Trial

Adam and I are paring down bills to see what we can save and such, like everyone probably. Cable with be replaced with some cheaper internet and phone service, because we hardly watch television except for the basics. We have Netflix, and we plan on adding Hulu Plus. Yay streaming.

For now, I'm using my laptop's internet in places beyond the house, because we had a Discussion, and we decided that for the sake of my own sanity and need to Get The Fuck Out Of The House Once In A While, I must play online with my laptop away from my comfort couch. I can use one of the desktops, or my smartphone, or Adam's laptop, but my own laptop needed some air. I am at a McDonald's with an Iced Mocha; it's tasty. There is sunlight, and voices, and I feel Good. I have not felt Good in a while.

On Friday, I had a bit of a meltdown and suffered three seizures within an hour, two of them while being cuddled by Adam. It was very surreal. The first one was secondary generalized, and Adam says that I literally went from lying facedown on his chest to flinging my torso up and back down on top of him, seizing violently with my eyes wide and my mouth open, making guttural gasping sobbing noises. He held me gently and I remember him saying, "It's okay, it's okay, don't be scared, it's not over yet" as I hit another wave and rode it out shaking madly. There were many tears and such. Adam called it "fairly spectacular" with some fear in his voice. I slept for a while and he curled up around me like a dragon with a treasured gem. Less than an hour later, we were downstairs at the table, and I had a silent complex partial, frozen, speechless, trapped, and then it was over. I think perhaps I had been unconsciously hoarding and building more stress/anxiety/depression than I'd thought. Doctors and lawyer have and will be informed.

I have been Writing, and it has been Good. With no immediate internet distraction on this laptop at home, I can write more clearly. My mother admitted that my childhood OCD has probably grown up with me in fascinating ways. It is a very internal, inward, self-absorbed kind of OCD and ADD thing. I hyperfocus so much on my own brain and my own desires that the world falls away for a while. That is why I am away from the house right now. It's like a trial period: how long will it take for Joanna to go outside herself all the time instead of constantly turning inward and such.

It is really, really sunny outside. It's almost sixty degrees. Winter barely happened. Oh, Maryland.

Power. My Power. Yes.

I had a very telling and fascinating dream the other night:

I was visiting someone's giant house, and there was an upstairs entertainment room with comfortable soft furniture. However, every time I went up and down those particular stairs, the staircase changed, eventually becoming so narrow, slatted, and flat that it was like a ladder. At one point when I was down there I realized I had left my purse upstairs, and I slowly began to climb those stairs, while they fought against me. My knees began to burn and scream in pain, and there was pain everywhere all over me, and by the time I grabbed onto the railings at the top that had turned into wire, I was sobbing and gasping and struggling to pull myself up and over the ledge that suddenly seemed too high and too wide for my short legs. I felt as though the house might be playing with me, trying to force me. Going down the stairs was much more frightening. Somehow, it happened.

I then went to one of the bathrooms to take a bath, and the doors disappeared so my bath and my naked self was exposed to the hallways. The water rose to my chin. I felt abandoned and thought I was losing my mind. I managed to wash myself, dry off, and get dressed without incident. But that feeling of exposure, of being forced to confront large Things, remained. My body was burning inside with all kinds of pain. I grabbed a nearby cane and hobbled all around the house and couldn't find anyone, except for a few cats and dogs, who were in my line of sight no matter where I went. I got the feeling they were guarding me, trying to help or support me somehow. There were bowls of pet food and water everywhere. There was a large media room, where I sank onto a large plush sofa and watched cartoons on the massive television. Again, no other human presence made itself known.

I fell asleep on that sofa at some point, maybe just to escape from all the pain. When I opened my eyes, still hurting, I saw a light gray cat sitting comfortably on my chest, purring. She stared at me, then rubbed her head and cheeks against my face. I felt a deep, intense peace that I didn't remember ever feeling before, and I smiled and sighed even has my muscles spasmed. I exhaled again, willing myself to think away from the pain.

The cat chirruped as if pleased. Its mouth opened, and a soft deep female voice whispered, "Awaken and be at peace, little phoenix. You are a lotus finally blooming and facing your light. Keep it with you, through all your light and all your dark, and you will understand yourself."

The cat's mouth opened wider, and out fell a fully blossomed lotus flower, pink and blue and white in various parts, as though its leaves had been painted. I brought my hands up and cupped it, and inhaled the intoxicating powerful entheogenic scent. My body began to float, and the cat dissolved into a gray mist that wrapped around me like arms. I let out the deepest breath I think I'd ever taken, dream or reality, and said out loud, "I will be all right."

A very bright light flared before me, and formed into a silver ouroboros surrounding a pentacle with a polished amber stone in the center. I recognized it as a pendant I had commissioned a while ago from a woman on Etsy. I realized that I could put that new power into the pendant, but also that the pendant represented so much more that I couldn't even express. My part in the universe, the piece of universe inside me, the pieces of nature and cosmos and divinity inside me, the fact that I that I could be my own power and my own strength. That we, humanity, could be so much more if we just let go and let ourselves be, that we didn't actually need gods and gods didn't actually need us, that everything was already connected in an endless infinite pantheistic stream of consciousness.

I began to laugh, spreading my arms out, and the burning pain turned into physical light and flame that exploded from the inside out.

I woke up after that, still in intense pain, but extremely calm and tranquil. I knew there would always be some sort of pain. I could work with that. So I have been.

One day, I will find that piece of lotus jewelry that has been calling me.