Umph. That’s the one word I would use to summarize 2017. Umph.
It would be crass to just blandly state that 2017 was a rough year; that’s vastly oversimplifying – It had a purpose. Perhaps it’s me needing to see the silver lining to the train wreck that was brought on by a caustic member of the poultry family but it lines up. 2017 was the Year of the Fire Rooster; a dynamic element embodied by a obnoxious, seemingly purposeless but destructive little shit you want to strangle at 5 in the morning.
For me, it did one thing without batting an eye – it burned my life to the ground. If my heart and life was a house, metaphorically speaking, it had walked in uninvited and saw to it that everything I had invested myself into went up in flames. Even projects and goals I had started in 2017 just fed the fire and fanned the flames. Now that I’m away from all of it, now that it’s all ashes and cinders – frankly I’m relieved and grateful.
I came to Philadelphia with plans and hopes of various degrees – to start a Coven, to become one with my arcane studies, to make new friends, to start a new life entirely, and oh yes, find the love of my life. People came along with me and I also had people waiting here. All with ostensible intent to help me see these goals through and a few of their own. It was going to be challenging but maybe we could pull it off. Together.
Looking back, I realize that it wasn’t going to work. At all. Ever. I threw myself into everything; trying to resolve interpersonal and social conflicts alike and all I was doing was digging myself deeper into my own nightmare. I cut myself off from those who would have helped me; buried in contrived, cyclic drama – fueled by poor communication, emotionally damaged people, and a propensity to only serve itself.
In the arcane community, there is a self-preservation consideration: “Do not hold anything that does not serve you.” It comes off really selfish and heavy handed but the gist of it is that you should never allow anything, or anyone, to maintain a presence in your life that either only serves itself/themselves and/or seeks to simply use you. To a strong willed, determined individual like myself, it’s hard not to see that as a challenge.
2017 made sure that the house I had built was burned to the ground, along with plans and the connections to the people that only truly served themselves. This wasn’t just people I had recently acquired but also folks I had held onto that were simply ghosts I refused to let go. My house was haunted as well as completely consumed with rotten frames, poorly held dreams, and inhabitants that I refused to let go. It needed to happen.
Remember that misheard lyric of mine, “If we chased all our dreams, we would be lost?” Everyone I was attempting to build something with had their own goals and their own designs. Apparently I was the key to solving two separate romantic complications but passed on both – much to my plotters’ rage. Thankful that fiery pecker made sure that I was ready to start over and build a better life with the woman of my dreams instead.
The Chinese Zodiac is based on balance, that the cosmos shifts as needed to find balance and keep itself level. 2017 was a Fire Rooster; a dynamic, chaotic, catalytic force to clear the way so 2018, can truly do what it is meant to do – to help us build something better. Something stronger. 2018 is the Year of the Earth Dog. It will be an exhaustive year in it’s own right but a robust, strong year filled with growth and prosperity. Dull but good.
I am grateful for 2017 for two reasons; for clearing away my past and bringing me in contact with my True Love, Elizabeth Merritt. She has been in my heart for years now; at first a whisper and a thought, slowly becoming more apparent, until the fateful day I finally got to touch her, to know her in person, to feel her in my arms. It has been the stuff of faery tales in many ways and I can’t wait to spend the rest of life with her.
Now I’m, correction, we’re going to work on getting fit together, doing lots of yoga, studying our beloved craft together, avoiding drama, watching movies, wandering in the woods, camping the same woods, and sometime later this year, getting married in the woods. I’m not longer fractured or strained; nor held in contempt by feckless, selfish boujee folk who’s only interest was their own. I’m free, happy, content, and gleeful.
So thank you 2017; you did what you needed to do – it was painful, harrowing, and you very much broke me. But you needed to; I had been broken before and healed badly; an infection that was set in and if you hadn’t stepped in, I would have been dead or worse – living a life that wasn’t mine because I didn’t have the spine to tell someone: “No. In fact, just fuck off entirely. Thanks.” Thank you 2017 for saving me and bringing me Liz.
D.
Gilded Gibberish. 