Somewhat surfacing after months of floundering, surviving in this transition from a person everyone knows (but doesn't know) to a person who knows herself.

The public parts of me have mostly withered off, theoretically this means below ground there lies a fragrant bulb of spice and healing ready to be extracted. We'll see about that. Age has brought a mellowing to me, but also a heavy load of pessimism. I used to believe in hope, now I hope I can find belief.

It was a quaint part of my life, that time when every moment shimmered with promise. Some call it youth, for me it didn't come until early adulthood. One day my senses switched from perceiving every moment as a call to doom to perceiving every moment as a special sign sent just for me, to guide me on my special journey to save not just myself but - THE WORLD!!!

A few years of being throttled by reality cured that, along with some meds. I'm off the meds now, but the senseless hope and shimmering beauty remain elusive - except in the visage of my child, a beautiful toddler who bounced into my life after an assumption of sterility was accepted as fact at my "advanced maternal age".

All there is left now, after reducing my stalk to bare stem and root, is the void of winter. That time where you wait to see how things will branch out in the spring, what fruit will be born. What I drop on this soil in the meantime will be the food to bring me back. I hope.

I don't know who to be anymore. I have become only someone else, Mommy or wifey. I've lost "me", which is good since "me" wasn't very likable anymore, and certainly wasn't very productive or creative. But I can't sit here forever in the void, there must be a new "me", who will she be? I don't want a self-centered, self-absorbed diva, nor do I want a subvervient, invisible slave. Something inbetween? Someone who cares enough about others to reach out and knows when to withdraw for the good of others and herself? In the past, I have given too much, given myself into famine so that nothing was left of me for me - and the people i gave to remained needy and helpless because they never had to plow for themselves. Someone who care about herself enough to develop her own interests with self-confidence, without caring if those interests are "good" or if she is "good enough", as long as she is not hurting anyone and is nurturing her family.

God, I don't know... I have to stop thinking about it and dive in, be... become... return... fuck it all. If my small town stumbles on my words and finds me queer, who cares? I've censored my being for far too long to try to remain acceptable, I no longer care. This is who I am, I am a ball of rumbling words and failed desires and hopeless aspirations and if you don't want to watch turn away but I cannot sit and avoid trying any longer. My little goddess needs that I aspire to be more than I am, for that I forgo my sense of humility and dive headlong into shameful aspirations of divinity.