nigh eve

perhaps i ask too much of the people in my life. perhaps i want more than is actually possible. that is ever the case, because i push the boundaries as a regular practice. it's how i love. (funny, i meant to write, how i live, but i like that, it is also how i love).

my dearest friend asked me,

it was too much, wasn't it?

perhaps. but i don't do little flourishes, i do large sweeping movements. it's how i live my life.

yes.

she laughs.

she noted how empathic she is, how she can pick up the energy of strangers, and i move through crowds and situations largely unaffected by these energies.

you're protected somehow. that's wonderful.

is it?

i'm not so sure. because if there are people i shouldn't be around and i saunter right up to them with an outstreched hand, that doesn't sound so good for me.

but i also give people lots of grace. i will talk to anyone provided they are kind. or at least willing. some people have this difficult exterior but underneath lay a creamy center. i hold hope to find everyone's creamy center.

perhaps this protects me from negative energies. i don't know.

perhaps i embrace my delusions too much, and endanger myself, but i don't think so. i think i get a better read on people than some. that i'm in an open place and that is the place i've longed to be for a very long time.

when i held my sister at the airport as she was leaving, i said,

goodbye pagan.

i never said that,

she replied.

but i understand. i know my life is not what others would have it be, it is merely what it is. i do not pretend to be anything other than what i am.

i pushed her too far. exposed her to too much, and so she will away, and i hope, will find my perspective not the stuff of hell and damnation, but something to respect (i did not say embrace because she cannot) because it is mine.

how these larger themes become so divisive, and i wish, i want only there to be peace between us. and love. as much love as we can muster.

but it cannot always be so, i understand this. and i am grateful, moreso than ever, for my friends who can hold me in this place i find myself now. this open, dark, willing place. that they can abide my darkness as i theirs. that they can not write me off just because i listen to the voices of others. and have ideas not like their own.

i will never yield to the idea of another just to win their favor. i'd rather be alone than do that.

and so i am.

home alone again.

and grateful.