The truth in signs

"Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. 

These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. With Capricorn as its ruling sign, this is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. 

On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. 

The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it."

Let me make it very clear at the outset...  I don't believe in astrology or fate or destiny or any other deterministic philosophy.  And yet, I do find it utterly fascinating just how closely I resemble the God associated with the Capricorn sign (my sign).

What makes me shake my head now is just how hard and for how many years I've fought against those qualities that I now embrace.  The drive, the desire to be in control, the passion, the explosive bursts of emotion - all of the things that I was brought up and taught to suppress, all of them are right there.  All of them are me. 

Pleasure and abandon, wild behavior, unbridled desires - all of these are things that I spent so many years fighting and tamping down.  My upbringing was filled with admonitions to keep quiet, to not show emotion, to keep my feelings to myself, to not get too excited.  Those admonitions were repeated and harped on for so many years that at some point I've flipped to the other extreme...  Too restrained, too rational, someone who never allowed herself to get passionate or messy or wild.  Someone who forced herself to pretend for years that the farce of a life she was living was what she was supposed to be content with.

Do you know what the absolute worst of it was?  The very worst of it was when the person who spent so many years telling me to control my emotions accused me of being cold and unfeeling and told me to learn to show my feelings.  Now how is that for irony?

I am who I am and I won't apologize for it.   To anyone.

The elephant in the room

Last night, looking for something to watch, I stumbled on a series of shows that I've never seen before and within minutes I was engrossed in it.  The show itself isn't important, the reason I mention it here is this...  in the middle of the second episode, I burst into tears.  The scene that caused the breakdown?  A seduction scene.

A masterfully done seduction scene.

A believable seduction scene and one that reminded me in all its painful reality just how long it's been since I've experienced that same simmering rise of passion and explosion of desire.  I burst into tears because I was suddenly reminded of what that feels like.  I wanted to rewind the show and watch it over and over again, but the build-up wouldn't have been there and the scene would have lost its appeal.  The same elements that made it feel so real made it impossible to replicate on demand.

And now to the elephant...  Need I be explicit?  The preceding paragraphs should be enough of a clue.

We don't talk about it.  It's there, in the forefront of my mind, but we don't talk about it.  The few times I tentatively brought it up, it was acknowledged and the conversation died there.

My previous marriage left me with some fairly deep emotional scars and one thing that I've always loved in my relationship with J is that I didn't need to fear rejection or worry about being desired or wanted.  In whatever ways we may have been incompatible, passion or desire for each other was never one of them.  Except that now I can't help but question that certainty.  When days go by I can ascribe it to tiredness, when weeks go by, I can attribute it to stress, but when months go by...

What scares me most is that I have almost accepted the status quo.  Almost...  And then a scene like the one I saw last night comes along and I'm stabbed with the full knowledge of just what it is that I'm giving up and tacitly agreeing to live without.

The elephant in the room is making me cry.

When does "tired" become plain old "depressed"?

Yesterday someone asked me if I'm all right, if anything is wrong.  Actually, three different people asked at various points through the day.  One of them is the kind of person that you know, if he's asking, you must look like you're about to keel over on the spot.  To all these inquiries, I mustered up some enthusiasm, smiled, and replied that I'm fine, just a little tired.

The inquiries got me thinking though...

I have been tired.

I've been tired for days, actually for weeks, actually, since before Christmas.  Realizing how long it's been made me wonder.  Am I really tired?  It's not a physical exhaustion - my lifestyle is depressingly sedentary. I haven't been sleep deprived nor do I have trouble falling or staying asleep, and yet, I wake up most days feeling just as exhausted as I did when I went to bed.  I feel wrung out and listless.  Does that qualify as tired?

I tried to chalk it up to the stress of my new position.  And it's true, my new job role has been taking up a lot of time and has been very stressful.  But if I'm honest (and if you're writing a blog, what's the point in being anything but honest?) I've had periods that were a lot more stressful in the past and I had woken up each morning buzzing with energy and determination to get through it, to learn as quickly as I can, to do well, to do better, to push myself.  I'm not feeling that now.  So, to get to the heart of this post...  Am I tired or am I depressed?

I am so terrified of the latter possibility...  It's a sinkhole.  I've been there before and I can't go through that again.  I won't go through it again.  Twice through that particular Hell was enough.  I won't make it through it again.

I don't know what to do to fix this.

I don't know that there's anything I can do to fix this.

I could go to a therapist, but that hasn't worked before and I doubt it will work now.

I could talk to my friend, but she is not here and while I miss her desperately, talking via email or even on the phone isn't the same.

I miss her so much, it's a physical ache that takes my breath away and makes me want to howl.  She was a colleague; in fact, a colleague I interviewed and advocated hiring.  She and I became friends almost instinctively and then she moved away.  I wish more than anything that she could be here.  I wish we could go for a walk and talk and cry.  I miss her wisdom and her laughter and her "buck up and deal with it" advice that I'm sure to get if I were to lay out my issues.  I just miss her.

I hate feeling sorry for myself.  I hate feeling defeated or beaten down.  Normally, it triggers my instinct to resist and fight, but not today.  Today, I just want to lie down, curl up, hug my cat and cry myself to sleep.  And there isn't a damn thing I can or want to do about it.