Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit
Dec. 1st, 2022 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
I'm going to give daily journaling another try. There have been so many "signs" recently that reconnecting with the "silent witness", the part of me that observes everything, is a really good thing to do right now. Once a week I'll read over the previous entries to see if anything jumps out at me. It's like leaving little bread crumbs for myself in the future.
TK, one of my nephews, called yesterday because "he missed me", which is touching and surprising. Over our conversation he mentioned how jealous he was of all the other families who were close and loving, and it reminded me of our situation. No one in our family really learned how to look out for our own, how to form a clan, so it's not a habit that comes easily. But thinking about everyone he's lost -- his mother (my sister), his grandmother (my mother), each of his siblings -- it's clear that he's feeling a bit unmoored right now and could use a stable influence. And in his own way, he's reaching out to me for that.
It's a good excuse to learn how to be more considerate. I've reconnected with a lot of family over the past year, and now that the holidays are here I can at least collect addresses and send Christmas cards -- maybe small presents even. That'll take a little bit of organization, but I'm ready for it.
Thanksgiving was a really fun time! We traveled to a friend's house near Sacramento to celebrate with our found family. The carrot cake came out all right, but it didn't quite hit the heights of my birthday version earlier in the year. One thing I'm realizing is that our oven tends to overcook things if you leave it to the recipe timing, so it might be a good idea to set things a few minutes early and just keep an eye on it until it's done. I've leveled up with cooking enough to eyeball it, I think!
Black Friday was spent on acid, which is coming to be a tradition with our found family. I can't think of a better way of being anti-capitalist than stripping away the boundaries between myself and the cosmos for several hours! Each trip is a surprise in that I rediscover a different aspect of my personality and slowly re-integrate it over the rest of the year. This year's trip was more intense than I had anticipated, likely because I asked for a tab and a half. There was a period there where I felt properly crazy; my thoughts were racing faster than I could speak them, and I ended up forgetting what I was saying halfway through. There were a number of times where I vaguely remember trapping people in situations of being earnest yet incomprehensible, with them struggling to figure out what I had actually meant.
Internally, I was filled with love and gratitude, but my attempts to express it came out all wrong. I couldn't figure out how to tell someone how much I admired them and benefited from their wisdom, or how I viewed someone else as a kind of father figure, even though there were no expectations about him behaving as such. I also got much more in touch with my "fey" side, causing mischief and filling the house with delirious laughter. Honestly I think that's a side of myself I've kept hidden for a while, and thinking back I can kind of see why. I have a sense of humor that can feel exclusionary of others, or at the very least fails to take someone else's mood into account. I'm having a great old time, but other folks feel confused or frightened or saddened in my wake. At my worst, I can be cruel.
A theme that's developed over the last few trips is the inevitability of change and aging. I'm over 40 years old now, feet firmly planted into adulthood, and there's the constant tension of needing to be seen as someone ageless/timeless and the need to synthesize my experience so I can be a better person, a better guide, a better friend, family member, pillar of the community. I keep thinking about "what we owe to each other" and how my personal balance sheet looks right now. Have I given enough of myself to the people around me? Have I made the world a better place for the people I care about? Do people know how much I love and cherish them for letting me be a part of their lives?
Last trip, especially, I thought about death. Not in the depressive way; more in an existential way. I imagined what it would feel like to die in a particular moment, and how the people I loved would move on without me. For some reason it felt important to prepare my tribe for what comes next.
I think this means that I'm ready to start putting myself out there again. I don't think I'm some wise sage or anything, but part of knowing yourself is...seeing a need in the world around you and moving to fill it. I love the idea of being of service, of anticipating the desires of those I care about and finding ways to meet them before, perhaps, they've even expressed it. But that requires a lot more observational energy, it requires being present in a way I haven't prioritized in a while.
So...there's a lot to sort through, and this is a good place to do it. I'm looking forward to figuring out who I am now, and how I relate to the world.
TK, one of my nephews, called yesterday because "he missed me", which is touching and surprising. Over our conversation he mentioned how jealous he was of all the other families who were close and loving, and it reminded me of our situation. No one in our family really learned how to look out for our own, how to form a clan, so it's not a habit that comes easily. But thinking about everyone he's lost -- his mother (my sister), his grandmother (my mother), each of his siblings -- it's clear that he's feeling a bit unmoored right now and could use a stable influence. And in his own way, he's reaching out to me for that.
It's a good excuse to learn how to be more considerate. I've reconnected with a lot of family over the past year, and now that the holidays are here I can at least collect addresses and send Christmas cards -- maybe small presents even. That'll take a little bit of organization, but I'm ready for it.
Thanksgiving was a really fun time! We traveled to a friend's house near Sacramento to celebrate with our found family. The carrot cake came out all right, but it didn't quite hit the heights of my birthday version earlier in the year. One thing I'm realizing is that our oven tends to overcook things if you leave it to the recipe timing, so it might be a good idea to set things a few minutes early and just keep an eye on it until it's done. I've leveled up with cooking enough to eyeball it, I think!
Black Friday was spent on acid, which is coming to be a tradition with our found family. I can't think of a better way of being anti-capitalist than stripping away the boundaries between myself and the cosmos for several hours! Each trip is a surprise in that I rediscover a different aspect of my personality and slowly re-integrate it over the rest of the year. This year's trip was more intense than I had anticipated, likely because I asked for a tab and a half. There was a period there where I felt properly crazy; my thoughts were racing faster than I could speak them, and I ended up forgetting what I was saying halfway through. There were a number of times where I vaguely remember trapping people in situations of being earnest yet incomprehensible, with them struggling to figure out what I had actually meant.
Internally, I was filled with love and gratitude, but my attempts to express it came out all wrong. I couldn't figure out how to tell someone how much I admired them and benefited from their wisdom, or how I viewed someone else as a kind of father figure, even though there were no expectations about him behaving as such. I also got much more in touch with my "fey" side, causing mischief and filling the house with delirious laughter. Honestly I think that's a side of myself I've kept hidden for a while, and thinking back I can kind of see why. I have a sense of humor that can feel exclusionary of others, or at the very least fails to take someone else's mood into account. I'm having a great old time, but other folks feel confused or frightened or saddened in my wake. At my worst, I can be cruel.
A theme that's developed over the last few trips is the inevitability of change and aging. I'm over 40 years old now, feet firmly planted into adulthood, and there's the constant tension of needing to be seen as someone ageless/timeless and the need to synthesize my experience so I can be a better person, a better guide, a better friend, family member, pillar of the community. I keep thinking about "what we owe to each other" and how my personal balance sheet looks right now. Have I given enough of myself to the people around me? Have I made the world a better place for the people I care about? Do people know how much I love and cherish them for letting me be a part of their lives?
Last trip, especially, I thought about death. Not in the depressive way; more in an existential way. I imagined what it would feel like to die in a particular moment, and how the people I loved would move on without me. For some reason it felt important to prepare my tribe for what comes next.
I think this means that I'm ready to start putting myself out there again. I don't think I'm some wise sage or anything, but part of knowing yourself is...seeing a need in the world around you and moving to fill it. I love the idea of being of service, of anticipating the desires of those I care about and finding ways to meet them before, perhaps, they've even expressed it. But that requires a lot more observational energy, it requires being present in a way I haven't prioritized in a while.
So...there's a lot to sort through, and this is a good place to do it. I'm looking forward to figuring out who I am now, and how I relate to the world.
