MEK Tuesdays

Imma go slay a dragon nao.

BSG and NDE

So my sister did a piece to "Violence And Variations" from the season 3 episode "Unfinished Business" and my interest, it was piqued. Borrowed season 1 from my BIL, which resulted in Fahnz stacking our Netflix queue head to toe with the entire series plus the specials.

And it's changed my life.

I won't lie, it's damned hard sometimes coming to terms with the fact that I almost died. It's funny how so many people see a white light and angels and family members who went before them--because all I got was an admonishment from my dead father and the bizarre feeling that I'd been thumped in the head instead of falling ever-so-gracefully and feather-light back into my crumpled body. I think I may have drooled a little while I was unconscious.

Yep, it's all so frakking mystical, isn't it? I guess I'm deprived, no one beckoned to me or called my name, and I didn't see Jesus or God or Beelzebub. No rainbows or unicorns, and I didn't return with a sense of purpose or psychic powers, although Dad has appeared to me in dreams quite a few times. He gives delightfully cryptic advice and then poofs away.

So anyway, we've been watching Battlestar Galactica for the past few months, and it's really making me re-examine what happened to me and what I have taken from the experience. Watching a Three commit suicide to see the faces of their makers got to me in a way I did not expect at all. Watching Lee and Starbuck in a boxing ring, fighting their memories and their imperfections and the ways in which they hurt each other, took me to pieces.

Where do you go when you've realized there is only one thing left that keeps you free? For me, it is Fahnz and his love for me that keeps me free from worry and pain and fear. I haven't been able to explain to him what happens when I go into those dark places, but I know it scares him because there isn't a damn thing he can do about it. All he can do is watch me fight against the darkness, and help me find my answers.

What is life and death? What do we see when we cross over?

Part of the downloading process for the Cylons is that they retain every memory--physical, emotional, spiritual--that they experienced in a specific body. Time and resurrection has the effect of accumulated knowledge, and it is the basic nature of every model to interpret that knowledge as best their programming allows. This in a nutshell is human spirituality. All we encounter in the world, in life and death, is filtered through our individual religious/philosophical perceptions. I think this is why I struggle so--I have yet to find the filter that can help me heal.

It's easier to say it than it is to understand it, and yet I have come to accept it. I do not deny what happened to me anymore. I've stopped running from it. Since then, every day I have discovered more reasons why I need to stay, and the stories of the Cylons have taught me more lessons than I ever expected to learn from a television show. I do not long for the Cylon life of self-loathing, for how can you not hate yourself for destroying a world?
Instead, I envy them their surety, their knowledge of what lies beyond. There are moments that I wonder if Three doesn't have a point, this constant need to die and see and return. I just don't want to die again to reach the place of complete understanding.

MEK Tuesdays

Mail is the next best thing to a pillow.
No idea why.

Days to celebrate

Twenty weeks!

I think I want a tattoo. I think I want the Kan-ji for "May Third" on my left ankle.
That's the date it happened, and the leg I have the clot in--seems appropriate. Either that or I get it on my left arm, close to my heart that almost stopped and then restarted and kept going. Somehow, by the grace of God and the emergency room doctors, my heart was undamaged.

My wedding anniversary is coming up. I'm so happy I'm here for it, I'm not asking for a damned thing except his time.

Nutcracker auditions, Mum and Sister and StepS all have October birthdays... so much to look forward to!

Sometimes

the world seems too bright, too loud, too cold.

I feel like I should apologize for surviving.

there are moments that I forget who I am, what I'm doing, simple words for simple things.

I cry for no reason.

the days drag on and I just want to stop for a while.

I worry that I am on the edge of losing everything.

And then Fahnz tells me he loves me, or a kitty climbs up on the couch and sits on my lap, and it all makes sense again.

But sometimes, I am reminded that I walked through the Valley and came out the other side.

I pray for the people like me, who made it, and for the people who did not, who are remembered and loved.

I've taken to wearing a burgundy ribbon in my hair. It is the color of my new life, my new awareness. And it fits me now, at 37, to finally indulge in feminine things, to paint my nails and color my hair and to be beautiful, to wear my eyelashes like the badge they are, to dress in bright colors, to slouch about the house in a mud mask and to sleep with my hair in a braid so it doesn't tangle.

I like the new me. I just wish sometimes I hadn't had to die to meet her.

And sometimes I sit quietly with the awareness that I wouldn't have met her without dying.

Sometimes.

I'm back!

For the past week I have been without laptop access. My charger crapped out completely. Therefore I have missed MEK Tuesdays and will be posting a giant rant about my experiences with Battlestar Galactica about three weeks later than I thought I would. We're still tearing through the series, and a friend has been teasing me with details. Right now I picture her giggling at me as I flip out occasionally on Facebook when something really nutso happens, or when I'm pondering the awesome that is Laura Roslin, or when I'm making a poor attempt at Adama-ing someone into doing something that is equally as stupid as what they're trying to do, but not as dangerous. And I love her for it.

So today, a replacement charger arrived in the mail. This bad boy cost $12 with shipping and I have never been so happy to see a small, taped-up box. I feel like I regrew a missing limb.

This picture of Round Thing getting snuggled has nothing to do with the agony of not having laptop access for the last week, by the way. Just honoring a special request.

MEK Tuesdays

Two of the loves of my life.

The experiment begins

I've decided to leave the first CD at my favorite gas station. There's a really sweet guy there who talks video games and movies with me every time I go in. I kind of want to adopt him as a little brother sometimes, he's so awesome. I'm sure that if he's there and I explain to him what I'm up to, he'd totally help me out. Some people just get it.

Will report back soon...

Giving back, paying forward

Today I found a $20 bill on the Target parking lot. So as a way of thanking whatever put that money in my path, I donated $20 to Stop The Clot.

And it got me thinking, as did leaving a note for the lovely girl who waited on me and Fahnz for my birfday dinner, as did a website a friend posted for me regarding random acts of kindness. . .why do we not do these things more often?

So I have decided that once a week, I will leave a CD of beautiful music and a kind note at random places around my home and work. I'd love to see what happens, how many people I can reach.

And I'd like to donate to Stop The Clot more often.