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I was taught how to be afraid and how to avoid danger with the understanding that it still may not do what I want it to do.  Never go to a bar or a club alone, never go home with a guy you just met because you might wind up in his refrigerator.  Travel in a pack of girls and you will keep each other as safe as anyone can.  You will protect each other from aggressive would-be suitors, bad half-drunk decisions and make sure no one wound up in the hospital.  

And we did do those things for each other and we kept each other safe.

One of the best Easters in my memory is the year my exhusband walked out on me.  I was shaking and trying to get ready for Easter with my more conservative side of my family, feeling sick to my stomach.  I would be the only one of the cousins who could not stick the landing on her marriage.  While none of them blamed me, I couldn’t bear the feeling of foreignness or pity that would follow.  My sister was traveling for her job and I had no idea how to articulate this feeling to anyone.

My mother came to pick me up and took one look at me and her innate MomSense took over.  I couldn’t articulate the weird mix of anxiety, shame and Otherness I was feeling very well.  Retrospectively, I think she was able to figure it out though.  She immediately claimed a migraine and made our regrets and decided we would go to a local restaurant.  Which of course was jammed full of people with reservations.  She decided we would sit at the bar and have a glass of wine and eat there.  You have to understand, my mom is equal parts rebel and Italian-American Emily Gilmore.  I don’t think she had sat to eat at a bar in her life.  She had probably sat at a bar, period, >10 times.  But we sat at the bar, exiles in our homeland.  I don’t remember what we talked about, but I remember having the same giddy skipping-school feeling and how we laughed together about defying tradition and expectation.

Shirley calls for me to join in/ Next to Fabra’s sweet tenor/ But I don’t see a place for me/ And I’m too quiet to be heard/ But I’m only in time / A sojourn/ With no reasons why—/Just my melody/ So I’ll sing good too/ So I’ll sing good too/ So I’ll sing good too. . .

The intertubes are positively clogged with how to care for trembling, frightened introverts.  I say that as someone who is sometimes a scared rabbit herself, as you all know by now.  Naturally, this makes everyone who does not self-identify as an introvert ask when does anyone care about how to care for them, the non-introvert identified?

I find it interesting how resistant many people are about the concept of (voluntary) austerity.  It's a concept that pre-dates Christianity by a whole lot which is another Hindu/Christian crossover.  When I was Catholic, I did Lenten austerities very half-assedly but I was also a teenager and it was explained to me as suffering to be more like Jesus (pass) vs a way to win the eternal undying devotion of my partner of choice, even if he is a god  (Yes!  Finally!  TELL ME WHAT TO DO AND I WILL DO IT!  Scott Rainer, you will not be safe from my affections!).  Note in Catholicism, that's not even the best explanation in my opinion, it's done to set an intention of course, we're all just trying to get somewhere when doing austerities, you know?  Manifest our intentions, burn off things we've done that we personally feel badly about (I'm not necessarily into sin per se but if you think you've never done anything wrong in life and/or feel badly about then we're at an impasse, you know?), be our best selves essentially.

Because it's so easy to lose the thread of what is your best self in daily life.  We're so busy fighting - traffic, homework, waiting on line for the grocery store, with each other, with ourselves.  We exhaust ourselves until all we have left in us is the parts that are cranky and cross, feeling like there's no more to give.  Your best self isn't necessarily your true self, for the record.  Your true self is full of selfish assholic tendencies where you feel justified not doing crap you don't want to do or doing crap you know you have no business doing.  Your true self is a jerk.  Believe me, I spent a lot of time as my true self and it was not good.  Your best self wants to be kind to people you love, wants to be helpful to people you feel called to help, wants to give without expectation.  Not always, not to everyone because that's how you get bitter, when you've given everything away.  Jow and I will say that to each other, when one is being snarky and bitchy and we can feel an argument at the periphery.  Was that really your best self?  Really? And usually you don't even realize you've gotten off track and have started acting unpleasantly so usually it startles you back to being present in yourself and you said, no it wasn't and you try to pull your shit together enough to not be completely miserable for the other person to be trapped in a car with.   

Sometimes it seems like we're all living in some kind of a prison and the crime is how much we hate ourselves.  It's good to get really dressed up once in a while and admit the truth: That when you really look closely?  People are so strange and so complicated that they're actually. . . beautiful.  Possibly even me." - My So-Called Life, inscribed into my birthday card by my sister (who never watched the show but always knows the right thing to say to me)   

I had been snowed out on my birthday before.  I scolded myself for being self indulgent enough to even have birthday parties still, but really it's the one time of year almost everyone comes out of the woodwork for some reason and I cook my best things and make my best cordials and I think, this is what it means to be happy, just as long as we're together.  I can hold onto these memories for the rest of the year and as the year goes on, all my petty grievances about the day will melt away and I will simply remember music and laughter and be reassured that we can all still pull it together even if it's just for a night.

Rufus recently posted (essentially) about how Occultists don't like to show our asses to each other, especially on the intertubes because we're all trying to pretend we are Constantly Crushing It and Living Our Truth and Having All Teh Sex, Money and Happiness All Teh Time.

I've been pondering that.  At first, I was dismissive about it applying to me.  After, I constantly vomit up all my unenviable aspects of life for your viewing pleasure on the regular.  My divorce, my years working six days a week/12 hours a day, my health issues, my Are-You-There-God-It's-Me-Margaret doubts about the after life and let's not forget my constant but confusing litany of don't live like a filthy hamster/I personally live like a filthy hamster.  It seems like I show everyone my ass fairly often.

Me: How are you?

Ms. K: Oh, you know.  Just had a good uglycry after finding my last photo of my grandmother.  Good times.  How are you?