Burning Mann

I feel like constructing a late night pagan infomercial for the crazy that everybody is feeling right now.

Hey There,

I'm Betty Batshit, and this is my good friend Cabin Fever,

Do you feel like your skin is tight, and constricting? Made thin and easily torn by harsh words or deeds?

Are you sick of negativity and do people hanging onto the past make you mad with frustration?

Well then you are among friends because we're here to talk to you about blah blah blah...fat of a virgin handsoap or whatever.

The last week has me clawing at the windowpane and itchy to do something like cut all my hair off, pierce my clavicle or get cracking on a ninety hour back tattoo. And man...all of that does sound delicious, but I like to think I'm a little older and wiser now and a smidge better at realizing when I want to do all of these things at the same time, it is indicative of something a wee bit deeper.

So rather than staring crazed at the hotwire prices for hotel room in new york city and forcing kayak to load flights for every city in the northern hemisphere at four in the morning (misplaced modifier be damned!) I am trying to follow the immortal and most awesome words of Patrick Bateman.

"So keep your eyes (insert dramatic gutteral pause for assessing realization of telephonic confession of multiple murders to lawyer's consequences) open!"

Yes. Hello. We're feeling that way.

I did a lot of unreasonable crying, examining of relationships, staring at body and face in the bathroom mirror until it no longer resembled recognizable shapes, and generally confused and confusing behavior. Then I stopped, stepped outside of myself and looked around.

Winter (or whatever pathetic excuse of a winter this has been) is coming to a close. It really is. And no matter how few inches of snow, or how little the furnace has had to burn, these have been some dark days. We lost some good soldiers to the battle, and we supported our families and our friends when the light seemed to grow further away no matter how hard they ran at it.

It is time to clean out the cellar, scrape off the mold, dust off the cobwebs and get cracking.

One of the reasons I think this fall and winter have seemed so dark is because we had a lot of things coming to an end, and a lot of fresh wounds from the last year still in the early stages of healing.

But now those wounds have scabs just itching to peel off, and there is a lot of baby pink skin that needs to shine. Hm...maybe I took that analogy a little far.

No matter.

Imbolc is the celtic celebration of the first signs of the end of winter. It's modern day cousin: Groundhog's Day, is still around so Bill Murray can get royalties for further proof that he was the funniest dude with pockmarks in the eighties and nineties (now he's the funniest dude in wes anderson movies downgrade? upgrade? i have no idea), but the actual celebration of the day is a real thing, and it's good for you, so try it or something.

B and I took the out with the old mentality and cleaned our place nuclear style. It was arduous and exhausting, but at the end of the day, we surveyed our home and it felt awesome. All the trash was gone, a good chunk of unnecessary things we'd held on to for a "just in case" situation that will never come was out, all the build up from our poverty inspired hoarding went to the curb, and I feel lighter just walking through the space.

Now all that's left is to take advantage of all this great newness energy that's floating around.

If you haven't got this drilled into your head yet because I am run on sentence city today, let me break it down:

-IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU SUCK

-IF YOU FEEL LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE SUCKS AND YOU SUCK FOR BEING THE ONLY ONE WHO NOTICES

-IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU SPEND TOO MUCH TIME PRETENDING NOT TO SUCK THAT YOU FEEL SUCKY

-IF YOU FEEL SUCKED DRY

-DON'T LET IT GET YOU DOWN.

-JUST FILL A BOX WITH THINGS YOU THINK YOU NEED, BUT REALLY DON'T NEED ANYMORE (CLUTTER, NOSTALGIA, SELF DOUBT, SQUANDERED YOUTH,ETC)

-AND SET IT ON FIRE.

Seriously.

Imbolc was also known as Candlemas or St. Brigid's Day, and that bitch is all about burning the stuff that is holding you back and dragging you down. In fact, often, after the celts had smothered their fire on imbolc, they would rake it smooth and leave it for Brigid to write a message in the ash, which they would look for in the morning.

So on wednesday, it will be fire night, wee or grand, and take advantage because you will feel a lot lighter for it, and more capable to do all those things you've been convincing yourself you'll get to when you feel better.

And bonus: it's not nearly as expensive as a plane ticket to saskatchewan.

I pledge allegiance to all six hundred of me

Lovely dear friend J just tripped over Diablo Cody's short lived Showtime drama The United States of Tara, and I must admit, I was in a vulnerable place: husband out of town, post New Year's guilt blitz, general seasonal malaise...and I got sucked in when she glowingly reviewed the snarky humor, hidden evil truths and, well, I fucking love Toni Collette. Aussie pride, bitches.

As is fairly typical whenever I see anything by Diablo Cody (juno, jennifer's body, etc) I immediately start kicking myself because I'm just as talented a writer as she is, and goddammit where's my oscar and million dollars start up for my own series?

Green monsters aside, I also was intrigued by the concept of the DID (the disorder the main character on the show suffers from previously termed Multiple Personalities) Alters who come out and ruin/rule/direct Tara's story.

The next day, S asked her question of the day at work: Who would your four personalities be, if you had the disorder?

After poring over the question for a bit, i brought it up with J, who appraises the show with a more analytical eye due to her background in art therapy and psychological studies. She referenced a project she'd had to do once where she had to isolate and identify all of her "selves" and dissect them and their possible origins in a paper.

I found it very easy to come up with four personalities, hell, I even gave them names, but let's face it, creating characters isn't something I find particularly difficult. Once I started thinking about their origins though, things got interesting.

Vicky: A strong, athletic, competitive Australian. Loud, bawdy and impulsive. Funny, affectionate, somewhat of a bully.

Jessie: A very serious eight or nine year old girl who is very shy. Reads and climbs trees, doesn't like talking especially to people she doesn't know. Afraid of strangers and the dark. Hides a lot.

Lady Spectacle: A Huge outlandish Drag Queen. Incredibly beautiful, sings, hosts, dances, wears outrageous costumes, makes filthy jokes. Drinks and mixes a killer cocktail and knows her way around a Cher number.

The lizard skin fairy...

The more I thought about these facets of my personality, the more ubiquitous the masking coping mechanism became. Obviously not everyone suffers from such a serious disorder as DID, but I watch so many people put on different faces throughout the day, and they so rarely realize they're doing it, but it's just a form of social or coping chameleonism.

Uncomfortable around a group of new coworkers? put on a mask.

Meeting the SO's parents for the first time? Put on a mask.

Bump into a friend at the story you haven't seen in years whose life is very different from yours? Put on a mask.

I think it's not a bad thing to have protective gear in one's psychological arsenal. It's imperative actually. We have to be able to pull on some form of protective personality in order to keep the outside world at bay, but, like anything latent or reflexive, it's always worth a second look.

The next time you walk away from a conversation shaking your head thinking, "Why the hell did I spend twenty minutes talking about the Egyptian Pantheon? I don't think I could care less about that." Ask yourself who...deep down...needed to pull out that information to protect you, and what from?