Tag Archives: Solstice

Solstice 2020

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I’ve been having a hard time lately.  This may be depressing.  Be careful if you choose to read.

This solstice has been harder than any other solstice for me.  I’ve done a lot of crying, sometimes not even knowing why.  I’ve spent a bunch of time just sitting in the dark.  Sometimes that is healing, and sometimes that is hurtful, and it’s hard to tell which of those I’m going to get on any given day.

Gehenna is still with us, and she’s still walking around and meowing, demanding to be pet and held at varying intervals.  She’s also still losing weight, and her bones are becoming easier to feel through her fur, which is distressing.  I’ve spent a lot of time with my nose in her fur just smelling her, and crying because I know that someday I won’t be able to remember what she smelled like.  Smell is super important to me, and the idea that I am going to lose this thing that I find so precious….if I could just hold onto the smell I think I would be okay, but I know that I can’t, and I just have to accept that.  She falls sometimes, and I so worry about her breaking a leg or a hip…she falls out of the cat tree onto the desk, bounces to the chair, and then bounces to the bottom half of the cat tree before falling into an area between the tree and the desk.  It’s frightening because it happens so fast and it’s hard to catch her.  But we do what we can, and put pillows down or whatever so if it happens again she won’t hurt herself.

I joined a group that directly addresses cultural appropriation in a clear way, so there’s a bit of readjusting my thought in some places, and a bit of opening my eyes to my own pain in others.  As a bi-racial person brought up to present as whyte, there’s aspects of me that have been systemically silenced, and as I look at those things I feel anger and resentment at things I didn’t really notice before.  It’s kind of like if you’ve had a whole life of abusive relationships, and then all of a sudden you realize that it’s not just getting hit, that even being called names is abusive.  You have to deal with all these smaller aggressions that you didn’t notice before because you were just surviving.  So there’s that.  It’s hard, but it’s also cleansing and purging and other things.  Mostly it’s giving me words and vocabulary to talk about things I always knew bothered me but I didn’t have words for.

I haven’t had a haircut in a long time, and because I have super thick super long hair, it becomes really heavy.  My stylist thins it out for me using special scissors, and I haven’t had that.  So it’s not only unattractive (to me.  Rob still likes it), it’s become so much work I sit and cry about it.  I had to get a special detangling brush to use in the shower because nothing else would work.  I was getting knots at the back of my neck that I couldn’t untangle without ripping hair out.  Maybe I should just buzz the bottom half of my head….I don’t know.

In addition, I started selling Color Street, which is a good thing, is fun, and provides a little extra income, and that’s all nice, but it also requires some organization, and some maintenance…time that I would usually spend on myself needs to be put into maintaining that a little.  It won’t always be like that, but right now, under covid, self-maintenance time is precious.

So because all of these things are happening at once (you know, add in covid, and 45, and racism, and all this other stuff) it’s put me under enough stress that other things are breaking down.  When you are under stress if you have a mental illness, whatever your illness is is often exacerbated because they often manifest as ways of handling stress.  So if you’re a control freak, you start trying to control things that you didn’t need to control before.  If you have OCD, suddenly the need for order becomes more extreme and you’re organizing your paperclips.  For me, the fear is always that you (giant impersonal “you” because I have no idea who is reading this) are being nice to me to be polite, but you really want me to go away.  So that voice becomes really loud, and I withdraw from people.  I reduce my posting.  I’ve been kind of doing that for a year now, I think…just posting memories without adding anything new.  Everything becomes some sort of a message that boils down to, “I have to leave before they ask me to leave,” which is stupid and ridiculous, but it’s there all the same.  My face is reacting to the cold weather, so my rosacea is acting up and my cheeks feel constantly inflamed.  I’m getting a rash on the back of my hands which I believe is from all the hand washing and the dry skin.

This is darkness.  It is the darkest time of the year.

All of these things have hope and light behind them.  I can get a haircut.  Color Street is bringing me money.  45 is out, and diversity is happening.  And right now I have Gehenna, and the idea that she’s still running around and meowing at me when she’s almost 21 is insane.  I can just be grateful for the time I have.  I can recognize that the idea that people want me to go away is PROBABLY all in my head, and if I can wait out this mood it won’t bother me any more.  I’m learning more of my own voice, and that is good, even if it is painful in the beginning….the first sound any baby makes is usually a cry, and that’s okay.  The new couch comes in February.  My new tooth will be implanted in February.  I have medicine for my face, and moisturizer for my hands.  Good stuff is coming.

Like all solstices, it isn’t static.  It’s the darkest night of the year, but that’s because all the days that come after it (for at least six months, anyway) are getting brighter, bit by bit.  I’m having trouble believing in The Light right now….but I don’t have to believe in the sun for it to rise.  It’s gonna come up whether I believe in it or not.

I…you…me….we….we don’t always have the strength to turn to the light, but we don’t have to.  The Light is coming.

All we have to do is hold on.

Winter Solstice – 2019

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A friend of mine said, “I can’t wait for your Solstice post,” and I hadn’t really been thinking of one. I’m so caught up in my own junk right now, and having that said to me really reminded me to pull my head out of my ass.

For one thing, there’s no light in there. Welcome to Solstice.

When I write about these things, I always write about what I’m going through at the moment, I just try to put my personal evolution on the page in a way that you guys can kind of follow it and take some steps if you want, or not, and I just try to be understood. I mean, that’s part of my personal damage, needing to be understood. It’s not your job to do that, but it does lead me to a place where I’m constantly explaining and trying. (Yeah. I’m sure it’s trying for you, too.)

Whatever. Anyway, the thing I’m working on right now is Competency.

A friend of mine brought up the stages of Competency once, and I never forgot them, even if I get the labels wrong. He said (and this differs slightly from what the internet says, but I like his definitions better….Unconscious Incompetency, Conscious Incompetency, XXX (the “hot week” syndrome), Conscious Competency, and Unconscious Competency.

Why does this matter? How does this relate to Solstice?

= = = = =

Well, first let’s talk about what they are. Unconscious Incompetency is living your life, having no idea that you’re doing anything wrong at all. Lots of people stay in this stage forever, and often they have no idea of consciously thinking about themselves. They’re still kind of sleeping, wondering why their life comes out the way it does, and usually blaming fate, or bad luck or what have you. They don’t really look at how their actions affect their lives, or where they can step forward to actually take control of it.

Conscious Incompetency is saying, “I know I’m doing something wrong…I just don’t know what it is.” There’s a period of self-examination, of trying to understand the mechanisms of your life, (or whatever particular problem you’re trying to solve, whether that’s a relationship, your job, your craft, whatever) and you just kind of look at it and try to figure out if there’s a way to do it better.

Stage XXX is the one I can’t remember the name for. He referred to it as “The Hot Week Syndrome,” meaning that suddenly, something is going right and you have NO idea what it is. You can’t duplicate it, because you haven’t figured it out, but something is now working that wasn’t working before, and all you can do is try to figure out what that thing is so you can do it more often.

Conscious Competency is the ability to do the right thing at the right time if you think about it and focus. You’ve now figured out what the right thing is, and you can do it at will, but it’s not automatic. It’s something you have to remind yourself to do, and sometimes you forget…but you can do something about it when you remember to do so.

Unconscious Competency means that you no longer have to think about it. You do the right thing automatically, it’s not even a process anymore, it’s just habit.

= = = = =

Until you get to the last stage, any of those things can feel pretty dark. You can lament about your life because you don’t know what’s going on, or you can beat yourself up about the fact that you don’t do the right thing automatically, you really have to focus, and what’s wrong with you that you have to even think about this stuff? Why isn’t this just in your head like the rest of the world seems to have?

I mean, first off, they don’t. They’re going through the stages just like you. But honestly, if you’re doing that, YOU’VE ALREADY GOTTEN INTO YOUR FOURTH STAGE. GO YOU. I mean, growing, changing, moving your world around…this is not easy stuff. You have to learn it, incorporate it, figure out how to fit it into your life. It’s work. If you have family and a job, it’s timing, too.

So I’m at this place where I’m trying to get back to the gym more often. I’m in the Hot Week section….sometimes I manage to get up and go, and sometimes I don’t, and I haven’t figured out why that is yet. There are some mornings where I get up and I COULD do it, I could just go, but I talk myself out of it…it’s too cold, I’ll be coming home with my hair wet, it’s too much work to carry all my stuff if I’m going to wash and dry it there….but last week I went in the snow. In the goddamned snow, cleaning off my car and everything. (I didn’t even bring much, and I came home with my hair wet, and wearing a dress with nothing underneath because I forgot to bring a bra and underwear. Nobody could see because I had a jacket on, but whatever…the point is that I went, even completely unprepared, and it was fine.) I don’t know why I managed to do it then, but not on other days when there isn’t snow. I haven’t figured out why this isn’t happening. I mean, I’m getting my sleep, I’m up early. I don’t know. I was going three times a week, then two, and now I’m struggling to not lose the one. I tell myself it’s Xmas, I have to work on presents so I can get them sent out before it’s too late, and there’s some validity to that. I mean, it’s not like people can postpone the holiday for my benefit. It’s just a thing I have to accommodate.

Anyway, Solstice is about the light at the end of the tunnel. The match that lights the candle or sparks the bonfire.

So I’m looking at this saying, “Okay…I haven’t learned to put myself first consistently yet. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. But these people with the presents…I love them too, and I want them to be happy and feel loved.” So maybe my light at the end of the tunnel is that, if I’m putting my self-maintenance on hold, it’s only because I love people, and because I can’t change an arbitrary date on a calendar. And there’s only one more week til that date happens. And then I can go back to working on me.

Technically, I shouldn’t be putting myself off at all, but if I’m going to, I can think of worse reasons than loving other people.

So what I’m saying to you guys is…what stage are you in with your junk? If you’re putting it off, are you doing it because of Love? I mean, maybe you should look at how far you’ve come…how much you’ve learned…how this moment right now isn’t your final destination…you’re still learning and growing, and there’s so many other things to learn and add to your knowledge base.

You’re okay right where you are. Not because this moment is perfect, but because it’s a snapshot of a movie…it’s a blurry picture of who you are because you aren’t sitting still. YOU ARE A WORK IN PROGRESS, and unless you are Unconsciously Incompetent (and if you’re reading this I know you aren’t, because I don’t hang out with those guys they make me nuts) you are an Unfinished Work of Art. Who you are at this moment isn’t going to be who you are next year. I mean, look at how far you’ve come. Look at who you were five years ago. (Or three, or two). To quote Chicha, “*gasp!* LOOK how MUCH you’ve GROWN!”

If you’re in motion, you’re good. I swear. And if you feel like you’re stagnating, I bet you dollars to donuts that your *life* has been still, but your brain is going a million miles an hour, judging yourself for all the things you feel like you should have done by now.

(Like you or anybody else could just flip a switch and do the right thing if you/they could find it. I mean, if it were that easy, wouldn’t we have all done that by now?)

So here’s the secret. You’re flipping it right now. Your arm is extended in the dark searching for matches. You’re judging yourself because it’s dark, but there’s a bunch of other people out there who are just huddling in the dark waiting for it to be over….YOU, goddamnit….YOU are out there feeling around for a match.

Don’t you tell me that’s nothing. That is huge. And you are doing SO MUCH MORE than the people who are just huddling, waiting for you to find it.

(Fuck those guys. If they need your light to function, they’re probably more likely to snuff you out anyway, because darkness is drawn to light. Watch for that. When you get it lit, they’ll blow it right the fuck out by accident. Don’t let them. Protect that thing.)

You just keep feeling around. You’ll find it. And when you do, just keep going.

*You don’t have to know what you’re doing for it to be valid.* You just have to keep trying to do it.

The next stage of competency starts here.

Blessed Solstice everyone. May you find a match and light a spark.