Alchemic Verse

TW: mental health, self-harm, suicide flavored stuff

Reading between the lines of my blogs and poetry, it’s likely apparent if anyone is reading that, given my choices to take control of my life, I have endured something like 3 solid months of painful endings. My group of people, most whom I thought better of, made hateful assumptions, told me I’m wrong or foolish, a bad friend/person for trying to live the life I wanted. Generally, this came from people who benefited from me living the life they wanted for me instead. I hoped some folks in my old world would be supportive, as I have striven to be for them my entire life prior. They simply don’t see me anymore if they ever did, and maybe that’s fair.

Reflection and radical honesty compel me to share that I’m no saint – I, like I suspect at least several of my lost people, have tried to advise loved ones to move in the ways I thought were “best,” to keep them safe or close, without realizing I was filling them with doubt, fear, or making them feel judged. Understanding the profound rejection and pain of this flipped coin is one of the biggest lessons of my rather lesson-filled life.

Without community, I am starting over. Yes, over-over. I am trying to trust that my inexplicable intuition, crazy faith, and choices that led me to this moment were not the wrong ones, but I have cried probably 3 times a day on average, off and on since January, especially in the past four to five weeks spent alone with my sweet if concerned dog, treading brackish water above the deep sea trenches of my thoughts.

Fourteen days so far in this port, with thirteen to go. My voyage to the next port of call is charted, another instinctive choice where bravery compels me to keep going while deeply fearful. The trade route continues, trading security, possessions, the known and uninspired for the razor-sharp edge of a chance to build, without beloved guide, the life I wanted.

I sold some of my excessive video game collection locally, needing room in the car for the necessities of pseudo-nomadic living – towels, dog food, a lapdesk for working cross-legged wherever I find space to sit, etc. This trade earned cargo space, introduced a new fortuitous friend from my home state, and some very fair folds of cash.

Yesterday, I woke up with a nearly insatiable urge to find a beam and a belt and call it all a tragic folly, hubris to have believed I was strong enough to do the grand life-yeet toward the future I saw so clearly. Remembering my dog relies on me got me out of the fetal position and my hand into the dog food bag, scooping baby’s breakfast into her bowl, eyes blurring behind the silent tears that I woke with.

Work being its usual waste of time and energy, I decided afterward that I needed to use that cash to do something to strengthen my resolve – to plug holes in the hull, scrape hardened barnacles from the rudder, sew up torn sails and replace the frayed threads of the flag being battered to a tangle by the breeze.

I booked the largest available package for one at a local spa, to exchange mind chaos for body healing. My feet were soaked in rose petals, followed by a categorically tiny woman [I am 5’2” so, this woman is properly, properly tiny] crawling onto my back with a “is ok?” and using all 85 lbs or so of her knees and elbows to break the steel weave of tension in my muscles. Visions swirled behind my closed eyes that I couldn’t discern, but to say this massage was painful but healing would be the grandest understatement.

I then sweat profusely in a sauna for a half hour, amusing given the existing fiery summer climate, begging in silent prayer for the pain to drip out of every pore, purged and cleansed with hot towels to make me new.

It ended with a facial, where the gentlest fingertips worked fragrant salves into the tender skin and muscles of my face. I did not know prior, but crying as much as I have leaves tracks, burns on the skin. My eyes show the evidence, the darkening and tender places where my tears pooled and ran clearly, to the quiet, sympathetic tuts of the tiny healer. “All done!” Thank you, tiny strong healer.

I left feeling lighter, decided to not buy more smokes, and had an early night of downloading an old game before bed. I woke today, however, in reprise of yester-morning’s mood, scooped the food, got the smokes in defeat, and one gigantic cold brew – they’ve started to remember me and my order.

“Hey girl, good to see you! How are you?”

“Hanging in there, thanks.”

“Shit girl – real. So real.”

“The coffee will help; thanks for being kind to me.”

“Real as fuck haha, and of course! ‘Our largest cold brew,’ right? Haha. Always glad to see you.”

In the parking lot, I have started this post. The grass is a carpet of tiny butterflies at the roots of gnarled branches reaching with broken fingers to the sky. Steps forward and backward are part of the process, I’m telling myself. It’s not all or nothing, I’m telling myself. You’ve made so much progress, I’m telling myself.

The next slip, I’ll have the whole place, meaning I won’t be continuously shushing my very good dog, and I can at least start singing/making music again. Fourteen days in, thirteen of silence remain before the voyage continues.