warning: self-absorption and a bit of whining ahead....

Forewarned is forearmed. You can skip this one if you'd like.

The good news is that I have a tutoring client coming in a few minutes so my whine time is limited. I wish it was wine time, not whine time, but that's not possible.....

Most days I can make it through. And more than that, I can get to the end gracefully, sometimes joyfully, and always with gratitude for the abundance that I have in my life as it stands right now. But I'm tired today...and maybe that little piece of snowflake obsidian sitting on my altar is doing its job and bringing things to the surface. Things I'd rather not deal with. Stuff I thought was gone, drifting back into my brain. Maybe I'm just having one of those days, and tomorrow will be better. I hope so.

I feel stuck. Completely stuck and I can't seem to move myself out of this...place. There's usually a trigger - today's trigger was the AGM at my co-op.

I used to live in a co-op in my hometown. Maybe the fact that I knew most of the people in those meetings, and had known them for years before I moved in made it easier. I participated. I asked and answered questions. But ever since Michfest, going into public spaces alone - places like meeting rooms and concert halls - has become more and more difficult. I should be okay at a co-op meeting - I live there. I see most of those people every day. But as I sat, and listened to financial statements and committee reports, I began to feel completely disconnected...of the people sitting in the room, I'm on a first-name basis with maybe four or five of them. None of them know, really, a whole lot about me.

I spoke to no one. I showed up as required by my membership, and left. 

It shouldn't matter. Maybe it doesn't. But there's another in the list of places where I am not fully comfortable.

I used to have a lot of social anxieties when I was younger. I worked really hard to overcome them. I'm proud of how far I've come - no longer do I stutter when I talk to strangers on the phone. I can walk up to a counter in a store and ask for something without suffering agonies of embarrassment. But there's a part of me that's never really at ease outside of my own house, except in very specific circumstances. Those of you who are reading, and who know me IRL can attest to that. On the page, I am completely different. It's me, uncensored. I am as open as I can be, as long as you're not standing in front of me.

That's why doing readings via blogger or email works better for me than anything else. Because the person I'm reading for isn't physically here, I am free to open up and sense whatever energy is around the cards I pull. I write my responses. Writing fills this deep need for me - I need words on the page, and I need them all the time. Writing helps me to open up in other situations. Writing pulls out the best of me.

I stopped writing two months ago. Except for here. And one song. Things are starting to pile up again.

I was getting better. I was taking risks, I was starting to feel a lot more comfortable in groups - well, certain groups. And then I went to Michfest. Something happened there - I can't explain it even to myself, because there was really no specific event that pushed me backwards. But I came home feeling like I was in high school all over again. I was completely out of my element. I feel like I've failed in what I set out to do...my reasons for going were first of all, for the music. That was amazing. And secondly, to make the real-life connections that I lack.

Fail. And I feel like a failure.

There's not one significant connection.  A pile of facebook friends. I comment on their statuses once in a while. Or vice versa. I don't quite know what I was expecting...I'd heard so much about feeling completely safe in Michigan, and about how easy it was to meet people...but I experienced something different.

It was lonely. And frightening. And I'm sitting here blaming myself for not trying harder, for never really being able to get past whatever it is that's holding me back. And in this moment (thank goodness such moments grow ever-more fleeting for me) I feel like there's nothing to move forward to. Maybe...just maybe...this is it.

My sister once called me "socially dependent" - as in, on her. It hurt a lot. I sometimes feel like I'm being tolerated by people,rather than accepted. My family doesn't quite know what to do with me anymore.  I'm on the fringes of everything and in the middle of nothing.(with the exception of one important group - my coven...).

You know already that I'm my own worst enemy.

Today is not a good day to be trying to create interesting profiles for internet dating sites. I can't think of a single interesting thing to say. It's not that I don't think I have things to offer, it's just that words, for once, are failing me. I can sell other people. I can concentrate my energies and focus on the cards that might bring some enlightenment for someone else. But I cannot sell myself. Everything I write seems to contain a subliminal "go away" message.

And do not...do not get me started on the whole picture thing. There is no good picture of me. It doesn't exist.

Or maybe there really aren't any single lesbians in K-W. It is possible.

Yeah, I know there's a social group - I have one or two readers that used to live around here who have sent me the info...but since Fest, there's no freaking way that I am going to walk alone  into an even where there are a group of people, who are all strangers to me, who very likely all know each other...and feel anything but completely uncomfortable.

On a more positive note...okay, there aren't any. I did another reading last night and will post it when I am in a better frame of mind. A walk, a hot shower and a self-indulgent cry will do me a world of good.

PS - an hour later...I am really really tired. I went to Niagara Falls with the girls and came home to an empty house. That might have something to do with my current state of mind.