long time no see... on the self. myself.

 

its been so rough sometimes. i think im a bit better. ive been fasting and meditating. praying a lot.

i booked two appointments for three small tattoos, i know what i want to get but im not sure exactly how or exactly where. im thinking a cross of saint james on my sternum and an ornamented christogram on my right hip or lower abdomen. on my left, a parallel but with a heartagram. it sounds bad when i saw it out loud. i dont care. 

at mass the other day the priest spoke about how all things inevitable tend to be hard to predict. the second coming of Christ, God, death. i will die, probably sooner than later. sooner than other people in my class. i decided to go for it. 

about a month ago i went to a concert. my favorite artist of all time, my favorite album from the last many years. why not. why not.

ive always been ashamed of myself, my tastes, my likes and dislikes. i didnt seem to fit into any box i wanted to, i was always orbiting on a ring. always landing somewhere in the middle. as i grew, i tended away from these boxes. i went upward instead of left or right.

im intensely sensitive and my sensitivity betrays me. i wanted to be a paleontologist at six, a historian at seven, a tattoo artist at eight, a psychologist at ten, then all of it and more at fifteen. as the age of choosing came closer, i got sick. i lost everything i had, my mind and identity, to illness.

this illness, my new self, maladie, engulfed me and cleared me from my appetite. cured me from my desires, i was chaste in every way that mattered and didnt. i didnt eat, endured cold summers and frigid winters, i didnt speak, i didnt drink. i did it all for a bigger thing than me. not a God, but a fog.

i learned to live with it, i couldnt purge it. i figured it didnt replace me but consumed me and made me a part of it. i tried to then explore ways in which i could, maybe, implode it and make it a part of me rather than the other way around. as to have more territory for me. 

my family is of conservative values. ive been in a haze so long. ive pretended i have ideas that arent mine and dressed in ways that would please them. little floral dresses, i kept growing my hair perpetually through my teenage years only to fall back on my own preferred way to have it- buzzed off. i used makeup i didnt like and spoke like i didnt feel. i started doing my nails as my mom liked, short and pink. i figured that the way to receive the reward of peace was to please my dad, keep sweet and agreeable.

i never was like that when i was younger, i started listening to metal at 10 and would be waiting to be able to have my sleeves done, to get a conch piercing, to drive a motorcycle and own an electric guitar, dye my hair black. i wanted to either keep it hip-length or have a buzzcut. i wanted thick eyeliner like the girls on tumblr. i grew to refine my tastes, but the base of it never changed. i wanted to feel strong and firm. i had a love for lace, pearls diamonds. i had a love of silk and the idea of running away. i loved science and music and history. i was reading novels and spending hours looking at paintings online. i was different in body and spirity. i never minded it, i barely have this any attention even if i noticed it. 

i wanted, however, more than anything, to have the glow that i perceived from the other girls in my classroom. pretty things i saw wandering. i used to hallucinate when in the class, fairy realms and enchanted forests. something within me was not clear enough. the purity and perfection they had on their skins i possessed only inside of my mind, in an abstract and twisted way. twisted like a tree from my dreams, as in made of the same material, only a darker and richer tone. warped into a shape it seemed only i understood. a strange misshapen spiral pulled from the earth.

i felt cursed by God. i feared God when i started believing. i loved him through the fear when i understood you could. fear and love are opposites but can exist in the same universe.

i let go of the traditional values of my family, the ones i worked so hard on implementing on me, as armor. 

but lately i feel like my sorrow comes from that trying to shape this tree into a straight line when its been calcified for so long. maybe leaving it as is, watering it still, decorating its branches could bring it back to life?

im called to decorate my branches, im called to taking care of what i am without the intention of change or beauty. the persuit of beauty has corrupted me for ages. my body is meant to be used and shaped into what i want. its my vessel to care for if i want and my temple to adorn. and my life is a book nobody will read that i get to write. i get to write it as i may, i cant fear judgement like i have. 

i cant permit this to end me. if i run out of pages early, who minds? i was born alone and i will die alone, came into this earth alone with God, developed adoration and grew strong alone with God, will die alone with God, and die satisfied. i will do what i have to do to move my body into the shape of my soul, i will do it all even if it means rejection. if i cant have myself, i cant have anything. even if having myself means losing everything else. if i have myself, if i can look within myself enough to find God.

if i can use my flesh to make something real and solid rather than something empty and beautiful, then i should stop trying to settle for half and half.