Apocalypse Awakening

Just returned from a trip to Maine that blew my mind. It’s no accident that I’m reading Braiding Sweetgrass and all I could think about were the native people who lived in full communion with that beautiful land before white people came and tried to OWN everything. As if Spirits can be owned. By goddess we do try though.

I woke up this morning with a dream fresh in my mind. [Holy SHIT the dreams I’ve been having!] In this one, I was given a tiger to look after for a friend. A BIG, adult tiger on a mere rope leash – the kind that wouldn’t hold back a pit bull let alone a 300-pound wild cat. I was casually strolling through the corner grocery with this tiger on a leash though, and I was FREAKING out that it might go rogue. The people around me were WAY too calm about this possibility…

What does it all mean? Who the fuck knows. Maybe it just means I had cereal before bed and my brain was amped up on sugar.

Speaking of which: I put my scale in the closet last night, tucked up high in a fairly unreachable place so that I won’t be tempted to (easily) get it back out. I’m tired of answering to that damn thing every morning, fearing a number over 120. Fuck that shit. The less I know, the better. And if I gain ten pounds, so be it; perhaps my body needs it.

On a completely dissimilar note, I have been repulsed by J__’s body lately. I feel like an asshole of the highest magnitude writing that (but maybe if I write it out it will neutralize it?) He’s really let himself go. Why does that matter so much to me? His Spirit is the same, just in different packaging. He has never cared about my packaging: fat, thin, rainbow hair, hippie, corporate sheik, whatever. He loves. Wish I could be the same.

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If I had more courage, I would say, “I forgive you, and I don’t want you to be part of my life.” Because both of those things are true. I have felt a deeper sense of peace about her, a letting go that I previously imagined impossible. But it is true: I do forgive her. I do acknowledge that she is a person in deep psychological pain, who probably wrestles with more demons than I will ever understand. I feel less rage now, more pity. “Sad, really,” she said in her best DJT voice.

And.

I am carving out a life of my own, 44 years in the making. Hell, almost 45. That deserves its own time and space and peace.

I don’t know how much time I have left here. Could be 4 days, 4 hours, 4 minutes, another 44 years. I do know that I absolutely cannot let another person poison my well. I can’t watch your tiger for you, my friend.

So, what do I do?

I let go of that shitty rope leash. I walk the tiger back to the long grass fields from whence she came, gently untie the rope, give her one final pat on the back, and I walk away.