Status update

Just putting this here. I know it’s been a little slow, in terms of Servetus’ Richard Armitage-related reflections. There’s been plenty of gossip to fill the gap, of course, and Guylty’s been here for you as well.

Some friends and I were talking today about how where I grew up it’s not okay to whine and you’re always afraid you’re whining so you don’t say how you’re feeling — and you may gradually develop the habit of not acknowledging how you’re feeling. That used to be my problem, but not so much anymore. I know when I am having a feeling now and more and more often I know what the feeling is. When I know what it is, I can say that, as well. I just lack the experience of self-regulating and so the feelings mobilize my spiritual energies. I don’t know how to let go of them, other than writing.

It’s not that I’ve got nothing to say about Richard Armitage — he’s as present in my thoughts, my evening activities, and my fantasies as ever — and I’ve got no shortage of things half-written, still — it’s that when I sit still to write, my thoughts are turning mostly around two things — grief, still, and my impending move, sometime toward mid-May.

Today is Palm Sunday and it’s one of the days that I’d have inevitably spoken to Mom. She loved the Palm Sunday liturgy and music — it always, always, always put her in a good mood. I’ve heard the weather is nice up at home, as well. She’d have been excited for spring. I have another funny Palm Sunday memory — going to services in St Giles in Edinburgh with ex-SO because we were in Scotland for a conference and singing a song about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, which for some reason ex-SO thought was hilariously funny. (It’s your religion, dude, I always pointed out to him.) So long ago, now.

Passover starts on Monday night. (I’ll probably be mostly absent from the blog and the Internet for the first two days.) I thought the second day of Passover was a Yizkor day, but it’s not, it’s the eighth day in the diaspora. Still haven’t figured out how I feel about that, as I was just too incapacitated to even think about it on Sukkoth, but the odds that they’ll get a minyan on that day at my shul are low. I’m doing the first night at my shul and the second at, following my now three-year pattern (two years ago; and last year), with Peskies at the Fuzzies’. I’ve got all the chametz out of my apartment (reflection on that and on how the Bag End scene of TH:AUJ is a bit like a Seder and Armitage’s remarks about a similar theme), I just have the ritual burning to do tomorrow sometime. (I also have to grade tomorrow, and write and upload two letters of recommendation, and file my taxes.)

And the move. It’s been bemusing to think of the last time I did this and how different my feelings are now. Then, it was primarily just a feeling of — away, just let me get away, and I will figure out what to do, and then I didn’t figure it out because days after I’d gotten away, another job offer was on the table. I’ve (almost) managed to keep that from happening this time. This time it’s about cleaning up some remaining messes and doing the right thing for me (and it’s stunning, the difference in my thinking now that I’m not asking, what would mom think if, all the time. Desperate for maternal approval despite everything much, Servetus?). What I wanted then was some kind of vindication, I think, or the potential for a resurrection, and what I want now is something different — just to be happy, just not to feel guilty about my choices, just to be able to live lightly on the earth, do a job that really helps people to keep myself in bread, and create, as best I can. I wonder, given the economy, whether that’s possible. But I have the opportunity now if I can deal with all my fears.

~ by Servetus on April 14, 2014.