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.

I've said, more than once, that I miss LiveJournal. What I really miss was the communities that formed there. I have friends that I only knew because of LJ coms, like my almost-twin. It was an easily accessible, streamlined, no bells and whistles platform that allowed connection with like-minded people even if they didn't have the latest tech or lots of time. I miss the conversations that were real conversations, not soundbites. I miss being able to actually read the journals of people as they were posted, in chronological order, on my feed.

Facebook allows for greater connectivity, a constant stream of input into our lives and minds, but it only lets you see a smattering of the people you want to interact with. The platform has been steadily throttling any features that allow for curated feeds or experiences, instead forcing it's interaction algorithm onto its users. You're forced to be constantly on, constantly interacting, to see the people you want to see.

It's so very frustrating.

I've tried on several occasions to restart journaling here, instead of on FB. They always fall by the wayside, as, well... no one is really here. I get no feedback, no interaction, here, and we're oh so conditioned to get that little dopamine hit from comments and such.

And yet, I've been posting here pretty regularly the last several days.

Maybe, I don't need the interaction (though yeah, every time I log in and see no comments, I kinda sigh) and just need a platform where I can be a bit more brutally honest and worth through things with myself. Like, had I made that post detailing the costs of my upcoming LARP desires, I would have had so many people who were like... um... but you are always complaining about money. They'd be right. But that's why I'm being more proactive in setting things up now, instead of just flying by the seat of my pants.

I used to be super good at budgeting, and sticking to it, and about getting things done. A lot of that drive got destroyed with my divorce (something I didn't even realize until the last few years), and the rest throttled by mental health issues- that also escalated with my divorce. I've turned terribly insular, and such. I get lonely, and it's oh so easy to just spend the whole day at the computer endlessly, mindlessly scrolling or playing a game.

Some days I need that, true.

Some days, it's an enabler to my exec dysfunction.

Regardless, I feel like I've hit a turning point year. The last three years were chaotic and full of change and pain. It was a tearing down cycle. This year, I'll turn 45- the same age my mother was when she died. This year feels like a rebuild. As if now, finally, 25 years later and after achieving this age, I can move past her death, move past my failed marriage, into something that is so. much. more.

I detest silence.

Not the silence of the outdoors, mind. Nature has a music all its own, a different movement unique to a time and place. It is not Silence, void of warmth and heat. No, what I can't stand is the absence of background, of music, of melody and rhythm.

Admittedly, we are never in true silence; there is always something, but often that something is noise, a discordant cacophony of random input, not even white noise. It is why if I shop at Target, I shop quickly and with purpose, for example. They don't play music, so there is no underlying melody to drown out or unite the assorted mishmash of sounds from shoppers and cashiers. It unsettles me.

I have had music in my life from an early age. The first song I clearly remember singing along with? Elvira by the Oak Ridge Boys. I was six, and we had it on reel-to-reel. It seemed there was always music playing in the house, usually the radio, or a favorite artist of my mother's. We had vinyl, 8-tracks, cassettes, the aforementioned reel-to-reel, and later CDs, of course. But there was always something. Music played as I got ready for school, while my mother made dinner, whenever the TV wasn't on.

I started playing piano in fifth grade, a truly random decision made on a whim. I enjoyed it, but dropped it for band the next year; we could only afford one or the other if I wanted to continue art classes, and many of my friends were in band. Plus, band replaced the dreaded PE, where I was always the subject of ridicule. My familiarity with the piano prompted the director to place me on xylophone. I wanted to play drums, but 1) there were already too many drummers in beginner band, and 2) my mother was highly opposed to the idea. This didn't stop me from learning, however, and I was often called out for having better rhythm than the boys drumming. I loved percussion, and stayed with band through high school, though I was never a "proper" drummer. I remained a bells and xylophone player to the end, though I became very adept at juggling a lot of secondary instruments, especially in orchestral band. In middle school, I fell in love with metal, largely because of the driving percussion and how it was juxtaposed with melody and lyric. From there, industrial and darkwave captivated me as well, for a similar reason; the relentless backbeat of the percussive line, regardless of how it was produced, could send me into myself in a way that meditation could not.

Now to what prompted the post

I've not ever been without music, and there are very few genres in which I can't claim to like at least a song or two. But I somehow... lost it. Oh, there have been artists that grabbed me, music that caught my attention for a short while, but I enjoyed it and moved on. I seldom allowed myself the true bliss of sinking into the music anymore, lost the desire to search out the new. It became nothing more than background noise, silence that wasn't silence, a little death of spirit so subtle I didn't even realize it.

I've been rediscovering music again over the past year and a half, thanks to a couple of dear friends. Specifically, I've rediscovered metal, fallen in love again with the genre and fascinated by it's evolution since the days of my youth. Some bands I've was loosely familiar with before (Nightwish, Leaves's Eyes) but others were unknown, now welcome additions to my music library. One album in particular demanded my attention, speaking to me deeply: Kamelot's latest Silverthorn. (Mind, I like their older music as well, especially Ghost Opera. But Silverthorn clinched it, and that likely has to do with their new singer as much as anything.) It has roughly 300 plays on my iTunes, as I often leave it on loop while I sleep. It captured me enough that once I was shown a video of the group performing live, I decided I really wanted to see them in concert.

I've always talked myself out of going to concerts, no matter how much I want to see a group. The last "big" concert I attended was Rush, on their Counterparts tour; that album was also one of the last albums to grab me as strongly as Silverthorn has. The crowds trigger my social anxiety issues badly, and I usually require a seat. Just the idea of standing room was enough to send me into panic. But I greatly enjoy live music, and missed the experience. This time, I had someone to go to this concert with, someone who intimately understands my issues with crowds (which meant he could hopefully talk me down if I freaked out), and was also a big fan of the group. I was determined that I would not miss this event, that I would make it through to the end of the concert without bolting- even if it was standing room only.

I expected to enjoy it, to have an amazing time. I didn't expect a bit of spiritual epiphany.

It hit me during the drummer's solo spotlight. We were only a few rows back from the stage. The acoustics of the space caused the music to surround me, and the wooden floor vibrated to the beat, sending it through my body. Combined it made me feel as if I truly was one with the drums, with the music, and the feeling continued through the rest of the show. I can't remember the last time I truly let go and felt music, not like that, let my guard down and just rode the pulse of it.

I hadn't realized how much I missed experiencing music like that- or how much I needed to do so. I'm already planning more such concerts.

There were people at the concert who spent the whole time with their phones in the air, trying to record it. I feel sorry for them. Sure, they have a nice little personal record of the event; however, how much of their experience did they sacrifice to get that record? How much more could they have felt, how much more memory would they have made if they had put the phone down and just listened, banged their head, clapped their hands, screamed themselves hoarse (as I did) when prompted?

Music isn't background noise to me. Music is vital. I need it in my life as much as I need air. How did I forget it's importance? Thank you so much, my friends, for helping me remember this.

I would just like to say that despite my slightly depressing ruminations of earlier in the week, this week in and of itself has been a very good week. Socialization (the human contact kind, not the instant message kind) can do wonders for one's mood. I still wonder if I'm not being terribly pushy or needy or imposing, but that's what happens I suppose when you've essentially avoided all but necessary human contact for four years. Perspective gets skewed.

But yes. It's been a good week. And in two weeks I will be at Botcon with other good friends who I see very rarely. The store passed its Secret Shop, and we are off to a decent start to the quarter, which hopefully means a turnaround there, as well.

Goyle passed on last night. At least I was more prepared for this. He was an old cat, right at fifteen years old. I can't help but feel responsible though. He'd been losing weight and I had scheduled a vet appointment for him on the day Yin died. Obviously, I didn't make that appointment, and since he seemed to be eating and putting weight back on after, I didn't try and rush it.

He was not doing well at all when I woke up yesterday morning. He was very lethargic. I took him in and he was severely dehydrated, so much so that they couldn't take blood. Lab work came back that he had a severe UTI. However, the hope was that we could take care of it with antibiotics, and he was responding well to fluid therapy. He had eaten something as well, which was good.

He did not make it through the night, however. I can't help but feel if I'd gone ahead and taken him in the day Yin died, he might have survived. I'll add this to my shoulda woulda coulda pile of life failures, I guess.

It hurts. It doesn't hurt as sharply as Yin death. Partly, this is because Yin was my favorite baby. Partly this is because I felt in my heart that when I took Goyle in yesterday, that I would not bring him home again. I hoped I would, but I did not believe I would. So I was prepared for this.

So it's just me and my old man Pepper now. He's thirteen. I think he knew Goyle wasn't coming back, too, based on how he acted last night. I don't know if I'll get another cat again while he's living or not. I'm so used to having multiple balls of fur to snuggle with.

was pretty much a great big pile of suck.

Things would be so much easier if I didn't care so much. Just sayin'.

The USPS has made a big push in recent years to encourage people to print their postage online. The discount between printing your postage yourself and taking it into the counter is actually significant, especially if you ship items regularly. Admittedly, you can only print Priority or Express postage from their website, but that's really not an issue for me, as I can print First Class or Media through Paypal on the odd occasion I need to do so.

Now, most PO's even have the Automated Postal Centers, where you can print your own postage, including stamps, instead of having to stand in line with the masses. I'm a bit surprised the one here in Millington doesn't have that, but eh, many small town PO's haven't gone there yet.

Previously, I have always just had my carrier pickup my packages. However, Trudy does not have a porch to speak of, and I'm just not comfortable leaving a few hundred dollars worth of items on the stoop. This means the postal carrier has to knock, come in, process the packages, yadda yadda yadda. He's a nice little old man...but he's a little old man. He'd never even had to do a pickup or scan a Priority Package until I moved in there. What with Yin deciding that he simply must dart out the front door to roll in the clover every chance he gets, I try to limit the number of pickups I have.

Which means I drop off my packages at the PO quite a bit. Most are too big to go in the package drop, so I just take them to the counter and leave them at an unoccupied window; this is what the very sweet ladies at this PO told me to do. No waiting in line, no worries. Except that I get the mother of all Dirty Looks from the people standing in line. Which frankly annoys me. It's a minor thing, totally unimportant. But it annoys.

Really, I understand that not everyone has net access, or feels comfortable paying for things online, or what have you. But don't get pissy with me because you can't or won't take advantage of the other options.

And that concludes our interjection. We now return you to your regularly scheduled LJ.

WotC's new Gatherer sucks dead donkey balls.