eye train back up to Boston.

November 5, 2000: After talking to Grace tonight, I realize that I need to step away. She is pushing her opinions on every situation, and insisting that it is how everyone feels. And she has been dead wrong on several key points in regards to my feelings toward LGM and also toward Twilight. However, Grace also refuses any corrections. And LGM completely supports her. So it's a Catch-22, and one that I have no patience for in my life. And I'm sure that she's going to make more accusations, but my skin is rather thin these days, and I'm just tired of the pot shots. I don't care if people have opinions, but when they insist that their opinions are the fact of how I feel, I draw the line...."

December 2000: Normal stuff happens until the end of the month, when LGM announces that he and Grace are now "officially" dating. I instantly become an ogre in his eyes. The mundane New Year ends with a makeshift party at a friend's house, and an overwhelming sensation that everything I knew was over. How right I was.

December 29, 2001: I sent a lay-it-on-the-line email to LGM last week regarding his attitude about me. He says that he understands and apologized, and I'm hoping this time that he really did hear me. I know that we probably will never be close friends again, but my hope is that if your friendship is meant to fade, that it at least can fade with some amends made to dull the wounds we each have... Either way, I have made my biggest new year's resolution to start living my life how I want, and stop worrying about other people so much. It's probably the toughest lesson to put to myself, but I need to do this. My experiences with LGM have left me in a state of pain and paranoia, and if I don't stop it, it will kill me. So here's to the new year... let's see what happens...

January 2001: I turn 26 (1/11). LGM and I have the falling out that will commence everything else this year (read through the March and early April entries of my journal for that misery). My friend Kimee introduces me to the wild existence that are fan conventions... run by fans, not companies. My addiction to Arisia commences.

January 20, 2001: I can say how ironic things are when looked at from the outside. I'm sad, but pathetically amused at the same time...

February 2001: I discover that I do have other friends in Ogre and his girlfriend, just as LGM does an ultimate snub and doesn't invite me to his birthday lunch (he later recants under the pressure of others, and now admits it was a shitty thing to do). I decide to attempt to find someone to have in my life, and post a personal ad at a couple of matchmaking sites online, wincing as I post. I get no replies. Andrea, a good life-long friend from home, calls me to announce her engagement and wedding coming up on 02/02/02.

LGM says that his instincts tell him that I'm just trying to have him be a part of my life, and that about a month down the road, he'll feel duped because I never do anything to change (?!?). Of course, this is coming from the King of Do-What-I-Say, Not-As-I-Do. He who says he's going to make sure to keep in contact better with those he cares about. I was on that list about three weeks ago. Now I'm someone he's not sure if he wants to be talking to in three years. Whatever. This sounds like LGM being non-committal to allow himself the freedom to be an ass, and then lay the blame on whomever else is around.. because then he can claim that he wasn't at fault. It's bullshit and the same cop-out I watched him use three years ago. He's the one who never changes.

March 2001: Lots of self-doubt, despite the occasional glimmer of promise with work and gaming. My friendship with JT and Tan strengthens, and I start to realize how distant I'm becoming from the rest of the Boston crew. I start making some use out of myself and donate platelets again. Something I've done just about every month since.

March 29, 2001: Well, I finally got my butt in gear and went back to donate platelets at the Red Cross. Two hours in the chair, and I feel a bit cold and tired, but I feel good too... I figure it's the easiest way and most productive way for me to do some community service time.

April 2001: I get a raise and a nifty bonus at work, which boosts my self-esteem to no end. We finally finish the Great Reset with our Heroes RPG game. It ends horrendously and ruins my interest in the gaming system. I mourn the literal destruction of my characters, but decide I'll somehow reinvent them somewhere else. Maybe in writing. *shrug* My father, step-mother, and grandmother visit. Grandma and I start to put the pieces back together of a very severed relationship.

April 16, 2001: I spent a few hours yesterday taking in Boston on Easter Sunday. Being Pagan, it's not my holiday, but I have to admit that people were a lot friendlier yesterday than normal. I had more than a dozen people wish me peace and a happy Easter. Of course I thanked them and did the same--there's never anything wrong with being polite!

May 2001: I get an email early in the month from a guy who had read the ad I placed in February. We chat via email for a couple of weeks, and then meet for the first time for dinner on the 31st. Erich and I have been together ever since. :)

May 31, 2001: T-minus three hours until I meet Erich. I'm nervous as hell. But happy, too. And excited, and just warm and tingly all over. I've missed this feeling. But I think I'm also happy that it's taken a while so that I can appreciate it that much more. I just hope that everything works out okay tonight and that the two of us get along. Maybe it won't turn into a dating relationship... but even another cool friendship would make me very happy. *crossing fingers*

June 2001: The punishment by Grace and LGM for having a normal relationship begins, with occasional bouts of kindness from LGM that keep me hanging on. I finally try to deal with my social anxiety. The moves from hell begin at work. And I start my nifty little webring of journals. :) (now up to 68 members, I might add!). I introduce Erich to JT and Tan, and he becomes a member of the gaming group.

June 4, 2001: To try to combat [social anxiety], since I know it's an illogical fear, I try to force myself into social situations, including inviting people to things to get me out of the house. I figure that if I force myself out, manage to have a good time, it's a reassuring step-- I can do this, it's okay. But it seems to backfire. And I've explained to people that I can trust what's going on, and how it makes me feel. But I think since it seems so weird, and the fact that it's only in certain types of situations, that no one believes me.

July 2001: I travel down to New York for a day to assist LGM in learning to drive his car. I instinctively know it's the last time we'll have some serious one-on-one time, and he talks to me about some very personal things-- all of which he recants within a week. Greg and Kelly have their first child, Hannah Rose. My mother comes to visit me. Moving insanity at work ends without me killing anyone in my department.

July 2, 2001: One of the things that I've noticed about my life is that I always mark things by events, rather than age and dates. Perhaps it's the common way to go about things, perhaps not. But as time passes, I realize that the dates things happen don't matter in the slightest. The experiences and memories of events do... the small passages of time that bring back scents, sounds, and images so vividly that they never completely go away. Going to New York on Friday was one of those times. I'd been to New York before, but this was my first trip to New York alone, and without someone else there to distract me, I could just let all of the senses take in New York.

August 2001: I get Mephisto (aka Fizzy), and am introduced to the whole new world of baby cats. I work my ass off, and can barely remember what August was all about.

August 15, 2001: Fizzy is doing fine. Colley's having a rougher time, but all things considered is doing okay. What looked like doing perfectly earlier this week has reverted back into some more territorial stuff. I guess it's more that Colley's irritated at the hyperness and meddlesome aspect of baby kittenhood. Anytime Colley walks by the little guy, Fizzy attempts to swipe at him, or pounce on him. The kitten wants to play. Colley's not sure what to make of this, or he gets a bit irritated. Last night Colley decided to "pounce" back on Fizzy, and between the body size difference and all of Colley's fur, he ENVELOPED Fizzy. He just disappeared as Colley curled around him to bat at him. (I did rescue the kitten from that plight... Colley's a big cat, and I didn't want him to be too hard on the little guy). I think Colley still thinks Fizzy is some sort of toy, or just at least an object for amusement-filled observation, since Colley's common pasttime has been to perch on the corner of the bed or on my extra chair to watch the antics of the little fluffball.

September 2001: LGM supposedly breaks up with Grace, although to this day, nothing has really changed. He decides to make some progress in solving his problems. His ego flares up to protect him against getting hurt, and he begins using me as an emotional punching bag again. I get addicted to Neopets. September 11th happens, and I try to find some sense in the insanity that follows.

September 17, 2001: I have to admit, I do feel a bit isolated from other Americans as we unite as a country. Prayer services, vigils, the day of prayer... all have focused around churches, mosques, and synagogues. It's awkward being Pagan at a time like this. On Friday, we as a nation were asked to go to our places of worship, join together, and pray. Well, my place of worship is out in the world. For me to go into a church and pray there among those who had faith in the Christian form of God seems awkward. So I stayed at work and set up a makeshift altar on my desk to pray... alone, as I often have. Prayer vigils this weekend were also monotheistic. I didn't feel welcome at them as they prayed to God.

October 2001: Things between LGM and I fall completely apart, and our friendship has gone away. Erich and I find the Great Pumpkin. Psycho Girl starts riding the shuttle bus to work. And I end the year with an interesting public ritual in the band stage on Boston Common.

And the year turns over into a new one... with fresh hopes of good fortune and health...

The Wheel of the Year has made yet another transit.

We are poised at a time which is an ending...

And yet is also a new beginning...

As it was and ever shall be.

We pause to look back at times remembered,

And we look forward to times yet to come.

We give our thanks to the Aged Goddess,

Thanking Her for Her wisdom over the year now ended.

We honor the now crossed-over God,

And bid His return of warmth at Yule.

We give Them our thanks and farewells.