Refuge in the blazing present

Winter solstice is definitely one of my favorite turning points of the year. I lean pagan/warlockian more than anything, and the idea of a moment at which we mark the return of the light, especially when it is at its very lowest, definitely appeals to me. Yesterday, I slept through the actual time of the solstice, at 3:23 pm Mountain Time, napping peacefully. But at night, I blazed up a huge fire in my fire kettle outside and then I burned things. 

I was only going to burn a few symbolic things. The loml ended our affair on the 20th, so I figured it would behoove me to break ties as symbolically as possible. I can be a sentimental person to the extreme, and over the nearly 18 months that she and I pursued our romance I had saved a great many cards, notes, souvenirs, items of clothing. I started by burning just a few cards. But as I proceeded, suddenly, I knew I wanted to burn it all. I wanted to burn everything. She had requested I write in a notebook to her, and I had chosen a composition book with the word LUCKY on the front, written in glitter glue. She never had time to read it nor even actively requested to, as far as I recall. It was cathartic watching all of those pages burn. She had gifted me with items of clothing. I was surprised by how well they burned and how quickly. I had bought a special button down shirt for the very first visit with her in Santa Fe back in August 2017, and I was amazed to watch that burn. I hadn't ever burned clothing before. Old ID photos, cards, notes, love letters, a gift of lingerie I had idiotically bought her prior to my last visit in November, virgin and highly flammable, goodbye to that $100. Ticket stubs from the production of Romeo and Juliet we attended at the Guthrie in October 2017, on my first visit to Minneapolis. Burn it, burn it all. Burn it all. If anything will be, it will be anew. What was is no more and never will be again. Nothing sends that message like fire. 

So now the entire affair as far as it was represented materially is a heap of ash in the fire kettle. Except for gifts just received, the day after she ended the affair, since they do not count, and I like them too much to get rid of them or burn them-- A hardcover book of Charles Freger's Wilder Mann photos, a realistic lamp in the shape of the moon. These were gifts clearly given more out of friendship than romantic love anyway, as she had written only her last name on the return address and her inscription in the Freger book is nice and friendly but, characteristic of her stance lately, distant and not romantic at all. So, I'm glad I get to keep those. Freger's photographs have long been among my favorites. 

who you gettin crazy with ese? don't you know I'm loco?

As it all burned, I knew on a gut level the truth of impermanence. None of this is happening now nor will it ever happen again. Nobody's funeral, because there's no one to bury. The idea of mementos is harmless enough, but do I honestly need reminders of a series of experiences I will never, ever forget anyway? Well, no, I do not. 

Crazy how dramatically the expensive Hugo Boss button down shirt took flame

I 100% understand her situation and her reasons for ending our affair. I support and respect all of it. It's been teetering on the brink of collapse for months anyway. That it even lasted as long as it did is a testament to how much we love each other. Everyone has a right to pursue happiness and to the extent that my presence in her life brought happiness, great, and to the extent that it brought misery, good riddance to bad rubbish. In my opinion, she's making a mistake choosing her husband instead of her own happiness (not instead of me, that is a separate issue), but that is Kermit sipping a cup of tea levels of none of my business. I just honestly believe she will be happier when she is not living that lie anymore. It's a false choice, to think staying in a failed partnership has more integrity than leaving. The real integrity is to honor one's own heart and one's own truth. But that's just my opinion, and it is worth exactly nothing. Less than nothing. Less than that even. 

In all ways, I wish her and her people the absolute best of everything. I have no idea how I am going to manage, since every goddamned thing at all times reminds me of her. We had been in the habit of messaging several times a day, sharing funny things. I think we communicated more on a mundane level than I ever did with A or any of my exes. I "feel married" to her, heiros-gamos-wise as well as mundanely. So the total separation is going to be a rough go of complete reconditioning. Take refuge in the present, says my Buddhist recovery community. Okay. 

The full cold moon, full and cold last night at the nadir of the year

I will have to focus on the positive also. I am no longer tied to an unavailable woman. Even when she was somewhat present, she often was not available. Unable to be supportive of me very much because she was understandably depleted from 12 hour home health care shifts and raising a 3 year old and a 6 year old with, evidently, less than optimal support from her well-meaning husband (again, in my worthless opinion). She tried valiantly. She also had the misfortune of knowing me during 18 of the most painful months of my life. A lot of uncharacteristically clingy and needy behavior on my part. I have gotten in the habit of waiting, waiting, waiting to hear from her and I can work to put that aside now, for good. I can stop wondering what will happen. I can stop looking forward to visits with her that more and more ended up being an exercise in futility, with glorious moments that are indelible, but mostly just with me causing her inconvenience as she tried to navigate her incredibly busy life and make time to see me also. I am amazed that we two thought it would work for me to be in her home town and mine last week, while she was there visiting family, and yet while she was there, she couldn't find head or heartspace to even DM me a few times day. That visit was canceled for reasons outlined below, and it would have been a catastrophe anyway. I can stop "begging for scraps" as she put it, always an image that builds self esteem. It stabs to think of her seeing me that way, begging for scraps. How humiliating. 

In the way that these things have gone for me the past couple of years, all of this coincides with ridiculously awful life events. 

My latest medical adventure: a detached and torn retina, with two procedures last week to repair that situation. I had been having vision problems in my left eye for a while and it seemed to be posterior vitreous detachment only, for a few weeks. Suddenly a curtain descended over part of my field of vision, so: to the eye doctor. Retinal detachment. The first procedure was a stop gap measure to keep things from getting worse, involving paracentesis and then a gas bubble injection between the vitreous and the retina to hold it in place. The second procedure a couple days later was a vitrectomy, laser weld, membrane tape, scleral buckle, gas injection into my now hollow eye. That will be $1200, even though you have insurance, thank you very much. Supposedly within a few weeks my vision will be back to pre-vitreous detachment levels. Nice. The recovery has been uncomfortable, however, involving being face down 24/7 for six days, no easy feat. Fortunately the special positioning is over . All I can see out of my left eye is the gas bubble wiggling around in there. It absorbs over time and, voila, good as new. 

The day of surgery

A swanky patch a friend of mine got me

Anyway, as I wind up the draft of the second chapter of the dissertation, and head into my final semester of the PhD, I do so with an immeasurably heavy thoroughly broken heart, indolent cancer of the prostate, blind in one eye, bereft of the love of my life, with no clue as to future employment and no idea when I will defend and be officially done. But I am here and I am not going any goddamned place. I am taking refuge in the present. 

Motherfuckers.