Making Excuses...

I haven't written in a long time.  Long enough that it is beginning to weigh on me.

I've been busy.  I haven't had much time to write.

But I have had time.

And when I've had the time, I haven't had the energy.

And when I've had the energy, and the time, I haven't had the desire.

And when I've had the desire, and the energy, and the time, I haven't been inspired.

And when all my stars have finally aligned in the heavens of my birth, and I have found myself inspired, and with a desire to write, and the energy to do it, and the time to do it in - I haven't had the tools at hand.

It's happened several times while I was driving.  It's happened in the sauna, and the steam room.  It's happened late at night, just as I'm falling asleep.  It's happened while I was rushing to get ready in the morning, late for work.  It's happened in meetings.  It's happened on the toilet.

I've tried to write without keyboard or pen, but I've yet to meet any measure of success.  The process is completely different.  My mind must then be constantly pre-occupied with remembering and reciting and memorizing whatever I've written to that point, while simultaneously trying to determine what comes next.

But when I have a keyboard - or paper and pen in a pinch - I can focus entirely on feeling out the next line; all I have to do is express.

What I realize as I observe this, is that making it up in my head is simply not my style.

But it's all I've got right now.  And I am clogging up.

Uh-wake...

I had another attack of insomnia last night.

I think "attack" is a very appropriate word to describe it.  Because it definitely feels like a violent and painful assault upon your person perpetrated by an outside force.  And you're not the same afterwards.

I know that everyone experiences some insomnia every once in a while, but I feel like it happens to me more than the average.  I don't know if that's actually true or not, but it certainly feels that way.  It seems like every couple months or so I have a night where I'm just awake for no apparent reason.  Or, more specifically, where I alternate between lightly dozing for a few minutes and wide awake, over and over again all night.

I wasn't tired last night.  Probably because I didn't get in my workout.  Eventually, well past my bedtime, I forced myself to go to bed and try to go to sleep.  I laid there for well over an hour before I finally dozed off.  Ninety minutes later, I was wide awake again.  And I could not get comfortable.  No position felt right.  No, it was more than that - every position felt painful in one way or another.  And I was either too hot, or too cold, or sometimes even both at the same time, but never was I anywhere in the vicinity of a comfortable temperature.  After another hour spent tossing and turning, I gave up and went out to the living room.

After another hour or so out on the couch, I eventually started to drift off again.  Just about the time that my alarm started going off.  No way was I getting up that early and going in to the gym; not with the way I was feeling.  And so, of course, I ended up getting the best couple of hours of sleep of the entire night between when my alarm went off and when I absolutely had to get up in order to make it to work on time.  Or, in other words, during the time when I should have been getting up and working out.

So, I missed my workout again today.  Which means I probably won't be tired enough to sleep well again tonight.  Remember the "Crap Energy Loop?"  Here I go again, round and round and round.

I've been in a semi-conscious daze all day.  Everything has seemed just slightly un-real.  Reality has this sort of painted-on feel to it, as if my life were actually some elaborately crafted soundstage.  I've had this unmistakeable and familiar sense that I'm only partially here, and that I'm also partially somewhere else.

So, at least I got one good thing out of having insomnia.

Vicious Circle...

Finally made it back to the gym today.

Once I miss a few days at the gym, I always find it incredibly difficult to make it back.  Not because I have trouble forcing myself to do it.  On the contrary, I really want to get back as soon as possible; I honestly enjoy working out, and I feel like crap when I don't get my workouts nowadays.  It's just that once I miss a couple of workouts, my body enters what I call The Crap Energy Loop.

When I work out, I use up energy, and I end up getting tired earlier, so I get to bed at a reasonable time, and sleep better, and wake up at a reasonable time, feeling well-rested.  So, once I miss a couple of trips to the gym, this cycle gets thrown all out of whack.  Soon a night will come where it is past time for me to go to bed, but because I have all this extra energy from not working out, I'm not tired.  I go to bed anyways, but then have trouble falling asleep.  And then I don't sleep very well that night, so when my alarm goes off in the morning, I'm still really tired and don't feel rested at all.  So then I end up over-sleeping trying to make up for the good sleep I missed the night before, which means I don't make it out the door early enough to make it to the gym before work, and so I miss another workout, and the cycle continues.

I've been stuck in the Crap Energy Loop ever since I got sick.  I missed a week of working out while I was at the AGM, and then I missed another week when I got back just getting over being sick, and it was looking like I was going to miss another week to the CEL.

The last couple of times I've been stuck in the CEL, I've been able to break the cycle by biting the bullet and working out after work instead of before.  I hate to do that (the gym is really crowded in the evenings compared to the mornings, and when I'm done in the office all I want to do is go home), but it uses up that excess energy, and gets my sleep cycle back on track.  But with all the extra hours I've been spending in the office on this project the last couple of weeks, I couldn't even find the time to get to the gym after work, either.

So, I finally managed to drag myself in this morning, exhausted.  Only fifteen minutes on the elliptical, and I was dizzy.  Didn't even bother with weights this time.  Just taking it slow; trying to get back on the horse without falling off.

Here's hoping I sleep like a baby tonight.

Friendships In Chaos, pt. 2...

We also did a ritual last weekend, my friends and I.

I haven't done that in a very long time.  Not even by myself, let alone with my old Temple-mates.

It wasn't even a proper ritual, really.  Just a little, nothing, throw-away rite.  But I was amazed at how it made me feel.  To be in that place.  To be with those people.

To be doing magick.

I had completely forgotten just how much I love doing that.  How much I love even just the sensation of doing it!  The feeling of energy flowing through me, like a conduit.  Finding the sense of the "flow" of the ritual, and then letting it pull me along.  The pleasure of power coming into me, and erupting out of me.  The drama, the spectacle, the art, the dance and the poetry of The Ritual.

It felt like making love with a best friend I hadn't seen in years.

When it was over, I found myself swallowing back tears.  And once again, I was struck by the sudden and almost overwhelming realization of just how desperately I missed this thing that I had willingly let go, honestly believing that I no longer had any use for it.

And maybe I didn't have any use for it back then.  And maybe I still don't.  But it's clear to me now, that I need to find a reason to do it.  Because it is obviously a lot more important to me than I had allowed myself to believe.  It is clearly filling a hole in my life that I didn't know was there; that I thought I had already filled long ago.

I know now that I need to do this.  I don't know why I need to do it yet, but I know I need to do it.

And I can't help but notice that this all happened only two weeks before I get the opportunity to spend an entire week doing nothing but playing with magick, with a group of the best magickians from all over the world.  Isn't that strange?

I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Friendships In Chaos, pt. 1...

Even though I can't talk about my concerns about the upcoming AGM, I had an experience with the IOT last weekend that I actually can talk about.  As usual, I can't discuss what we were doing, but for whatever reason, I had cause to get together with my old Temple this weekend, and that brought up a lot of feelings that went beyond simple nostalgia.

I realized, first and foremost, just how much I miss my friends.  It's a shame that my friendships got all wrapped up in the Temple the way they did, but it just worked out that way; most of my best friends were in the Temple, and the rest of my relationships with the larger group of my friends were through my friendships with my Temple-mates.  And so when the Temple slowly dissolved, and I lost interest in (and reasons to do) magick, then I also suddenly lost my connection to almost all of my friends.  They all live at least an hour away from me, so it's a bit of an investment of time and energy (and finances as well, with current fuel prices - even with my new fuel-efficient car) to go see them.  And over the years I'd just gotten used to having this set reason to see them all regularly:  the Temple and the IOT.  So, with that gone, I no longer had a regular excuse to get together with them.  If we were going to see each other, I was going to have to make the effort to stay in touch, and make the trips out there and back, just for the sole purpose of hanging out together.

But I didn't want to do that.  For a lot of reasons.  A lot of it boils down to the fact that I just don't do that.  Maybe I don't do it just because I've never had a reason to before, I don't know; but I know that it isn't something I do.  I like having friends, but I don't feel like I need friends in order to be happy.  So, if it takes any significant amount of effort to maintain a friendship, I just won't bother.  And I can't overlook the fact that I was high and drunk during a lot of this time, as well, which affected things in a variety of ways.  It left me with even less energy to expend towards maintaining long-distance friendships, as well as numbing me to any sense of loneliness I may have otherwise felt; I was comfortably drunk and/or high, so I never felt like I was missing anything by not having relationships with these people anymore.  And it was also creating a lot of other negative effects in my life, as well, and I wasn't exactly eager to share those parts of myself with my friends, people whom I'd like to impress, if I'm able.  And beyond being a fat and lazy drunk, I was also going through a lot of other issues at the time that I didn't really feel like advertising:  identity crises, marriage problems, spiritual voids, etc.  Frankly, I just didn't want anyone to see me like that.

And it's only now, after seeing everyone again this weekend, and the "looking back" that naturally flows from that experience, that I realize - it wasn't just that I didn't feel like I needed friends, or that I felt it wasn't worth the energy to maintain those relationships - it's that, for a variety of reasons having to do with my own feelings about myself, I actively did not want any friends.  I wanted to be alone.  So, I just went about my life, and didn't bother trying to maintain these friendships, and didn't think much about it.  And before I knew it, two years had gone by.  And if it weren't for the fact that I had to get together with them again for the AGM this year, it almost certainly would've been even longer before I saw any of them again.

But seeing everyone again this weekend also made me realize, I don't feel that way anymore.  I miss my friends.  And I want to be a part of their life again.  And I want them to be a part of mine.  And it is very much worth my time and energy to make that happen.

But I'm worried that I won't be accepted.  I'm really not the same person that I was two years ago.  And I know they're all expecting me to be.  Not because they're trying to force me into some pre-determined mold or anything; that's not what I mean.  It's just, that's the person they've known me to be for years, so who else could they expect me to be?  But I'm really not him anymore.  I'm not dark the way that I used to be.  I'm not a pervert the way I used to be.  I'm not into the same things I used to be into.  I'm sober for fuck's sake.  I'm not even really a magickian anymore.  I've mellowed out and matured so much in my old age (I'm not even forty yet, but I feel like an old man).  And I'm worried that when they get to know this new version of me, that they'll find him boring, and lame.  (And, I have to admit, a part of me is worried that I might feel the same way about them, as well.)  Being around them makes me feel pressured to be the person I was.  And I have to try keep that from changing me too much; I have to let it affect me a little (what's the point of having a relationship with someone if you don't let them affect you at all?), but I can't let it affect me so much that I compromise myself in order to fit my perception of their expectations of me, or in order to gain their approval.  I need to be myself - or at least the version of myself that they bring out in me - and I need to be okay with the fact that maybe some people won't like me as much anymore.

But I definitely know that I need to try now.  Because being with them again just felt good.  And it felt like the right thing to do.  And it made me realize that, even though I haven't let myself feel it for a long time, I really do miss them.

Down The Energy Drain...

I'm worried that I might've fucked things up for myself.

Ever since Walpurgisnacht, I've felt different.  Little to no energy, or drive.  No desire to do any of the things I've been getting so much joy and satisfaction out of recently:  I don't want to do my mathematics lessons, I don't want to meditate, I don't want to work out, I don't want to read, I don't want to clean the house or run errands, I don't want to write in this blog, and so on.  All I've wanted to do is watch TV, play video games, and sleep.  And get high.  My desire to get high has been a lot stronger since that night.  I guess that's to be expected.  But I honestly didn't expect such a drastic change in the rest of my personality, though.  I guess that was pretty naive of me.

It's not just that I've felt differently since then.  It's that I've felt exactly the way I usually feel when I'm using.  The sleeping all the time, and the lack of drive to do anything productive that requires energy, are exactly how I usually feel when I'm using.  In fact, I'm only realizing it now, but it all comes down to energy.  When I'm using, I'm always tired, so anything that requires an expenditure of energy seems like too much work.  So I end up not wanting to do anything that seems at all like work, and all I want to do is sit around and stimulate myself with TV and video games, and the occasional bath.  But when I'm sober, I have a lot more energy, and so I can do all these things I want to do, and they feel almost effortless, and in the end I still have energy to spare.  So, right now, I'm suffering from the same lack of energy and drive that I get when I'm using, but I don't even have the pleasure of using to offset the crappiness of feeling like a useless slug.

I'm really worried about this.  I mean, on one hand, I've been through this before.  On the other hand, this was exactly what I was trying to avoid.  I know that I can change my behavior, I can stop fucking around and go back to doing all the healthy and productive things I was doing before Walpurgisnacht.  So, it's not my actions that I'm worried about.  (Those just make me feel stupid and weak.)  No, my big fear is that even if I start doing all those healthy, productive things again, I won't feel the same way about them anymore.

I'm worried that I won't feel excited about them anymore.  That I won't find the same joy in them anymore.  That they'll just continue to feel like work, like something I have to do because I know I'm supposed to, instead of just being the things I want to do, the way they used to be.  I'm worried that I won't get my energy back.  I'm worried that I fucked myself up permanently.  I'm worried that they'll never feel effortless that way again. 

I'm worried that I'm going through this now, and a lot sooner than I anticipated.

I'm really worried, and I feel really ashamed, but I don't think there's any point in allowing myself to feel either of those things.  If given the opportunity to do things differently, I wouldn't.  I'd still celebrate Walpurgisnacht in the same way, because that experience taught me valuable lessons I wouldn't have learned any other way.  Including this lesson here.  I need to know what all the negative and unpleasant consequences of using again are, in order to keep me from using next time.  If I didn't know - if I wondered, "what would happen if I just had a little?" - then I'm more likely to give in to that temptation.  But now I know the price I will have to pay if I do that, and that's a big deterrent.

And I don't think there's any point in worrying about it, either.  Not yet, anyways.  Maybe I'll be able to get that energy and that enthusiasm for these productive activities back again.  Maybe I won't.  But the only way to determine that will be to get up and do them, and keep doing them for a while.  Then see how I feel in a couple of weeks.  Then deal with whatever I'm feeling then.  But there's no point in worrying about it now, because there's no way to know what to expect.  It could go either way.

Still, I can't shake the feeling that I've lost something really special.  And that I won't ever find it again.  And I keep finding myself feeling really sad about that.

But, for now, I'm just going to try not to think about that.  I don't see that I have much choice.

Just get up, and do the work.

And keep doing it.

And hope it stops feeling like work.