Brave Enough to Burn

Which, honestly... that seems to be the theme for 2025 for me.

It's sad that having an active friend network and social connections makes me want to run away and hide like a hiding thing, but it do. People are just... so much, and connection is terrifying. Between the developing relationship w/ P, to the deepening of other friendships post-Dresden, to the... very real weight of running BB and juggling a large community? The distrustful, wary part of me that will forever insist that connection is dangerous is having a fucking screaming fit and trying to make me pull away from everyone and everything.

The problem is that I don't want to do that, so I'm forcing myself to ignore that terrified and screaming part, which is just... fucking exhausting, yo. I'm tired. Not physically tired but tired on a deeper level. I feel like I need a full week of not talking to anyone and not leaving the house. But that isn't possible. Also, I would get lonely, not talking to anyone, which would bring with it a different set of problems. I don't really want to do that, either. But this deep wariness is starting to wear me down.

I wish I could figure out how to make that part of me feel safe enough to stop screaming.

I'm trying to focus on prep for my upcoming LARPs in order to like, impose some order and structure, and to quiet the OCD flails. Like, it's a pattern for me. The more I feel like my life is out of control, the harder I work to organize the minutia of my life, and the more I throw myself into a distraction that feeds into that. Like, ya know... completely reorganizing my room. Micro-organizing is one of the ways I soothe the OCD.

Le sigh.

It doesn't help that the country is on fire. I have closed all my "doors and windows" and keep tossing up layer after layer of boards over them, but I still can't fully close out the Sight of what is to come. It is absolutely going to get worse by a whole fucking lot before it gets better. Survival is... not a guarantee for anyone. A large part of me is convinced that surviving is worse than not. Even if we manage to keep the country out of a complete slide into dictatorship, those of my generation are likely to die before the damage will be repaired. In but a few short months, decades of progress have been destroyed. After four years? We're likely look at a good century to get back what we had.

So.. yeah. I'm very, very overwhelmed right now. I'm holding on tightly to the connections I have, new and old, to try and keep myself from self-harming via self-isolation. I'm using my stubbornness as a tool to try and keep myself afloat.

But it's so hard to do so.

So, so hard.

oooooof, I am le tired.

I've been off two days, and don't feel like it. *facepalm*

That isn't bad, really. Friday, I just had a lot to do, and had to leave the house (groceries). Yesterday I was literally at the character creation session all day.

I am very extroverted out, very groggy, and very much Do Not Want to deal with people at all. I legit feel like I'm dealing with a LARPover. But like... I drank almost an entire case of my waters. I snacked on things that were not just sweets.

Admittedly, I didn't sleep too well. A big storm rolled through, and Niniel had a panic attack in the middle of the night. I also got... really fucking hot at several points.

BUT! The Jam Session went well. We had 16 non-staff attendees! That's just ridiculous! We're going to get like, 30 people for our first game. To do that, without starting off at a convention is just wicked cool. It shows how much people valued the previous community, despite the issues.

NGL, part of me wants to hit that coveted 60-person number for a non-convention game just to be kinda petty about it. I'd love to never have to run a con game.

We have... a lot of pookas. Too many, honestly, bit what can you do? :catwut: The spread is decent other wise, though I continue to be boggled by the lack of Sidhe and Sluagh. Piskeies, Nockers, and Trolls, are tied for the next highest pop. Satyrs, Clurichan, Boggan, and Sluagh have only one confirmed player so far. Sidhe and Eshu are low. Which... I mean come on man, Eshu are baller.

At any rate, as expected, my list from Friday was overambitious. So I'm sliding a chunk of it to today/tomorrow.

To dos for (hopefully) next two days

BB Participants Guide
badge mockup
corset tests
Abee costume test
New Discord roles (FC, Announcements)
Clean Bathroom- in progress
Clean Bedroom
Budgeting
Vacuum stairs/upstairs
Flyover thread with Cassie
FB costume planned out

I am considering going to the doctor tomorrow about my ankle. The swelling is not going down at the expected rate. Of course, I haven't been able to keep it as elevated as I should, and I spent a LOT of yesterday standing, so that may be part of it. It's not broken, certainly, nor is it a level three sprain, because I can put weight on it, and walk. It doesn't feel particularly unstable, either. it's just swollen, sore, and certain movements are retarded by the tightness and swelling. HOWEVER- there is definite touch tenderness on the bone just above the ankle, so when the continued swelling is considered, the possibility of a hairline fracture must be considered.

I'm still hesitant to go to the doctor for a few reasons. For one, expense. For another, If it's a fracture or torn ligament, all they are going to do is tell me to do everything I'm already doing, such as elevation and compression. I'm still going to have to go up and down stairs and function, so it won't actually help me much. The only thing it would do is give me a medical out for light duty/being able to sit down at work, when we reopen. I'm monitoring Simon's website, however, and our mall is currently not the reopen list for the next two weeks, and by then, I should be fine enough.

Still moving slowly, though. It's almost 2. I've eaten food (though I'm weirdly still hungry). I got the protein powder that P recommended, and it is ok. Like, it isn't a meal replacement, but adding it to my coffee helps up my protein intake, which I desperately need. On that score, it frustrates me that the easiest way for me to get protein- eggs- causes my tracker to yell at me about cholesterol, because OH NOES! I think that's the biggest issue with the tracker- it doesn't separate between good and bad cholesterol, or added or natural sugar. So it skews data a bit.

I'm having to remind myself that I am actually rather seriously injured, my mobility is fucked, and that the best thing I can do to speed recovery is to not be moving. This is very hard for me, as even when I'm having rough days, I need to get up and do something. True facts- if I lived alone, I'd be way less worried about being "productive." I'd also not be, ya know, changing shirts or showering every day, and would be living my best trash goblin life.

Knowing that W isn't judging me in anyway, doesn't stop the brain, or the fact that I feel I need to be "earning my keep." It doesn't help that I'm having a lot of issues just... focusing. Like, I've been working on this post for thirty minutes, but keep getting distracted. In about an hour, I'm going to go downstairs, and start on a meal. I have GOT to cook that pork today.

Instead of going day by day, I think I'm going to start doing a weekly To Do list (as its own post), and then updating where I'm at on it every evening. I think that will help me with the whole "feeling like I failed a day" thing.

Unrelated, I debate on using cuts in my posts, here. Like... I have no one reading my posts, so do I really care if I'm making a long post on an unread feed? Back in the LJ days, it was just common courtesy, but like... if no one is even here then what even is the reason?

In regard to self-care (and setting aside the concern over my ankle at the moment, I have been showering daily, and moisturizing at least my face, hands, and feet. My feet are really bothering me- since I've been off work, the skin on the bottom of my feet has been doing that micro-splitting thing. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not wearing shoes, so there isn't anything to cushion my weight when I step, if it's because my feet are more dry because of the same reason, or what. But I haven't had this sort of issue, to this extent, in a long time. The last thing I want to to have my feet start doing that peeling thing again. I'm thinking the answer is that I need to do a good foot scrubbing/exfoliating, in addition to moisturizing. I'm super grumpy about the whole walking thing getting fucked because of my ankle. By the time it heals up, we'll be in hell temperatures, and it will be harder to make myself walk. I am keeping up with tracking my food, and I have limited my soda to one a day. Trying to get my water intake up a bit more.

There is still the whole budgeting thing I need to manage. I'm not doing as well at it as I should be. Tonight, I have to stay up to file my unemployment weekly cert. I need to pay my car note, JefCap, and my phone bill out of this payment. Everything else is a sub, and it comes off my Cap 1 card, which is more or less paid off. Starting with this week, I need to be way more mindful of my extraneous spending, as I'm back to paying all my bills straight up again, and the UE payment will pretty much *just* cover them. I did decide to keep my BB sub for this month, because meat is getting both scarce and expensive because the supply lines are fucked, and at least I know it's good stuff.

Now... to the To Do post.

14:Lanterns

Will o’the wisps- shining souls of the dead flickering softly, they light my way. Across an ocean, up a river, into the mountains… I have never seen mountains such as the ones I see now in this vision quest. Wild, broken stone, ancient paths, cairns laid to one who has slept for too long. One the Ancestors demand I wake. I see him, the Bakulu, as terrible as they say, gnarled and horned But where are his chains? What comes on the wind, that this one must be woken from so deep a slumber? What death does his rising portend?

12:Carve

Death by a thousand cuts.
Not my phrase, mor my culture’s, but still it is the most appropriate of phrases for this slow destruction of self. Your death. Mine. How will it end? Locked in these eternal cages of conflict built by interlopers and murderers, we spend our nights at a chessboard made of bones, the pieces crafted from the souls of friend and foe. A slice here, a prick there- they would have us bleed out the parts of us which make us *our own,* all for the sake of this holy war into which we have been drafted.

10: Wings

I have never cared about my appearance. Nor can I see my mirrored image even if I did.

The loss of the animals cuts. They are not driven to madness by my presence as I was warned they would; however, they are still wary. Before they came to me as if drawn. Now, they treat me as any human.

It has taken me so long to coax my sweet Ani back to my side, tricked and trapped her with blood-drenched treats and seeds. Now, she spreads her wings at my command, trapped by blood and will as surely as I.

8:Blood Oath

Burning, twisting, screaming- I am falling, down, down into bilious shadow and blackened flame. Down, past the doors, past the markers, my hands scrabbling at the ghosts of lifelines spun out by those who have fallen before. Trying, so desperately trying, to grasp those razor-sharp remnants of my blood kin and stop my fall.

You are forsworn.

I hear them, echoes of their ghostly voices, taking my measure and finding me wanting. I am falling, and I hear it. Laughter, sharp and mocking, the cackle of an old women mixed with a rooster’s crow, an anchor….

Forsworn, and mine.

Shhh, ma cherie, shush now. You ramble on and on and yet you speak of nothing, spilling wild words and manic prayers to loa whose names have not been spoken since time immemorial. Those are the ancestors lost to the twisting nether spaces betwixt and between. They are familiar in their terribleness, non? Do you feel kinship with their pain, ti kras mizè mwen? You must learn, daughter mine, you who served your people as link between this world and the shadows, learn that what is familiar is not always familial. You must learn caution.

And now, ma cherie. Again.

No light exists here. Only the cloying, living dark that sits upon the chest, coats the eyes with a sticky, musty-sweet loam. We must make our way through without benefit of markers or handholds, push our way back from the other side of the broken door. The knowledge we bring is too valuable, too rare, to let it be lost with us in shadowed lands. We walk as those blind, but our feet do not stray from the path, even as we feel our way carefully along it. There are times for boldness, but this is not one of them.

Do you feel the weight? The cold? Do you see this for what it is, a calling, a blessing, an open door to an existence previously unconsidered? Stop twitching, now, stop your mewling. You beg respite and forgiveness from the very one who tore you asunder in their worship. Have you no pride? No steel left within that broken form? Will you prove yourself as much a waste of death as you were of life? Dishonor you gods and your mother for want of a soul? You will not, for I will not allow it.

I do not create failures.