Ravings of a BiPolar Gothic Witch
     Occasional commentary, observations and tidbits as well as other random thoughts

Sometimes I really hate my thought processes. It seems like it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to understand all the undercurrents of what is going on inside my head. Like the barrier that I put up so long ago as a child in self defense has completely severed the mechanism for understanding feelings, and so instead I have to fish for them. I don’t like that.

I’ve been writing about parenting the last few posts. Well I like closure. I think things to be said so I can let go of them. So I spent 48 hours composing an email to the stepmom of my kids about how I was sad at the change in our relationship, that I didn’t like where it had gone, that I was worried about my kids… needless to say it was a very long letter. The point is however, is that somewhere along in the process (maybe the 4th revision or so - YES I am that anal) I figured out that there were some buried resentments at the loss of control and not being included in decisions and important meetings and appointments in their lives. Sometimes the mention that something even happened is simply an after thought for both my ex and his wife. I realized that it seems like when I gave them up to go live with them, that I gave up any parenting rights whatsoever, and so I just don’t get told about anything unless I ask, and then with her, most of the time I really don’t even get relevant information either - I just hear how frustrated she is.

I don’t get it. I don’t know why it takes so much to figure out that I’m holding that resentment (or that anger, or fear or pain). I act from those feelings but have no clue that they even exist. So here for me is the question.

Am I more in tune with myself then the normal person, and thus actually realize that I have buried emotions and feelings and work to uncover them (most of the time unconsciously until they come up and bite me in the ass), or am I less in tune with myself. Meaning does the average sheep out there know exactly how they are feeling at any given moment? Alas, I am only myself and can’t step inside another. So I may never know.

Regardless I hate having sudden revelations of feelings - figuring out that I was actually motivated by something I didn’t even know was there. It feels like I’m two people, and one of them I really don’t know. And that sucks.

Last night I had a really wonderful night. I got to spend time with my daughter. Apparently all my worrying and trying to figure out what to do had at least one positive effect. In my concern I wrote an email to reach out to her. She replied and told me that things were no where as bleak as I had painted them in my head (Yeah!), but that things had happened in the last year, each of which had made her wish she could just come crawl into my lap and curl up. That she wanted her mommy.

It made me feel so much better knowing that I really was wanted. I don’t know why she kept herself back from it. I do know that she had had a recent hurt (last Wed) and that she really wanted me to help her and talk to her, and said that she had cried that night almost as much from not being able to have me with her as she did from the hurt.

The email made me cry, but also made me feel like maybe we’ve crossed a bridge. Maybe, just maybe, my heart will let in a little hope, that we can start to be close the way we were. As she said “there are somethings that you just want your mommy for”…

So I called her after the email, asked to take her to dinner that night, and went to the store and bought her any junk food she wanted, brought her home and we sat on the couch and talked about 1st loves, their joys and pain, and then watched the movie “Practical Magic”. That is definitely one of my favorites. And hers too.

After the movie, I just gathered her into my arms, tucking her head under my chin and held her. Just having her there, in my arms, holding her and smelling the wonderful smell of my daughter, so precious to me was the most beautiful gift I’ve received in months. It made me feel that all will be right with the world in its own time. I felt simple and pure joy.

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On a funny note, since I’m too lazy to write a second post for this, I had a funny thing happen tonight at a bookstore. I’m wiccan (gasp…). Anyway, my 13 year old son is going through a year of spiritual growth, both from the church (we’re Unitarians) in the “Coming of Age” program, and on his own exploration of what he believes. Of all the kids wicca resonates for him the most. He has asked for his own tarot deck as a birthday present, and so tonight we were in B&N looking at the various ones. I think I’ll probably end up taking him to a metaphysical store because as PC as B&N want’s to get, they just don’t have much to offer.

Anyway, we were sitting in the aisle, and I was explaining that the images of the deck should speak to him. When he looks at the image on a card, it should give him some sense of it’s meaning without having to look it up. When you find that deck, that is the one for you. For me that has NEVER been the Rider-Waite tarot, as I find it’s images garish and disturbing.

So there we were sitting discussing the merits of this or that deck, and a young woman who had been sort of circling us suddenly says partially to the books in front of her, “You know that stuff is part of witchcraft” very seriously.

I looked over at her and said the simple truth, which as an after thought I imagine scared the daylights out of her. “I know, I’m a witch, thank you”.

She kind of stumbled looking quite shocked, and started down the aisle with a very loud “God bless you (and something else I didn’t quite hear), to which I replied “and also to you” at which she apparently knocked a few books off one of the tables in the center of the aisles in her haste to get away because we heard a cascade of books hit the floor.

The woman who was so concerned for myself and my children and our poor hell ridden souls, did not have the decency to even stop to pick them up and left them where they lay.

We finished our discussion of the merits of the few decks, and then ourselves proceeded down the aisle she had gone down, and paused to pick up the books and set them back on the table. From what I could tell the woman apparently almost ran out of the store.

Sheesh. She was in the military. If she had stayed at all close to continue the conversation which she started, I would have been glad to direct her to her chaplain since Wicca is recognized as a valid faith within the military and chaplains are trained in it as much as any other faith to be able to minister to our pagan military folk. She didn’t give me the chance and thus yet another soul is wandering, afraid and ignorant.