Epitaph

CW: trauma, abuse, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, grief, addiction, suicidal ideation, religion, finances

11/06/2021

Feeling shitty, go outside, take a walk.

Jacket on, headphones in.

My feet start carrying me towards the cemetery - a familiar route these past couple of months. Feeling shitty? Go to the cemetery, lie on the grass by the trees, look up at the stars, breathe - sometimes cry. I am thankful for these two tall fir trees by the mausoleum under construction. I brought them a thank you gift the other week - rosemary, lavender, mugwort, tobacco, beathnua - for seeing me through tough times. Times are always tough, though. For the past year - the first out of three in my Saturn Return - almost every day has been a struggle - against my mind, subconscious, programming, trauma. The grief is palpable. Constant shedding - reprogramming - delete this belief, insert that one - didn’t work - try again - almost took - just keep trying - just keep going - always keep going. Fight through the fear; work through the pain. Still hate myself today? Fuck. A little less, though? That’s enough motivation to get up every day and push through.

Some days, though, man.

Today was harder than usual. This week was harder than usual. Scorpio New Moon week. First week off work on sick leave. Didn’t see anyone; barely talked to anyone - in this dimension at least. I cried a lot - about capitalism - money stress - about the fact that my supports are running on fumes too - not enough energy for me; or so my brain tells me. I cry and cry and cry about the fact that the people I really need need their own time and that I’m too traumatized to ask for help - something I’m working on. My coworker the next day tells me to start small - text and ask for some affirmation, a virtual hug, sparkly heart emojis. This I think I can do. Asking for a phone call, seeing ‘I love you’ in my inbox. It’s not what I need, but it’ll have to do for now. What do I need? Well, that’s something I won’t say.

Across the street from the cemetery, I decide that’s not where I’m going this evening. Not that way either, though, there are people I’d have to walk past on the sidewalk. Down the alleyway that runs along the cemetery. I want to see the back side of the United Church building I saw the day before - I didn’t see the entrance from across the street - listening to music with another tree friend - a different one. I have lots of tree friends. This one told me my breath, my music, and my love were enough thanks for the energy they gave me - they liked listening to music with me - Remains by Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon was a good one we listened to together. The trees, my daily walks, Jesus, the angels, the plants are what get me through every day. I have some people who recharge me completely - reciprocal. Many people charge a certain part of me but not all. Some I mask with - self-draining. Trauma makes authenticity - vulnerability - a struggle. Speaking of struggles - every day is one. I’m exhausted from all this continuous work. I’m doing better than I ever have been in my whole life - but only because every day I put in the hard work. Changing my habits, my programming. Digging up the trauma - the roots are deep, and you know what they say about deep roots - not reached by the frost. The crownless again shall be king? When, though? Will it be this hard all three years? I have a heavy Saturn influence in my chart - its ruler, plus seven other placements. My Capricorn Mars is my driving force to whom I owe a multitude of gratitude for how consistently hard-working I’ve been. Saturn was in retrograde when I was born - the retrograde this year was a time I was thriving - I was sad when it was time to station direct again. Me and Saturn have been getting to know each other very well over the past year. I love Saturn - it’s just a lot sometimes, you know? All the lessons - the same ones multiple times until I’m ready to embody them. All the balancing - excess and restriction are a teeter totter. All the responsibility, the unlearning, the trauma - I know from my many years of trauma education it only comes up when we can handle it. Our bodies and our brains are really something. For years I’ve thought ‘I sure hope I haven’t repressed any childhood sexual abuse’ - which would be an odd thought for someone who hadn’t. My body has always known - now my brain is ready - slowly - to start uncovering it. Healing is a spiral - there’s one in my parking lot right outside my driver’s side door. One of those coloured paper clips maybe - curled into a red spiral that I see every time I get into my car.

I’m hoping to start energy work therapy with someone I did sexual assault crisis line training with six years ago. She told me Jesus was a sex magick worker and someone who guides our way through the underworld - lighting lanterns for us on our shadow journeys - which is funny, because I’ve known it’s been Jesus helping me uncover my sexuality and my gender underneath my trauma all these months. ‘Jesus helped me figure out I like girls’ I tell people - not joking. I feel them in the tall lamp posts in the cemetery, in any lamp post really - guiding my way through the darkness. Jesus has been a huge support for me through all of this. I feel them in my heart - the unconditional love they provide is so powerful. If I can love myself like Jesus loves me, I know I can do anything. Jesus teaches me unconditional love, compassion and understanding, and non-judgment - all traits that have been very important to me the past ten years - ones I haven’t always quite fully managed to embody as much as I wish I could have - but that I’m still working on - including towards myself.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, my religious trauma. I saw this church across the street hanging out with my tree friend, and I thought ‘ok that’s cool, I’m glad people have this church to go to’ ignoring the obvious promptings from my guides like - yeah, you could go there. So anyway, that evening, I think ‘well, I’m just curious where the entrance is because I didn’t see it yesterday.’ I walk down the alley in my fur coat and sweatpants and Green Day toque and headphones - and kind of feel like Buffy. I go for walks in the dark often; sometimes glimpses of shadows in the corner of my eye make me think, like ‘this is it, my throat is about to get slashed’ and I always smile because I do really think that would be a badass way to go - throat slashed in my fur coat in the alley next to the cemetery.

So, I’m walking this way I’ve never gone before - I didn’t find the church door, by the way - and I just keep walking. Walking down a sort of industrial ish area - walking down towards a busier street, which I usually avoid, preferring to walk the grid of my neighbourhood to avoid crossing paths with people - having to choose whether or not to do the awkward straight lip smile in passing - never knowing if people would rather just avoid each other’s gaze (I would). I get to the busier street and decide to keep going across the avenue at the light. I’m waiting for the light, and I put on a Neck Deep album I haven’t heard - a band I only know because of my ex - the one I broke up with at the beginning of the pandemic - the one I proposed to - the first queer relationship I was in - was it? As I’m waiting to cross the street, I scroll through the album to put a few songs into my queue - I don’t want to listen to the whole album, just the songs with names that sound cool. I add one called December because it seems important - December is coming up after all, and I get a lot of messages, signs, and symbols from my guides through music.

I walk across the street and down the sidewalk in another industrial ish area. My eyes flit over to a billboard - ‘Canada’s #1 rated online broker’ - I keep walking - then - I don’t know what a broker is, but I better check the name - money troubles and all, you know? I turn my head back - look at the name - good to know - should I take a picture? No, I’ll remember - (I didn’t.) I keep walking - I walk for an hour straight this night - grateful that the weather has still been so nice even on these dark November evenings. I’m walking next to this - not a field per se but patch of grass and trees separating the sidewalk from the alleyway next to some houses. Some cute, bright lights lining a rooftop catch my eye. I hesitate - going back and forth a few times on whether I should keep walking down the sidewalk or go check out the lights - and decide to head across the field-patch of grass towards the lights. I say hi to some trees on the way. I don’t know what the building is - something interesting? Just a house. I admire the lights as I walk past into a residential area and think about the contrast - right next to this house there’s some other building under construction. I walk lightly over the sheet of metal covering the ground to get to the sidewalk and turn right.

The past few months I’ve been going on daily walks - to be outside, to get some exercise, to take some pictures - mostly of trees and sky but other things too - whatever catches my eye - I love the pictures I take and I love taking pictures. I like looking at the houses and apartments - my lease is up in February and I decided I really - like really - need a balcony. I look at all the places people live as I walk by and try to picture what I want in my next home - I keep changing my mind - keep obsessing - over finding a place that’s perfect for me. I don’t want to move again - this will be the third move in three years - but I know I can’t stay here. There’s too much grief - plus no balcony. I need somewhere better for my mental health - for my routine, my lifestyle change - the problem is, my lifestyle - what I want, what I need - keeps changing - almost daily sometimes it seems. But I want my next place to be somewhere I stay for longer than a year - somewhere perfect for me and my cats.

So I’m walking now in this residential area - listening to the songs in my queue, breathing, thinking, looking at houses. I just keep walking. I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know the area, I’m just walking. At some point I decide ‘ok it’s time to head back because I will have to pee.’ So I turn right - South - the direction of my apartment. I’m listening to a song that’s familiar - and thinking about my ex. I’m frustrated about how often he comes up for me in general - I know I haven’t fully grieved him - how could I have - there’s so many things to grieve, including everything the pandemic has brought. I sigh, thinking how much I want to just grieve him and move on. I check the song title. December - everything clicks. Last November and December were when I was obsessively thinking about him - wishing we could be together - proposing - messaging him into the void - (I was blocked.) After we broke up, I didn’t let myself miss him. A few months later, I realized I had a small crush on someone else, then all my feelings for him came flooding back. I thought it was because I had moved on - I didn’t miss him, I was finally thinking about another person - I thought I was in a healthy place. When I realized I still wanted to be with him, I thought it was because it was genuinely meant to be. Divinely Guided. I had been thinking so much about love and compassion and how traumatized people deserve to be shown unconditional love - even when they have hurt others - because that’s the way to transform all the pain. I thought I would have to be the one to show him this unconditional love - that even though he had hurt me - I forgave him, still cared about him, still loved him, still believed in his capacity for accountability and change. In those months - and some after - I truly believed he was the only person I wanted to be with - the perfect person for me - so much so that I genuinely believed I wanted to marry him - even though I’ve never wanted to get married and fully believed relationships couldn’t last. I was absolutely obsessed - addicted - it was extremely unhealthy, but I believed it was right. I thought I was seeing all these signs that we were meant to be, and I had no idea how to navigate all of this - I didn’t tell any of my friends, I didn’t tell my therapist - because I knew what everyone would say. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t right, but I thought the off feelings were because I was just scared - not wanting to accept that I was being Divinely Guided back to someone who hurt me so much. Turns out, it was the trauma bond, addiction, loneliness, grief, uncertainty, self-hate, etc etc etc - you know, all the stuff that comes with living in a house with domestic violence - being abused and neglected by parents - slipping into a pattern of abusive relationships - addicted to the chaos - among other things - all subconscious programming and patterns I’m fighting this constant battle every day to unlearn.

So I have this epiphany - one in a seemingly continuous stream - that my body remembers this unhealthy, obsessive, addictive, traumatic energy from last year, and it’s been recreating it this week. I let out a breath - tension leaving my body, relief sinking into my whole being. It’s okay and normal that I’ve been feeling this way - absolutely unhinged - dysregulated - terrified - obsessive - anxious - suicidal - it finally makes sense. This means I can let it go. When we name something, we can work on letting it go. I smile.

I walk into an alleyway and onto a patch - well, more like a field - of grass. Something catches my eye - I look up, and for a second, I’m stunned. A familiar billboard is lit up across the street. I look behind me, see the house with the cute lights, and smile. I have no idea what this means - but I will when the timing is right. A few days later - once again, wandering, finding my way home - I happen upon the same alley and think ‘different paths to end up, unplanned, in the same place.’





Next one will be from 11/15/2021 and have a cute playlist to go with it <3