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Struggle

I am struggling.

I have 3 weeks left in the program I started in September and I feel like I am dragging myself to the finish line. When my mother died back in June I feel I just went numb. I isolated more and I made a choice to just do the things I had already planned but that I would not add anything else to my life. I had a couple of friends I talked to on a daily basis. Those friends have been such a rock for me. In this time of despair and pain I lost a friend. I tried my best to explain what was going on but I finally just had to let go. It hurt. I still think about them every day.

Today I am just keeping my chariot on the road. I want to pull over and lay down sometimes but I cannot. It is only 3 more weeks and I need to make some decisions about what I do after this class is over. I need to be able to make more money so I am not dependant on anyone. I do not like how that makes me feel and I struggle with intrusive negative thoughts over this. I owe the state of New York in excess of 10,000 dollars and have no way to pay it. They will take my license if I do not agree to a payment plan where they not only want all my information but access to my bank account. I am reluctant to do that but I may not have a choice. Our state does not make it easy and if you are poor and get behind they will just bury you in fees and interest. It is so frustrating.

So that is where I am right now and why I am so quiet most of the time.

I am responsible

I have issues with emotional regulation because of rejection sensitive dysphoria. I have learned a lot over the past 5 years or so about what to do when I have a wave of emotion come over me. When I first started doing this work I went the opposite way and just shut down. I would literally hold my breath, become silent and walk away. This response was damaging me as much as when I would immediately act on strong emotions and make choices that hurt others or myself. Today I have some tools and I do my best to reach for those tools when I am struggling. 

  1. The first thing I do is to communicate that I need to have time to think about the situation if this is in a conversation or an instance where it is someone who is important in my life. I ask for space to do that. I am not perfect so this does not always happen. Sometimes I just shut down, stop hearing and I remain silent. Once I have had a chance to think things through I will go to the person and let them know what has been going on.
  2. Remembering that in some situations there may be a misunderstanding. A good example of this would be when I feel left out of something and I feel rejected and hurt over it. My first instinct is to just sit in my hurt and never say anything but I have learned that I need to go to the person or group of people and ask “Was this on purpose or an oversight? If it was on purpose can we talk about why?” If I just keep silent I build up a resentment and a story in my head. This is not healthy for me.
  3. I do deep inner work to know my own boundaries and what I need to stay safe. I take responsibility for those boundaries. If I need to stay away from certain people or events I do that. If I need to say “I can do this, but not this with you” I do that. I also re examine those boundaries on a regular basis. 
  4. I remind myself that other people have different perspectives and what I think the story may be is just my thoughts and not facts. 
  5. I remember to not takes things personally and that each person has their own path and perspective.
  6. I consider how my behavior and reaction affects others. It is not all about me. I strive to live sacred in a sacred world.
  7. I do make the choice to burn a bridge occasionally. I do this when I need to protect myself.  

This is an ongoing practice for me and I learn from it with every situation when I find myself overwhelmed with emotion. 

The Body remembers

Not all anniversaries are joyous. Some of them are a reminder of the pain I have had in the past. It is weird how I will forget all about it but my body begins reacting days before and then on the day of the anniversary I will suddenly remember. It also helps that Facebook pops up with memories and I am like…oh yeah….This is what I have been going through the last week. I do not like to dwell on pain but I do like to examine where I am today in relation to events in my life in the past. I can say that today I am in a very different place. I have changed in ways I never thought I would. In this case I am actually glad it happened. I have gained a couple of solid friends out of this instance and one of them was quite a surprise. In addition my perception of the whole event has changed and today I have peace about it. 

So if you are in the midst of dealing with something that is hard just know you can do this. Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself and allow yourself to scream, cry, write really bad shit and mourn what you have lost. Never let someone tell you that you have had enough time to get over it. Take all the time you need. In my case when this happened the universe said it’s time to level up Rauncie and this is going to hurt. Then it proceeded to bash me over the head. It was not lying…it hurt. I leveled up, but damn….what a journey. 

The Snow Queen

I think it is part of my own natural process to retreat into silence at this time of the year. The problem is that sometimes I fight it and become depressed instead of using it to do the work I need to do. Today I want to examine a fictional character I relate to.

I just had an amazing Krampus Ball. I dressed as an evil winter queen. When I was thinking of this character I kept thinking of the snow queen. I have always loved the story of the snow queen because I related to her. I could easily write a backstory for her. I see her as someone who has been deeply hurt and abandoned more than once in her life. She puts herself in exile to keep anyone from hurting her again. She lives in the cold and in silence. She goes for days without speaking to anyone. Occasionally she rides her beautiful sled covered in furs and sparkles and then scoops up someone to take back to her castle with her. She is kind to them and gives them things but because her own heart is frozen she is not able to open up enough to allow them to love her back. She is always watching for rejection and she is afraid. Behind the mask of being unapproachable is someone who just wants someone to truly care for her. When someone does show love she questions it and eventually she either walks away or pushes them away. Most of the time they just leave.

That is a really sad story to go with this beautiful lonely queen who lives in a castle in the snow and ice. She is not so much evil but someone with a broken heart. I am truly working on opening up but I must admit it is really scary. I also have come to realize I need to broaden my life. My life is very narrow right now. My circles have become much smaller. I need to open up to other opportunities. I am considering what it would be like to go somewhere warm in the middle of the winter for a couple of months. I want to meet people and experience new things. It is hard for me to imagine being away from winter…because I love it. However, I think it is time to step off the cliff like the fool in the tarot and see where I land. I just have to extract myself from the cold and ice long enough to thaw out.

Lessons

Sober Work: Amends

Sometimes the lessons we have learned in life circle back around as a reminder of where we have been. I am in a state of deep contemplation right now about how my past behavior may have hurt others. Regardless of my intentions sometimes the things I have done have hurt others. I may think “I did not do anything to intentionally hurt someone”. But it does not change the fact that someone may have been hurt by my actions or words. I am not responsible for others feelings however I do feel it is important to examine my past and make amends when it is called for. Sometimes the amends are made not with a sorry but with an action. I have taken some actions recently so that others are not hurt by the processing I was doing publicly. It helped me at the time but rereading it all on my birthday I made the choice to make most of it private.

When we make amends we really do have to ask ourselves what our motivation is. I would never go to someone and tell them something that they did not even know about 10 years after the fact if it is something that does not affect them today but would definitely blow their life up emotionally. That would be me just getting it off my chest and feeling better that I had been honest. Amends are so much more deep than that. A situation like that is something to think long and hard about before I stride up to someone and say…”oh by the way I did this and I am sorry”. Is it going to help? Is it going to heal? Is it going to cause more damage? I have to ask myself all those questions.

What I have been up to…

I have been taking part in some projects with my housemate who is Kitos Digiovanni on Youtube.

Here is one example and you can find more on his channel. I am in a series there called Chaos Incorporated. I also assist him with Punch and Judy puppet shows.

The Wheel Turns

Life has changed in many ways for me since the last time I wrote in this blog.

I have had made the choice to withdraw from most things and I stopped writing. I think it is time to get back to it because it really does help me.

I have some things swirling around in my mind that I need to get out of my head so I can heal.

The lockdown changed me and then my daughter and granddaughters lived through a horrible experience that traumatized them and the whole family. I had friends who passed over during covid from covid and from addiction. This has been a long dark journey.

I am trying to be back…I am trying to be present. I am doing some work to move forward in my chaplain journey. I will be talking more about that on this blog.

For now I just wanted to say hello. I am still here.

I have so much to tell you!

I did it!

I retired from my job and I opened my tarot parlor in the fall at Mythic Treasures. If you want to come and see me for a reading there or have a reading with me online you can go to my other website rauncie.org to set up an appointment. I am so excited for you to see it. This has been an amazing journey for me. It is something I have always wanted to to and I am now living what I was dreaming. It looks like I always imagined it and the energy is amazing. In addition to reading tarot I will also be doing workshops and offering rituals to the public.

It has been a long time and so much has happened. My wonderful friend Zach who has become one of our family has met his special someone and I have to share about that story in an upcoming post. It is a story you do not want to miss. Good things come to those who wait…that is what they say and in this case it has been true.

As for me I am doing my best to keep things under control. Living with ADD and trying to do so many things is a bit crazy but I can do this. I was recently in a video “40 years of Goth Style: Global Remake”. I am the 90’s Vampire Goth. It is what I live so it was great to represent the elder goth community. I just did my thing and enjoyed being a part of the project and I loved it! It really helped me because I miss my goth club so much. The shut down has been so hard. I miss my friends and the dance floor every single week. I was so excited to be chosen for the video it felt like such an honor. Though I have to say that even after being a goth for 40 years (though we did not have a name for ourselves back then) I am just waiting for the gothiest of the goths to come after me for not being goth enough. It is the one part of being a goth I like the least…the drama. However, what can you expect when you are part of a sub culture with very intelligent and independent thinking people who love their music and like to be dramatic. I admit, I can be dramatic myself. 😉

In addition to the video I am doing TikTok as Granny_Goth and sharing information with the younger generation. I do videos on the goth subculture, tarot, paganism and just random things I get in my head. I try not to take myself too seriously and have fun with it.

That is it for now and I do plan to come back and share more soon.

My lessons in Isolation (for now)

My last post was on March 14th and I said in that post that I would probably be home for a couple of weeks. Today is April 16th and I have only left my home one time, yesterday. I never dreamed I would be in isolation for this long. I feel blessed. I have so many friends who are on the front lines. My son became sick right about the time I went into isolation. He lives in a small rural community where people still do not seem to believe how serious this is. It was terrifying. He was not able to get a test. After testing him for the flu and strep which was negative they told him to go home and if he got worse to call back or go to the hospital. Three days later he was having trouble breathing. He was told to go for a chest x-ray. He was told he did not have pneumonia. They still did not test him. They told him only those who need to be hospitalized were being tested. They just did not have enough tests. They said “just go home and treat yourself as if you have it. If it gets worse and you cannot breath call 911.” He is my first born. I remember his first smile, his first laugh and the first sound he made. I was heartbroken that I may lose my son without even getting to hug him goodbye. We talked on the phone several times a day. That call would always start with me asking “are you ok?” I just wanted him to be ok. He was lucky. He began to get better. But we still feel like we are holding our breath…who will be next? My sister who works at a WalMart in Louisiana. Walmart,who lied to the press and said they would suspend their attendance policy for the month of April and three days later told the associates the policy was back. To be sick at Walmart means losing your job. It does not matter if you are at high risk like my sister. Everyday I worry that I will get a call that she is sick. She almost died as a child from pneumonia and her lungs are scarred. She has been hospitalized before as an adult with pneumonia. She is risking her life so people can buy TV’s and junk and try to pretend life is normal….when it is not.

All of the events I had planned for this year are cancelled and I have had time to breath. I usually run from event to event on pure adrenaline. I have become accustomed to the quiet. It occurred to me this afternoon that I had been working in complete silence for the entire day. My body has calmed down. My mind is starting to.

So now I work from home and long to hug those I love. I have my little dog Mister Bojangles who sleeps next to me. I have hope that when we all come out of this that we will remember what we did not have during this time. Connection with others is what really matters. I have hope that soon I will be able to hug those I love and tell them how much they mean to me. I will never take that for granted again…never.