#digital mirrorbooking

[rwt-mystic-corner]

Oh yeah, speaking of casting all that cleansing/protective stuff:

Sometimes being a pop culture witch is rewatching one of the things that has inspired your craft more than anything, incorporating it back into the thing you do, and it works SO FREAKING WELL that you wonder how you forgot about Using That Thing.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

I knew I was going to cry at Defying Gravity, but I didn't know I'd cry THREE TIMES.

tl;dr Wicked is something Special, as always.

I saw the movie today... (Spoilers below, probably.)

Putting down the times I cried to simultaneously celebrate Finding My Emotions again, and recording what resonated with me most at this time of my life. And, well... Most of my life, really. I don't think it is as much My Story as it was when I was a teenager. Not the beginning, anyways... But it still hit home hard enough for me to cry three times.

==> I ALMOST started crying at "No one mourns the wicked." Because the whole story poses the question of, "Who decides what's wicked?" Who deserves to be mourned? Who chooses? Who deserves to be loved and who deserves to be spit on?

Having been told most of my life that I deserve to be spit on, even knowing deep down that I don't deserve it, by my stepmonster of course but also my peers, at times my siblings, and even my teachers at school, it really hits me hard that people can just DECIDE you have no worth, and will ACT on that, and that doesn't mean you DESERVE it, and it's INFURIATING to me whenever people treat someone who doesn't deserve it with that kind of scorn.

Also, I love Elphaba, I love her to the core, I appreciate her, I WAS her, I hate to know how they hate HER.

1.) But I did cry tears (so many tears) at the song about The Wizard and I (its title eludes me atm). Having just read the book, I had it fresh in my mind, so very fresh and raw like a wound, exactly how that meeting with The Wizard goes. The lies, the betrayal, the disappointment, the horror. The fury. It was the dramatic irony in its cruelest form, knowing this character had so much trust in her future only for me to know it will crash down around her.

As my mother put it (she was also crying), "She has so much hope. And look what they do to her."

Also the lines about (paraphrasing) "he'll see my worth and know I'm not just a freak." That's a secret dream I had for so many years, to be loved for who I am despite the Weirdness. That was a pain I felt, being ostracized and still standing strong, but I always hoped to meet SOMEONE who'd see my worth despite it all.

I did eventually, and I love you guys for it dearly. (Mags, Icarus, Siren, you guys were a dream come true for me, do you know that? Link and Teri and Robyn, Lapi and Caleb, you weren't among that first wave of friends ever, but I cherish you dearly. Thank you for seeing my value despite all of us knowing there are those who would scorn us all for the reasons we made our friendships!)

2.) I cried at the song about "I'm not that girl" (again, can't remember if that's the title or not). Not necessarily because I relate to its romantic inclinations, but I know the feeling of not feeling like you're good enough. Knowing others prefer Other People over you. Knowing you're not anyone's favorite; knowing you can try and try, but you can never compare. (paraphrasing) "Don't hope too hard, don't forget who you are." Always less than, always a freak. It hits me DEEP.

3.) Defying Gravity, of course. I can be sitting at work keying in names and numbers when that song pops up on Spotify, and then I will be at my desk crying. "I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game." "I'm done accepting limits, just because someone says they're so."

And "Too long I've been afraid of losing love I guess I lost. Well if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost!" "And if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free!"

Especially this line: "So if you care to find me, look to the western sky!" I long to sing it with my full chest at work.

The DEFIANCE! It's in the song title! The triumph! The return of HOPE! The self-determination! The FREEDOM!

I've just spent so much time being put down by people and fighting to rise above it, to make my own choices, to face the people telling me "You'll never accomplish anything" and PROVE to them I can do it. I WILL DO IT!

Specifically now it brings to mind a certain personal endeavor that shall not be named because I know how many people feel about it and frankly I don't want to meet that here, but even my dearest friends most often tell me to give it up or refuse to support me.

I have to be the wind in my sails, my wings against the gales. It gets exhausting but my GODS, I can't deny it's FREEING.

"To those who'd ground me, take a message back from me: Tell them how I am defying gravity."

I'm going to do it, "and nobody in all of Oz, no Wizard that there is or was, is ever going to bring me down."~

And gods, the way the movie ARRANGED that song! It did split up the last couplets, which I feel detracted just a LITTLE from the emotional catharsis of the last verse of the song, but the whole rest of it was so emotional and so well built-up and GLORIOUS. The whole song through, I was WILDLY emotional!

And oh my gosh, they both sing so well in the movie and I love them for it, but Elphaba's last vocalizations in Defying Gravity are ICONIC and Cynthia Erivo's voice was PHENOMENAL on it! Gods it was GLORIOUS.

And, I mean, the whole movie was fun and emotional and creative. I've never seen the musical (though I got the Broadway original cast recording CD at an estate sale about 20 years ago, so I know the songs). I don't know Exactly how much was drawn from the musical. (Quite a lot, given what I know from the songs and what I know with the book fresh in my mind. Where the songs conflict with the book, it did choose the musical's canon.) And I do so love the songs! At the beginning of the movie, they had a little thing that said "No singing", and I was like "That's going to be the hardest part for me."

I was, however, tapping my foot and mouthing the words. And at Defying Gravity, I was BOPPING.

((My mom and I are thinking about going to a performance of the musical in June-ish! We just... both have to do some Serious budgeting. Long drive, expensive tickets...... sigh.))

Anyways, I really enjoyed it. I really thoroughly enjoyed it! The love triangle with Fiyero is a bit tired and unnecessary for me; I much prefer the book's version of that one. But aside from that small complaint (that I'm so used to lodging anyways), this whole big story spoke to me in so many ways.

It did NOT feel like nearly three hours of movie!

I mean, part of the reason I cried so easily was probably because one of my chinchillas died last week, and, you know. Grief for me burns low and slow. It's long, and it aches and it aches and it aches. I always Almost Cried when I was at work, or in public, but couldn't. So maybe that was a factor in the Massive Amounts of Waterworks... I think I needed to cry.

But it's still a story about someone being ostracized, finding friends, finding out There Are Troubles In The World, and doing what she can to stop them. It's a story about realizing the authority you trust isn't what you thought and hoped and dreamed it would be, and a life being taken apart by hearsay and vengeance and lies.

It's so much of my story, in essence...

It's getting better now. The characters I related to so much before age 25 aren't practically narrating MY life anymore. Things are changing. Slowly, painfully... They are changing.

*I* am changing. I always had Elphaba's spunk and struggles with emotional intelligence. Wearing ostracization with no pride, exactly, but being independent enough and strong enough to push on despite it. To still be firmly grounded in myself. The sense of justice. Right and wrong. The urge to Do Something About It. The righteous fury of knowing you've been wronged. That same for others, too, and wanting to right the wrongs they've been dealt.

Now I have more grace, more diplomacy. More patience, to be sure. (...sometimes.) I have a better handle on Holding Conversations and Dealing With Offenses and Slights. I know how to rein in my tongue (at least sometimes) and I know how to turn my fury at injustice into action instead of aimless raging.

But I don't know that I'll ever forget What It Felt Like to Be That, either.

So yes, grief or not, I'm certain I probably still would've cried at least once.

[blackwinged-soul]

Oh, a weird thing I don't think I've documented here before.

My #1 synpath is among my strongest connections. To the point where it IS in fact a formative part of my identity! Every bit as much as Blue or H|arrowh|ark, past lives that I know are, in fact, My Identity, and to this day form Who I Am. But I am not Ra\/en. Does that make sense? I suspect anyone with a hearttype or copinglink can understand, but I don't know the words to explain how visceral the shifts are, and yet I'm completely separate From Being Her.

She's my spirit guide, she was my tutor in rare cases, she has taken me to my hearthome and my goddess. The last two were hers, first. But not because I Am Her. Because they Became Mine too, Through Her. Does that make sense, too?

When I'm in a synpath shift for her, I can feel myself "copying" her. I know people on the internet like to joke about empaths, but we are, in fact, both empaths. When I "shift" into her, it's not like a new facet of my identity is sparkling light into my physical/mental self. It's not an inner aspect at the core of my being changing how I present MYSELF.

It's like... I'm a mirror, and my reflection shapes itself more like hers, and what I perceive is different, but because I'm receiving it from her. It's half a step removed, because What She Is brings out What I Am, but it's being BROUGHT OUT, it's reflection in the glass, it's echoes resounding. It resonates with me, but it's not SOURCED from me.

I've never seen anyone talking about how empaths' receptions interact with other empaths, for us it forged a connection across the dimensional boundaries, but it IS in fact straight empathy. It's not me, it's Her, Showing Through Me. Like a shadow cast on deep blue tile. Similarities come into focus, but you can discern where the shadow ends and the tile itself is differently colored.

It's so hard to explain without having seen anyone else explain this before...

(Is there a separate word for a synpath when it's a fictional character? Or does the word synpath inherently carry fictional characters under its umbrella?)

It's Not Me, plain and simple. We have an inordinate amount of similarities, we especially did when I was younger, but we're Very Separate People. She's not intrinsically tied into who I am. She was an external force that acted upon my life to shape certain aspects of it, but it was still an outside force.

She impacted me deeply, and continues to do so.

But it's still, in the end, synpathy, and not my identity.

[ojbrush]

Mirror and yearboo k yuri...

Oh and c2bc10 spoilers under thge cut

THIS MADE ME SCREAM SO LOUD. also beerkeg punching fireball? HOLY?? I love Beerkeg and Glitchy but they need to DIE

[answithvanzz]

[EDIT: GUYS I DON’T SUPPORT COLE]

Man mirrorbook got doomed 😔

I drew this rlly fast and changed my Service Bell gijinka halfway through so it sucks ass

also this

[l1ghtbulb]

it's 6 in the morning and c2bc 11 is today so here's mirrorbook

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

That’s easy.

Dissociate like hell.

[rwt-mystic-corner]

Samhain Spirit Supper

Tonight I set out a spread that's part offering for local nature spirits, part solace for the wandering spirits.

Apple slices, toast, pumpkin pie, and a cookie (the latter two courtesy of my qpp), charged with spices and honey (the latter especially for the nature spirits)...

Pomegranate juice and liquor for those spirits who imbibe...

And an improvised crystal grid to capture ambient energy and channel it into the food.

Selenite and quartz to channel and amplify it, mostly.

The raven statue is both a companion and a sentinel to make sure everyone behaves.

The seat setting has aquamarine for safe travels, rose quartz and peach agate for good will, sodalite for a restful stay, and yellow fluorite and ocean jasper to channel the energy.

As any good host knows how to set boundaries, I've also set up a separate grid of smoky quartz, black tourmaline, and obsidian to prevent any unwanted entry into my room. I added extra wards tonight, shielded and put the place incognito, and later tonight I'll be doing a focused meditation. I think this year it will be less of the usual psychopompic exploration and more focused on putting the past to bed. Coming to terms with what I've lost that I'm still carrying with me.

It's not the fanciest or the most formal, but then, neither am I, and I imagine if I was a passing spirits, I'd appreciate anything more than nothing.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

What does it mean when they say "make it out in one piece"?

What if you're out, but you're not in one piece?

What if you can't remember being anything but shattered pieces?

What if every time you make it out, you have to pick them up?

What if you always play sculptor, artist, mosaic maker?

My life is nothing if not a gallery of stained glass.

[blackwinged-soul]

Little Kin Moments^tm I've experienced today:

- A friend and new roommate wanted to start watching The Ow| H|ouse! I haven't really watched it from the beginning since watching the end. I expected it to feel bittersweet, but it just made me feel warm and nostalgic and Like Visiting Home Again. I love my home. I love my sister. I love my niece. I love H|ootsifer. I smile-sighed "He's so underappreciated". (I know Ed|a loves him too.)

- My friend is already kinsidering Someone From The Source but doesn't know who in the system it's from or who in the canon it will be. I'm excited to potentially live with two sourcemates! (My sister is his kintype and my niece is his synpath.)

- I had plans to go to a movie tonight, and I thought I knew what outfit I wanted to wear, but I wound up choosing a long somewhat form-fitting dress and black fingerless opera gloves and had my hair straight down with a necklace that laid a small gem over my chest. It was bittersweet to realize it was Very Reminiscent of what I wore as h|ead of the Em|peror's Co\/en.

(I spent a long time in that role. Presenting myself that way. It wasn't very true to Who I Was, but it was who I thought I wanted to be. It was formative, even if I had to dismantle the part of me that identified myself that way. Unlike my role of Re\/erent Daug|hter as H|arrowhar|k, it wasn't so much... Me Being Me. Self-expression. Feeling Right. I mean, I felt I DESERVED it, well somewhat anyways, but as H|arrowhar|k there was a lot less doubt about My Role In My Society. Some level of fulfillment and status, but not nearly as much "rightness" or sincerity in it.)

- My Ra\/en synpath jumped out while watching B|ue Beet|e in the theatre??? No spoilers, but at a certain Triumphant Moment, I started smiling so much for him. Mostly just feeling, but something like "That's the J|aime I know and love."

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Oh right! SEASONS.

I keep hearing little tiny quick SMACKS against the wall right next to me, and on the roof right above me, and wondering what the heck it is.

When I heard it against the wall, I thought the neighbors might be doing yard work that reached our wall somehow. But there are no neighbors outside right now. Then I heard it on the roof and thought, "What the HECK--?"

And I looked outside.

Where directly outside my window I can see a ton of pin oak leaves.

From the tree in our backyard.

And I realized: Oh RIGHT. Oak trees drop tiny hard seeds on EVERYTHING this time of year!

Well met, little acorns. Please don't stab my bare feet this year.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

...Well...

Nimona made me cry. Real actual tears.

(Spoilers. Spoilers, and emotions.)

I don't know how much I have the heart, clarity, or energy to tell about Why.

But that line... Two lines in that scene, actually.

(I can't rewatch it to transcribe the precise words because yt has that artificial slowdown on Firefox, I'm trying to capture this emotion, not wait an eternity for yt to load. So, may be paraphrasing, unsure of Exact Words.)

So, that part about... "Little kids. They grow up thinking they can become a hero if they kill something different."

And... "I don't know what's scarier. The fact that they want to run a sword through my heart... or the fact that, sometimes, I want to let them."

It's both personal reasons and topical. I think the personal reasons made me sensitive to the topical.

I grew up bullied and ostracized because I was different. To this day, I'm not entirely sure Why. Logically, I know it's all power dynamics, them not understanding, not wanting to understand. For some reason, people fear what they don't know. They fear what they can't put in a box. They fear those who disagree, who don't WANT to be put in the box.

I've never understood it. Maybe that's why, a month away from turning 31, these things still bring me to tears.

Maybe I don't actually have that fear because it's like Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter, suffering made me human. Maybe I don't have that fear because there's something Weird in my brain chemistry, the same reason I'm not given to anxiety, the same reason I'm so eerily calm when the situation turns Genuinely Dire.

Maybe I just don't understand Them, either.

But what really breaks my heart, as an adult, is the fact that the elders TEACH this fear, this hatred, this ostracization. They teach children it's okay to be mean if you disagree. They teach children that The Others deserve to be hurt and broken and killed.

They teach children that what happened to Nex is okay.

This senseless fear and hatred hurts so many of us. Even if you weren't bullied as a kid, if your hair is too neon green, or if you wear pajama pants to Walmart, or if you love someone whose gender isn't perfectly heteronormative, they think you deserve to be executed.

For no other crime than being yourself.

I can bear my own suffering with grace and strength, but it SHATTERS me to see others so undeserving being criminalized and punished because people don't understand their choices, their actions, their way of love.

Transphobia. Homophobia. Skin color. Nationalism of all stripes. It's not just high school cliques, this stuff has real actual consequences that hurt real, living, breathing, dreaming people.

And then, when I realized, minutes before the reveal, that the little golden-haired girl in the flashback was probably Gloreth, I crumpled again. I desperately hoped I was wrong, but.... no.

It's not even the betrayal that hurt me. It was the reflection of all those children in the world who were told, "Yes, they deserve to be beaten because they're different."

We shouldn't be extinguishing compassion, and yet there are so many people in the world who will side with hatred and blind rage and fear and disgust and take the side of evil, because they understand fear. They don't understand gay love. And thus, gay love has to die.

Because they dared to be independent, to be unique, to be who they are: They all deserve to die alone.

So naturally, I broke again at the climax when he said, "I see you. And you are not alone."

That sentiment has never-- and probably WILL never-- be something I can submerge, make quiet, erase. How it saves lives. How it saved my life. How there are always people who are willing to see you, to be with you, to remind you that you are loved.

Even when everyone else in the world wants to sacrifice your life in the name of Their Ideals: You Are Loved.

That message is so goddamn fucking important.

And then... She was saved, and so she saved everyone else. That doesn't resonate with me emotionally, to the bullied little child deep in my core, but dear gods, does it speak to the power of compassion and what it can do to STAND UP AGAINST cruelty and bias!

So naturally, I cried again.

In closing, these quotes have better words than I right now:

"You think you're alone, Raven. But you're not." - Spellbound, a Teen Titans episode that made me cry twice for all the same reasons.

"Blind belief: are you afraid to see that our fathers were wrong?" - Evanescence. The song (Blind Belief) also calls to "Push through the pain, unbreak the system."

And as Delain wrote in a song called We Are the Others, inspired by the murder of a girl named Sophie whose death was caused by a beating inspired by her alternative fashion choices:

As simple as air in your lungs, as simple as words on your lips No one can take that away. No one should argue this! Now with our heads up high, we'll carry on, and carry out that we won't let them get us down, or wear us out, 'cuz we are not alone. We are the others, we are the cast-outs We're the outsiders, but you can't hide us! We are the others, black-eyed and battered You're not out there on your own! If you feel mistreated, torn and cheated: You are not alone! We are the others.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Mildly annoyed at my body.

Probably venting. Mostly complaining. Some medical talk.

I kinda want to get a second shift job, but I just got a raise and starting this month, I will be making really good money. Like, double minimum wage money. I don't think I'll be finding that wage anywhere else with no college degree and only 5 years of office experience...

I want to put more of my books on the shelves, the ones still boxed in the living room and the basement. Go through the comics I probably have no real attachment to, maybe offer them up somewhere. Put the books I keep thinking about that somehow didn't get their boxes marked "FAVE" and thus weren't put upstairs when I moved. They're in the basement. I KNOW I have more books by my favorite author. I've been wanting to reread the ones I haven't unpacked.

But I just ate. I can't go up and down the stairs, let alone carrying 2+ boxes and unpacking them. Not to mention, some of them are practically buried in others' boxes... I can't exert myself by moving them around, either. I might be able to reach the ones by the shoe rack, but I don't remember. I can't stand up and bend over to look.

For my stomach AND my back reasons. Ever since I had the neurology appointment, during which they twisted me in ways that made my mostly-fine back start hurting at a Level of 5/10 Again, and when I said it started hurting they kept twisting and asked if it still hurt. Yes! Fuck yes, it hurt WORSE!

And it still hasn't entirely calmed down. The pain now is worse than it was before the appointment. Even two weeks later (or is it three?). Even with lidocaine patches and muscle relaxers. They want me to start steroid shots. (And do physical therapy again, but I already spent most of my PTO built up this year on Sisu's vet appointment and my teeth. I need to build up more hours for things in April, a concert road trip and taking the day of the solar eclipse off because I absolutely REFUSE to miss the eclipse, when I live conveniently RIGHT in the path of totality! I can't take 4 hours off work every week because the PT only has appointments during my work schedule.)

I need to do at-home physical therapy exercises more often anyways, but I can't lay down (let alone lay on my side for 10 minutes) after eating, and by the time my stomach's done making me uncomfortably aware of the food I've eaten, I need to go to sleep.

And tomorrow, I want to watch some panels at an online convention and go grocery shopping and clean the pet cages and shower. Maybe sweep my room and do dishes. I'm still debating if I want to wake up at 10am for a panel on something I've often wondered about (thanks in large part to the name of a roller coaster at Cedar Point), but that will sacrifice about 4 hours of sleep.

Precious sleep. Which is ALWAYS a struggle working first shift. When I worked 3pm to 11pm, I slept for 9 hours every night, no problem. (I was constantly exhausted for Other reasons, but sleep wasn't the problem.) But working first shift? I have to fight my body tooth, nail, and pharmaceuticals to get it asleep before 11pm. Half the time it doesn't happen. The meds make me sleepy, but won't KEEP me asleep.

I take melatonin, L-theanine, herbal supplements (valerian and lemon balm and passionflower and lavender), magnesium citrate, and an anti-depressant and muscle relaxer, all in the desperate hopes that I MIGHT be able to sleep for 8 hours a night. (I struggle with delayed circadian disorder. It's not insomnia, because I can easily fall asleep and stay asleep if it's within my body's natural circadian rhythm. Sleeping about 1-3am, waking about 10:am to noon.)

It isn't the ADHD meds that keep me awake because, once again, due to my stomach being a Little Bitch^tm, I can only take them when I'm having Really Good Days with my stomach. Which is, at most, about 1 in 5 days. It's rare that I CAN take them 2x a week. Let alone every day.

At the core of it, if I didn't work 40 hours a week and didn't have to ride a bus for an hour each way to and from work and didn't have to wake up at 7am every day, I'd have more time and more sleep to endure and work around my stomach's issue with Being Active After Eating, and work around Needing to Sleep or I feel Dead On My Feet.

....though with the raise, maybe I'll be able to get my temps again, and once I get my license, have the budget to start paying for gas and parking downtown...? I figure that's another $200/month, at least, but even if I break even with what my cashflow is NOW, I'd get about 80 minutes of my life back every day. That actually sounds really nice...

But currently, as it stands, my schedule is perpetually packed and my body is perpetually fighting me on doing Anything Ever. =_= Not to mention, the ADHD making it really hard to overcome that executive dysfunction...

It's just frustrating, wanting to do So Much but needing 2 weeks to recover my social battery after being at a wedding for 5 hours. I can't catch up on sleep when my duplex neighbors are massive inconsiderate assholes who blast music every Saturday morning. I want to wake up a little early to hear a really interesting topic discussion tomorrow, but it comes at the cost of spending the entire next week exhausted from sleep deprivation.

Where's the Quality of Life when the amount of life you can live is so small, you can't fit a lot of Doing Things in it anyways?

Worst of all, I've been too exhausted to write, whether that's roleplaying or fic. I'm lucky if I can come up with 5 words for my Pokemon character to tag on a blog post. I can't come up with New Things Happening very often. I really desperately want to continue some Old RPs with Dove, but my brain is fried mush. It's burnt on the outside and just a gooey mess on the inside. I can't jog it enough to Imagine New Things.

I'm not exactly depressive. I'm having fun at the convention this weekend! I'm glad for the 5 words I can scrouge up on the Pokemon RP blog! I'm eating good food and stealing every minute of personal time I can get! I'm watching Teen Titans and ATLA with my roommates once a week! I only have minor complaints with my actual job duties! It's not All bad.

I'm just frustrated that working 40 hours a week is so fucking much to work around that it's a chore all its own to try fitting my life around it without sacrificing sleep health.

Fuck capitalism.

[rwt-mystic-corner]

Have you ever heard the music amidst the birds in the air, the pine needles on the earth, the decomposers beneath the forest floor?

There’s so much patchwork intermingled practicing here I’d put a kaleidoscope to shame, so you’ll never guess where I learned this particular trick, and if you do, you’ll never guess what I did with it!

It’s less of a Personal Fears question and more of a Vibe Check when I ask, “Are you afraid of the dark?”

Describe your witchcraft aesthetic with 3 sentences.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

I find myself single again, and I find myself thinking too many thoughts to figure out what they Mean for me.

This is less of a recording and more me trying to work out what I'm thinking and feeling. The best way to do that for me is by writing it down.

I've been mulling it over for hours. Almost 24 of them, in fact.

We were together a long time. It was 9 years and 7 months. I thought, shouldn't this hurt more? Shouldn't my whole world be rocked sideways? Shouldn't I feel a loss, a grief, a gaping void; shouldn't ten years of a relationship coming to an end give me at least five years of pain?

I had time to prepare, I think. There was awareness, and then there was concern, and then there was resignation. I think I resigned myself to this a long time ago. Maybe even before it was explicitly spoken, and I think having that time to prepare myself and come to terms with it immensely softened the blow.

I was able to talk with a couple of friends last night, and they helped me understand that it's okay to not have my heart rent to pieces over it.

But I'm still puzzling over why it both hurts, and doesn't.

I did cry. I cried before the news itself broke because I had a feeling long before it was discussed. I cried talking to my mother about it. I've cried long before it happened yesterday, because I knew something was different, something was wrong, but I didn't know how to approach it, to broach it, to voice my concerns, because they were all so frustratingly vague.

And truth be told, I was trying to cling to what was Good. We didn't get to see each other much; I didn't want to take precious time away from Enjoying Ourselves.

But I should have learned by now: My instincts are Good. Whether I want to be or not, I'm Aware of Other Peoples' Emotions. They affect me, I can read the feelings themselves, but I don't get any sort of telepathic confirmation or instinct for WHY people feel the way they do, I just Sense The Sensations. Some empaths get that explanation in tow. Lucky them.

I don't. I only know Why people feel what they feel around me when I've Asked about it. When they Talk about it.

It's so strange to think of myself as a wordsmith, and then look at the conversations that matter most, and look at how rarely I have them. My greatest strength is my words. Why don't I wield them?

Well, after thinking it over, setting aside the easy cop-out ("afraid of conflict", because I'm not), the fact that I didn't know how (there's no script for this), and the inability to separate what I'm feeling from myself versus what I'm feeling from someone else…

At the heart of it, I don't always KNOW what I'm feeling.

One of the things I've always related to NTT!Raven on was the inability to sort my feelings, to "feel my way through" them, to inspect them. I could introspect my reason and motivations and come up with a treasure trove of self-realizations, but to ask myself what I'm feeling emotionally is to dive into the ocean's depths and darkness with only a glowstick. I can't see much at all. I can only explore the smallest increments at a time, and will only ever have the briefest bit illuminated.

So over the past 36 or so hours, I've been wondering: Was love what I was feeling? Romantically inclined love, the stuff of storytales?

I think I was in love. I do now, yes.

And I think I liked it.

See, I had a tag specifically for My Significant Other. And I looked back through it today. Not all of the posts were S.O. exclusive; some of them WERE feelings I had for friends and my QPP and all the members of my found family, too.

But there were also posts weren't. Silly, delightful, mushy, sappy romantic dating-specific feelings that made me smile.

When my feelings are too strong, I can't put them to words. It's another paradox in my being such a self-aware writer. But I would see posts, and they would light up an array of fireworks in me, and I'd reblog them smiling like an idiot. Thinking, specifically, of him.

But here's the thing. I sensed the encroaching distance. The distance dulled my wits, dulled my feelings, sharpened my nerves.

I think, in my own anxiety, when things went dark and silent, when he went dark on me, I feared what it meant.

And, truthfully, I feared to lose him.

I can say with absolute certainty that the fact that he'll still be in my life, even if it's just as a friend (albeit a very good one), was an immense relief to me. I was worried the pulling away meant he'd break Everything off. That I had somehow become unbearable.

But no, just the romance. I don't think I'll be bitter, or angry. Wistful, maybe. Sometimes even mournful. Because this was the first time I've ever felt, with any degree of certainty, that I loved someone romantically.

(Besides, you know, fictional characters. But even then, I only toy with ideas and the occasional fantasy and mostly just channel my feelings through other people in the stories.)

With him, it was all me, my own feelings, me acting on them. And I do think it was all genuine, certainly so from my end.

And I did like being in a relationship. I liked being That Person to someone else. I loved being That Person for him.

I was happy to make extra effort to make him feel loved, valued, to put the Significant in Significant Other. I wanted to. I stretched my limits, tried new things, stepped out of my comfort zone because he made me want to. I enjoyed that, too.

But I also don't feel any sort of desperation, or even desire, to replace it. I don't want my life to be Married With Kids. For as long as I can remember, when I looked to adulthood, I saw myself living happily alone, or after seeing Teen Titans, living in a home surrounded by friends.

(Funny to be living that dream at long, long last, at age 30…)

But still, Something Hurt.

I worried, was I sad to be losing him as a partner, or to be losing the sense of love?

I think it's both, now. Feeling Loved on that level had left a long time ago. I guess maybe I was just holding onto hope that a spark would reignite. Because I did like it.

I was waiting. I was hoping. But time marched on, and that hope faded farther and farther into the horizon.

I don't know how to stop hoping, really. I can't let myself. I hold tight to the smallest modicum of faith, and while I remain a realist, weighing evidence of what will happen and what is the most likely outcome, I still privately think "Maybe… Maybe."

Until I'm faced with the fact that it is, indeed, over.

Like I was yesterday. Like I am now.

And I don't know what to do with myself. I'm not amidst a wreckage. I'm not floating, lost at sea. I'm not smoldering amidst ashes or beating myself into a pulp over it.

(Maybe, if it had happened six years ago, I would be. I would have blamed myself into oblivion. But we had a good talk over it. I had ample time to prepare, to read the signs, to come to terms with it. I know now that it's not anybody's fault if feelings fade, it just… happens sometimes.)

I'm just… resigned.

I think a friend was right yesterday, that mourning may come later.

Like I said, I don't have desperate hopes and dreams and desires for a romantic relationship.

But it was nice while it lasted.

And if it ever happens again, I wouldn't mind. But by all the gods, is anyone else going to have to work Hard to hold up to how that felt with him.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Behold, my Cauldron of Candy! (And glowstick bracelets. I know I would've been THRILLED to get free glow sticks for Halloween as a kid.)

I'm going to spend a couple hours doing good old-fashioned Trick-or-Treat handouts tomorrow before I witch it up!

Then it's going to be a spirit supper, meditation and refreshing the protections on this place, and intermittent Halloween party shenanigans over on the Pokeblog.

So I may not be around much tomorrow! I did take off work early and I'm going in late the next day, since observing Samhain is literally of religious significance to me, but I have plans! Many plans!