Guilt, Anger, Depression, Conflagration, Ash

Believe it or not, dear reader, I am a card-carrying fire fighter.

No, really.

Granted, the card has expired. Granted, if you read it it would tell you that I am certified by the state of Georgia in Race Track fire fighting and only in Race Track fire fighting - but I had to take classes and pass tests and put out fires to get it, and did so every year (even though I only had to go every two years for re-certification) for nearly two decades until the program was discontinued due to re-interpretation of the law concerning track safety and fire fighting certification.

Ahem.

So.

In these classes, I learned many interesting and a few useful things. I learned, for example, how to make ducks sink in perfectly normal looking water, and also how said ducks will look very surprised when their buoyancy is suddenly nil. I learned that the Peabody Hotel is not amused by sinking ducks.

I learned that anything can be made to burn given the right conditions.

I also learned about the fire triangle.

You see, fire needs three things to live - heat, fuel, and oxygen. Take away one of those three, and no fire. Add to one of them, and you get more fire.

Guilt, anger, and depression lead to fugue. Fugue is an unpleasant place to be. Guilt feeds the anger, which in turn feed the depression, which in turn feed the guilt...and...fugue. Around and around we go, and it doesn't stop until something is taken away. Taking something out of this triangle, however, isn't as easy as pulling the pin, aiming the extinguisher (called "fire bottle" around here) and letting 'er rip.

Nope.

With the fugue triangle, it takes an act of will (far more powerful than an act of Congress), often combined with an outside factor, to extinguish the state.

This last Sunday, we had here at Casa de Crazy what I could call a perfect storm of guilt, anger, and depression, leading to one of us trying to make a permanent Kyddryn-sized lump on the bed and another of us wondering "What the Hell?"

I feel guilt. I don't think I deserve to be loved, and I don't like feeling like my love is a burden. I don't like feeling as though my love makes anyone else feel guilty because they feel responsible for or to me. Don't try to make sense of it - I experience it all the time and I can't make sense of it. The guilt turns into anger - what's up with the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally from birth but can't be bothered? Fuck them!! Then depression - why am I so useless, so worthless, why can't I get anything right...? It's an over-simplification, but you get the point.

Adding to this feelings fiesta is an oddment of rather large size - Someone and I have a peculiar kind of synchronicity going on. If I'm experiencing peaks or valleys, chances are he is too. We don't necessarily set each other off...and we try very hard not to feed each other's fugues...but we sure do experience them together. Understanding, having empathy for, this kind of thing can be nearly as rough as being knee-deep in the middle of the swamp. So when I'm having a vary bad day and Someone is having a vary bad day...well, we have conflagration.

We have sharp words and hurt feelings and mis-or-non-communication, and we have two grown people who are sudden;y not speaking to each other because neither one of them is acting with any sense...because when you're in fugue? There's not making sense.

So on Sunday I wrote while Someone took himself out of the house and off into the city to see what he could see. When he came home, we tried to kick one of the legs off of the triangle and set things right, but our fugues got in the way and we ended up in separate rooms feeling separate feelings and dealing with them in separate ways.

Until Someone decided enough was enough. Enough darkness in Casa de Crazy. He plugged in the Yule tree, lit our last altar candle, came and found the Kyddryn-lump on the bed and...touched my hand.

That was all I needed...just that little bit of contact, that one touch, to remind me...I am loved. I am wanted. I am needed. I have purpose. Maybe I fuck up...but show me someone who doesn't and I'll show you someone with a closet full of festering mistakes they'd like to pretend don't exist. His touch grounded me, brought me back from where I'd been stuck all day.

Then I found an in-box full of e-mails from people who wanted to know what was up and how they could help and did I require medicating or brownies or what??

Tremendous kindness was shown, by people from all over the place...and I thank you all for it.

I can't, and won't, say it'll never happen again...it's in my nature to crash, and crash hard...but I hope it's not soon, and I'll be eternally grateful for the folks who ran underneath to catch a falling woman this time around.

And Someone? I don't ever doubt your love...thank you for the lights, and for finding whatever you needed within yourself to make that first contact because I just couldn't. Thank you for bringing me Home.