Cough Syrup

"Be grateful for the opportunity to wake up every morning." I just wrote that a few days ago.



Yesterday was my 23rd birthday. Yay me. I got a huge response on Facebook and a few well-wishes on TUL. I appreciate that.

Yesterday I did not go hiking, nor did I eat exactly what I wanted, nor did I get dinner cooked for me, nor did I get to avoid all my chores. I did not get to be alone with the sky, or play geeky board games with family, nor did I arrange an X-Men movie marathon.

We brought our kitten to my parents' for a playdate, and with the intention of playing geeky board games, listening to Loreena KcKennitt CDs, and having a good time.

So my parents' car had a nearly flat tire, and we had to stop to pump it up. Toki (the kitten) was freaked out for the first two hours of the visit, even though he's enjoyed similar visits before. Mom left for her yoga class for several hours mid-visit. P had an exam to study for (which she's writing right now; hence I have time to write) and my dad was too tired to do much.

I ended up batting between encouraging Toki to play with the other kittens, helping Phina study, and stretching pizza dough in the kitchen by myself. While mom was out, I made an innocuous comment that resulted in a revealing conversation about how my dad's antidepressants are doing shit all.

After we got home that evening, the night wrapped up with a mutual friend tearing up P's faith in humanity by yet again going back on a promise, her nearly crying, and me taking eight teaspoons of DM cough syrup for a non-existent cough.
I think the little adjustment to reality that that much dextromethorphan creates finally wore off about twenty minutes before I started writing this (although it could all just be sleep loss, and I'd have no idea).

I ought to be feeling guilty and worried about this. I hadn't done something like this for over a year - I think the last time had been soon after we moved out of Toronto. I had switched to cough syrup somewhere in March of that year; I had finally run through the obscenely huge bottle of liquid codeine that P's dentist had given her when her wisdom teeth came out (she used two teaspoons and swore off it, saying she didn't like how it made her feel and that it tasted like cherry shit). Once the cough syrup was gone too, I stopped.

It was a direct response to stress from other people, not for fun. I was under a lot of pressure from many directions right then, and I was out of coping. P was very upset when I told her, obviously.

I realized some time in this last year that I don't need counselling or therapy. If I could run away and live in a cabin by myself two hundred miles north of anywhere, my problems would vanish. Except then I'd be lonely. I do have attachments. Usually they do me good, but right now they're making me take cough syrup. The people I love and care about most could use some therapy, but I am actually pretty much okay when left to my own devices. But none of them are getting any therapy, so instead I had some cough syrup.

I'm not guilty and worried about this. I'm not feeling a heck of a lot of anything, except a bit cold and tired. Motivation to write my Dungeon Master post is a bit tanked right now. I really want to go back to sleep as soon as possible and see if things improve, but going back to sleep will not make P stop seeing rejection everywhere and will not get my dad off medications that are only making him worse, nor will it give him a job that doesn't suck.
He admitted yesterday that the back injury he suffered last October is essentially healed. He just feels like too much shit to go back to work. I don't even know whether they actually fired him or whether he's just on some kind of indefinite, unpaid, un-benefitted leave of absence. It doesn't matter; I think he's fired himself internally. NuComm is a shithole and I can't blame him for not wanting to go back there.

I'm kind of trying this morning, though. There's an anger swirling around deep in my mind (anger is nearly invisible to me, by the way, which might be an excuse to see one of the free university counsellors) and I think part of it is directed at him for throwing himself away. Putting up a good front of daily functionality is not enough, sorry. I don't want my father to just act like he's doing all right, I want him to deal with what's fucking him up.
I also want him to take one of my score of suggestions for a first step of action, besides getting the kittens. Yes, they are making an improvement, but that's not enough. He's playing with them and caring for them, but it hasn't gotten him to move that step further and (for instance) water the house plants - which used to be his pride and joy. I'm watching him let them die because he can't make the effort, and my sympathy is wavering. It's not that I care any less how he feels - this is me caring. I want him to be better, I don't want him to suffer.

The urge to smash something is overwhelming.

I don't know how to correct this. I don't know how to correct for this. I don't think that I can or should walk away and ignore this, go on with life as usual, but it seems like I'm supposed to - like I'm being encouraged to. Nobody else wants to look at it, to touch it, to deal with it, probably because it hurts too much and they don't want to share my cough syrup.

It took some deciding to go with the Glee version of this song. The original music video is just too weird, and Darren Criss does a good job (although the original performer has a reality to his physical performance and expression that Darren Criss could only dream about). The important part, however, is the context of where they used the song in the show: one of the characters getting 'caught' as gay and ending up trying to hang himself. I cannot understand this song except in context of frustration, confusion, lost opportunities, and longing for an unreachable better existence.

Writing this post is my way of reaching out to you through the screen, and I'm loath to stop writing and tell it to actually publish. Please; I don't mind if you feel the need to pass some sort of judgement. Say it to me, don't just think it. Care enough to act. Make a suggestion. Send me a hug. Anything. Just be honest about it. I've had too much of people hiding behind a pleasant facade of functionality for now.

Roofless Pillars in an Empty Grove

Someone (you know who you are) recently posted a blog about the pillars of their practice, and invited others to be thoughtful in the same vein. It fit in wonderfully with what I had written the day before about I thought for a few moments about replying with the body of this posting, but realized that it would be much more suited for a post all its own.
(I always have trouble with responding to other peoples' written thoughts. I want to keep my replies about them and their thoughts, but usually what occurs to me to write is something about my thoughts, experiences or difficulties about that same general topic. I don't want to draw attention to myself on someone else's stage!
...At the same time, as I write these, I'm perfectly happy to let you, my readers, ramble on about nearly anything in my comments. I think I may be holding myself to a different standard...)

So, the body of this post. I started thinking about the things I already do, and the things I might do, and the things I would like to start doing. In terms of practicing, I mean. Before researching, before committing myself to making another groups' practices meaningful to me, this is the sort of stuff I do and would do if I had the time. A lot of it feels very un-spiritual.

• Light a candle before going to bed. (It is a very small tea candle, in a tall candle-holder, on a very wide stove.) I'm not sure what this is in aid of. Maybe to honour the night; maybe a prayer to wake up in the morning. Maybe it's just practice being mindful. Current, as of the last four days.
• Walk (or sit) in a green space every day; the greener the better. Hug a tree. Forest grounds me in a way that nothing else does. It helps me let go of petty personal troubles and the equally petty problems of human society, alike.
• Greet the stars every night. The moon, too, if she's up.
• Track the moon's cycles.
• Pay more attention to all of nature's cycles. I want to have a sense of when the apples will be ripe, when Samhain is coming, when the leaves will fall, when the first snowdrops will sprout. Time gets away from me too easily.
• Stay focused. Do things because I intend to, not because of some outside push or on a whim or by accident. Have all the threads of myself gathered into both hands, like the reins of a powerful chariot.
• Keep a detailed calendar.
• Be kind and considerate.
• Extend the same benefit of the doubt to both myself and every other person. If the action harms no one, then do as you will.
• Always be learning.
• Keep a garden.
• Be prepared for anything within reason. Keep a good sense of humour when Murphy strikes.
• Be grateful for the opportunity to get up every morning.

I recognize some of this as Wiccan, more from unspecified pagan sources; some just straight philosophy, some organizational, and some appears rather Boy Scout. It's not complete, but it already seems like too many 'things' for every day! I'll have to re-examine this in a few days, and see what I missed, which things I might actually try to incorporate, and which I'm already doing and don't even realize.

The Things You Believe, The Things You Know

I'd touched on this in one of my first postings. I was trying, not even to unravel, but just to find a thread end in the huge tangle that is me + irrational religious spiritual beliefs.
...Yeeeeah. Apparently the atheist critic in my head is still trolling strong. Hell, I haven't even gotten off the Brock Atheist Group on Facebook yet. I've been taught so strongly, fiercely even, to examine beliefs for flaws in logic - to slice and dice with Occam's Razor, the philosophy stating that any argument is stronger if it doesn't have to involve the supernatural - that I tend to fall back into that thought pattern quickly if I don't keep its opposite fresh in my mind. Since I didn't post anything for a while here, I've been drifting.


It's a danger. As soon as I get something written down, it's out of my head, as if I solved something about it even when I didn't.

So...
I'm coming at things from a different angle - again, one I touched on weeks ago. Despite the Razor neatly organizing many parts of my world, there are others that completely escape its touch. And maybe if I write them down, I can show them to my neocortex and be like, "See? You do believe in fairies. Now STFU."

(My apologies for the writing style of this one. It's not terribly late, and I've only been up for twelve hours, but I am terribly tired. Or headachey. Or something. But I'm not missing this opportunity to write.)

So, let's take a look at these 'irrational' beliefs - the things that survive despite that label because I know that they are so, no matter what logic says.

1. My dad has seen ghosts. He once sat in the lap of a ghost, as a child. He picked up a hitchhiking ghost.
2. Ghost, or possibly some other type of spirit, cats exist. They live in houses where cats have lived and been loved for years. I am not sure whether they are directly the spirits of the cats that lived and died there, or other spirit cats, or other forces which simply choose to take the form of cats for easy viewing.
3. Poltergeists exist. They particularly enjoy hiding things that you sort of need right now, and that are going to piss you off if you can't find them, but that aren't essential to your survival. ...Probably. It's funny to see you get frustrated, not so funny to watch you freeze to death. The poltergeist will eventually return the item when it sees fit, which is only going to be some time after you give up on ever seeing the item again.
4. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. (Accepting this fact is part of the worship of Murphy.)
5. I saw a fairy outside my window once. It was a little glowy yellow light, maybe... two inches across, based on the glance I got? It wasn't just out of the corner of my eye - but when I blinked, it was gone. I have no other explanation for what I saw. Besides...
6. There are plenty of fairies in my parents' back garden, and that's where my bedroom window faced when I saw the fairy light.
7. The basement that we used to live in had until recently been home to a very angry man, and the place was black with unpleasant energies. We had to cleanse it once or twice yearly, and I marked up a Norse protective rune (I think it was a World Tree, but I can't remember) above every entrance and window for good measure. Without these efforts, P and I spent sleepless nights huddled up, staring at the corners of the room in fear of some unnameable thing.
8. Something came into my parents' house on, or with, the stuff inherited from my grandma Eve (which itself had come, barely touched, from my Great-Aunt Virginia). Or maybe it came off the nasty furniture moving guys who had come in for the day at about the same time. I suddenly couldn't sleep a night or two after it came in, and found myself drawn to look at the pile of stuff in the living room in the very late night... then suddenly had to book it (backwards) down the hall to my room and slam the door, and stuff the crack under my door so that 'it' couldn't get in. The fear was intense. Mom helped me do a banishing ritual the next morning, and... well, it was fine henceforth.
9. All animals and trees have spirits. I can hug a tree, if it's the right tree and I'm in the right mood, and fit into it like it's hugging me back. I can feel... something, and it calms me down and roots me back into the soil where I belong. I try to remember to always thank the tree afterwards.
10. Anything that is unique has a certain value; it has brought Dust - life - ness - into the universe. This is the stuff missing when things are too well organized, or too sterile, or too efficient; it is the opposite of barren. Efficiency can be endlessly reproduced, but something unique, once destroyed, can never be put back together quite the same... This includes people, animals, plants, books, movies, and even the way you arranged your bookshelf. It is stuff, 'information', and once lost it is gone. Thus, it is valuable. (If you haven't read the His Dark Materials series, the first book of which is The Golden Compass, you need to. Now! They're amazing, and they should probably get their own post here sometime. They're where the idea of Dust comes from.)  I used to hate throwing out anything that had words or images on it and that wasn't obviously mass-produced.
11. Good things will come back to you. Bad things will come back to you manyfold, although it may take a long time for it to show up. This is sort of like karma, but not exactly. Real karma is looking beyond the immediate rewards-punishments system this seems to be, and realizing that movement towards enlightenment leads to more comfortable lives and movement away from enlightenment leads to lives meant to teach a lesson. Thus, - I dunno, rapists are clearly not learning what they need to from this life, and their next life is probably going to suck because it's going to involve learning why rape is bad.
12. This doesn't always sit easily with my belief in free will. I did an essay in the fall about free will and whether we have it. My conclusion was that the amount of free will we have is directly related to our ability to understand our own motives and foresee the consequences of our actions - to understand ourselves as complete beings in every dimension - and that because that is a very difficult feat, few to none of us have completely free will. ...Then again, maybe it does fit in just fine: gaining personal knowledge and control could be considered heading towards enlightenment, and full enlightenment grants full choice - including the choice not to be reborn. Damn, I just sorted out how predestination fits into free will! Am I good or am I good?
13. Whether God, the Goddess, the God and Goddess, or the Gods are the same thing as this karmic force, or whether Their influence on us shows up as the workings of karma, I am not sure. I'm not well-read enough in either Hinduism or Buddhism to know for sure. I do remember something from Buddhism which considers even the Gods to be caught up in the cycle of life, death and rebirth, and that even they are not fully enlightened - if they were, they too could cease to worry, fear, and grieve. The Gods and Goddesses of antiquity certainly seem like they just have super-sized doses of anger, fear, grief and pain, rather than freedom from them.
14. Something set the universe (multiverse?) going.
15. Sometimes things just happen for no discernable cause.
16. There are limits to human knowledge.
17. Apparently, I believe in reincarnation.
18. I also believe in an afterlife. I think its properties depend a lot on what you believe it to be (so if you think you're going to hell, you might end up treating yourself to a dose of punishment until you feel like you've been punished enough). I think it can fit in as another state of being; after a certain period of time, we might or might not be reborn again. I'm not sure whether this conflicts with the enlightenment theory or not; maybe we have to be sufficiently enlightened before we can choose whether to return or not. (Boddhisatvas, in one Buddhist tradition, are people who have reached enlightenment, but who have chosen to stay and help the rest of us get there. It's like they're holding the door open instead of going through themselves.)

I think that's quite enough random unfounded beliefs for one night. Damn, where is all this Buddhism going to fit alongside the First Nations spirituality and/or Celtic and/or Wiccan and/or something-else traditions I'm interested in? I don't consider myself Buddhist! Gack! Help?

Not Waiting For New Year's For This One

As part of the overall self-improvement project, I'm going to start trying to leave no dirty dishes in the sink when I go to bed. I grew up in a house with a dishwasher, and when I moved out, I fell into a 'why do dishes if there isn't a full dishrack's worth?' habit that was really just an excuse to procrasinate.

This is so not a real post. The real one is coming later. It took me this long to settle on a new worthy topic.

I'll leave you with a song: