Substitution

That was one long nap. I will probably go back to sleep soon. I get to sleep in until 4 a.m. tomorrow. Woo? Heh.

There is a little desire to do something superstitious now. This is making me feel like I'm backsliding into my fantasy world. Magic, dreams, the god represented as the sun, the goddess represented as the earth, and all the other stuff still swirls around inside me. It is mostly just a distant memory. Sometimes, though, I long for that ritual aspect. Sometimes I give in to it. It's been many months, but it's lurking in there. Comfort doesn't mean truth. I know this. I'm not sure how to proceed without it, though. The fact that others would just laugh at my need for it makes me want to crawl back into myself and do what feels right, and fuck them all. Derision and shame tend to make me want to rebel and do whatever it is all the more.

I didn't leave all of it behind just to go back to it out of spite.

I didn't leave because of bad emotional reasons. I left because the results were exactly the same whether I did ritual or I didn't. I left because all the evidence I had pointed to it all being just plain imagination. I liked paganism. It didn't make it true.

My attempts at Christianity left me hating myself and thinking God hated me. I also never could actually take it literally. This pagan stuff was easier because it was all symbolic. Mental links to how I interpreted the world. Of course, I felt that one could change one's life by meditating on symbols and getting my mind to align with a new way of being. Well, the results were exactly the same whether I framed it as spiritual or not.

Leaving paganism was a lot harder than leaving the cultural push toward Christianity. As it isn't really very organized, it doesn't yield the toxic level of sludge that Christianity does. It has potential. In groups, it was easier to see how it could become just another way to hurt people. As an individual way of thought, it was far more pleasant, though.

And some part of me picked up on the idea of reincarnation as a toddler. I never seemed to be able to let that go until this summer. It was a really hard habit to break, too.

But I do feel the need for something along the same lines, without the superstition, to mark the passing of the year. The need in me is really strong, tonight. I don't know how to cope with this, yet.

I don't want to enter 2017, I'm terrified of it. I wanted to hang on to this year forever. Stay in this limbo as long as I can. The year ended well for me. The world hated this year, but I ended up loving it. I'm having a very hard time saying goodbye. So, yes, I want some kind of marking to help me ease the pain of saying goodbye to it and embracing the fear of this year we're heading into. I need a substitution for what I used to do.