This, this, so much this. This morning is a lovely cool, over cast, drizzly day. I am coming out of medicated stupor, I have been tending the shrine morning and night, I have been making sure to say prayers out loud, to dare myself to have the audacity to address Poseidon formally on occasion. I have re-introduced formalization in my bathing process. Just feeling less brain dead alone has helped immensely, and the black mood of the last few weeks has lightened to a tolerable, steady blue. Ah, melancholia, you old friend.
There was a day, last week, that involved light banter. I banter. I am a sarcastic woman, and I come from a long line of showing love in little teasing jabs. When it’s Really Important to be Serious, I try to avoid doing that, because I don’t believe it’s a healthy way to express love, it does not build confidence, it does not nourish, without there already being a strong foundation established. Poseidon and I, we have a strong foundation established, so on the lighter days, or on the days when I’m trying to tease myself into a lighter mood, I tease. I joke. I pick up old weapons and turn them into moments of “look at how far we’ve come”. Badges of pride rather than wounds.
So, this day last week, and things were decent and light and good . . . and then, in the span of a blink, in the exchange of one word, a feel of teasing agreement, everything changed. I was being a brat, but not in a serious way, and I said, “I am such a brat,” and His agreement was jovial and teasing and completely fit in the tone we’d been setting, but in that blink everything was thrown open and that teasing, light-hearted, jovial agreement became instead completely devastating. Oh, how, now what will I do? NOW after all we’ve been through, after all His reassurances that He Knows me, now He will level that barb at me? The recoil was staggering, and even as I recoiled I knew a number of things:
1) My emotional state is not. trustworthy. Especially because of things like this: in the blink of an eye, everything changes and often reality is discounted entirely for the sake of ephemeral imaginings. Usually this is strictly true during a particular two week period, if you get me, during any given month, but when the black descends, nothing is really safe or stable;
2) He knows me. Considering how things progressed afterward, I can’t say that it wasn’t a calculated devastation on His part. It may have been; likely He simply will not pass by an opportunity to dig deeper, to, ahem, strip me back to the bone as it were;
3) Even as I recoiled I was grasping for Him. Our foundation is rather strong, and though there were a number of hours when just breathing was difficult, I was almost immediately before the shrine, burning incense, pouring libations, moved beyond words to just *be* there.
He is not threatened or scared of my emotional extremes. I have nothing on His moods. I experienced a bit of not-unlike-horror at the wound His returning my jovial mood produced, but beyond the immediate “You know I was not seriously calling you a brat” reaction, there were no taking back the word, no falling over Himself to apologize. It was more, look at these foundations and then decide if you want to hold on to this hurt feeling, or if you’d rather examine it and then release it.
So, examine, release. And all the while, grasping Him tightly, securely, and feeling utterly safe in my devastation, until it eases and I can breathe again.
I know He is not the only god who does this thing, and I know I am not the only one to be wounded and wounded and wounded again. It’s not unique to living this sort of life. Introspection, contemplation. I have days when I grow weary — why does everything have to go back to those particular experiences? Why do I have to share these weak moments with others? Well, I don’t have to, but since working through it is part of my devotional life with Poseidon, it seems fitting to share, here. And I find it useful when others talk about the moments when things aren’t easy. I like anecdotal stories, so I share them.