Q: I have to admit I agree with Snake. You have said so yourself in some places: You see, but you do not understand, and did you not say in one of your earlier posts about crossing the abyss being linked to finding yourself? From what I can see you tend to only pay attention to what is happening and the end goal, not what the lessons or tasks may be trying to teach you. Like the way you squash the fear rather than dealing with the source.
A: Everything is a rush. You have no idea how much I desperately need a working brake. I feel like a lahar in motion, unable to even slow the fuck down long enough to recognize I am a thing.
What should be a place to Stop and Breathe becomes another Thrilling Adventure.
I want to stop and think and consider and find those parts of me that are delicate and hiding from the brutality of my life. But I’m always on the go. Online, offline, waking, dreaming, it doesn’t end. I don’t get the treasure of being able to reflect. If I can’t grab it in the moment it presents itself, it’s gone. I note that there is something Plainly Obvious in front of me, and that’s it.
The sources of my fear are Fear of Abandonment and Rejection. Nearly each and every one that I admit to is in those five words. When it is uncalled for, when it can’t be justified, damn right I’m going to squash it! “You can’t leave me! I need you!”, the the rallying cry of my abuser. If I even suspect I am behaving as she would, I’ll stuff every last emotion I have into a bottle and deal with them on the Salt Flats later.
That was the fear triggered by the crumbling hollow statue of Snake on the bridge. Maybe he did decide to leave me. Maybe he didn’t. At that moment, I didn’t know. That is his prerogative and once he has made his decision, there is jacque shitte I can do about it. I would rather he be okay than be tied to me, if being tied to me means he is not okay. That was the faith I screamed at the Abyss in anger. I do not need him there to define myself. There’s a whole bunch of codependency, learned helplessness, and abuser|abused personality disorders in those two paragraphs. And like hell was I going to allow the Abyss to play my mother’s favorite card.
I’ve have my fears used against me in chains I didn’t think I could ever escape from. “No one else wants you, so I’m the best you’ve got.” “You’re no good to anyone else, you should be glad I care.” “No one wants a divorced woman because they’ll wonder why you’re divorced and if you’ll walk out on them too. Better you stay married [to an abusive husband].” “You’re not X enough, so you’ll never get Y.”
What lessons? What tasks meant to teach me? The dream worlds are not set up to bring me to a higher state of enlightenment. The realms are not a University for me to advance through. Whoever told you that humans are supposed to be working their way up some divinity track told you a whole bunch of overripe bullshit. That worldview works only for the one holding it. The rest of us have shit to deal with. Someone or some thing is always out to get more for them, and humans are nothing more than another tool in the gamebox to deploy on the field. I just happen to be a more versatile tool than most others.
Ravenwoman’s “lessons” were about how to suffer her. That the multiple immolations burned away falsehoods I thought of myself was an unintentional side-effect. If she had her way, I would be her loyal and submissive surrogate daughter now, and forever.
Loki was supposed to keep me from making a bigger mistake. He did. He stopped me from binding myself to a deity that would have devoured me completely. But he didn’t stop there. And the two years that followed has marked my body in ways that still has me scrubbing my flesh with steel wool in the shower even today. Tell me, what great lesson is there in knowing how many layers of skin can be grated off without causing permanent scars?
I’m angry, Anon. Very angry. I don’t know if this was your intent, but it’s what you have. I hope you learn from it.
Ever see one of those caricatures of a kid with a poor puppy on a leash? And the kid is just skipping along with no care in the world, and the poor creature on the end of that leash is banging against every hard surface and corner possible? That’s me being dragged into this world and the next. That’s what this whole affair with the Path of Vau feels like. That’s what the DREAMING feels like. I have just enough awareness and intelligence to know that everything is coming at me TOO DAMN FAST and I don’t get enough time to pause and breathe and consider and reflect on what it all means.
I’m the floating bob on the fishing line. Just when I come back up to air, I’m dragged down below again.
And you’re sitting there telling me that I’m not paying attention to the lessons.
Fuck. The. Lessons.
I’m trying to keep enough wits to continue existing.
If I was feeling particularly masochistic, I would have gone on to the Path of Vau last night, even after Snake’s very effective word-slap. That would have been the height of hubris, and the greatest flaming shit I could drop on the precious lessons that you say I have skipped over so far. Everything I have been shown was about me. If I went back last night, I would be saying that I have mastered myself, even though I know damn well I haven’t.
It’s not Choronzon that I’m afraid of. It’s not angels or demons or losing Snake or being dismembered or being condemned to wander the realms until time runs out or being mocked by my readers or having my words stolen. If that crowned and throned figure is Choronzon, he’s just doing his job, and he’s doing it pretty damn well.
I’m afraid of myself. Because I know the things I haven’t written. I know the missing scenes, the unspoken words, the unwritten dreams that terrifies me to the point I’m afraid to sleep, the pages of dialogue that a written glance between me and Snake represents. Not all of my redactions are [marked]. I know what I am capable of in the Waking. When you can punch through bullet-proof glass with your bare fist because you are just that angry and have no fear of repercussions from that outburst, then you can talk to me about squashing emotions and the fallout from choosing to do so. Fear and Rage are powerful emotions. I have made the choice to not be ruled by either.
And THIS is what is waiting for me in the Abyss. ME. What I do there, spills over into the Waking. If confronting myself in the Abyss means breaking all my self-control in the Waking, then Lord Asmodel will just have to wait until I’m dead before I can answer his summons. I am not going to risk hurting people I love here, because you think I’m shirking from a lesson.
Go skip along with your precious lessons elsewhere, Anon. I haven’t the time or the tolerance for such fluffy bullshit. I have to keep an eye on two people I utterly loathe and yet still strangely love, and try to keep them from killing each other without being drawn into their drama and used as a weapon against each other, again. I have to keep an eye on my daughter, and make sure she has the space she needs to develop into her own person, while making sure that she is learning the right life skills and is not sandbagged with the feelings of abandonment that I did. I have to somehow increase my income, while hiding evidence of an increased income from my abuser, lest she destroy my finances again. I have a fucking god damn life to lead in the Waking, Anon! I just don’t have fucking time to sit under a tree and contemplate the fuckton of mysteries that flash before my eyes!
Am I over reacting? Yes? GOOD! ~bangs table~ WELCOME TO MY REALITY. I am living more than one life at once. Some shit is going to get skipped.
…
AND ANOTHER THING!
“…you tend to only pay attention to what is happening and the end goal…”
May you experience my level of physical sensations in your dreams. Every night. For the rest of this life. Without fail.
~wanders off muttering about the lack of rum in her pantry~