I sat on my porch for quite a while last night, just staring into the twilight sky, listening to the wind and politely waiting for some higher being to give me with an epiphany. I waited a long time. I don't think things really work that way, but I didn't think there was any harm in making some space for divine intervention.
Before that I had been googling "gods of the lost", only to find there aren't any. or rather, I suspect there is, but few know his name, they just shoot a quiet prayer into the aether when they've lost their way and, thankless creatures that we are, forget when they're back on familiar ground, the memories of their terror willfully forgotten in favor of louder and prouder gods and the festival of souls that attends them.
You could argue it's the domain of patron gods of travel, your hermes, poseidon, khonsu, etc. I would buy it. You could also argue that actually getting lost means you've lost their favor and your prayers must find their way to the nameless wanderer in the quiet spaces instead. I would buy that too.
I kind of go back and forth about the utility of prayer in general. On a practical level I think good prayer is akin to good meditation. It doesn't matter so much who you are praying so, so much as you are quieting your mind and focusing your intent. Or, simply taking a moment to exist in your body and with your breath for a few moments without being swept away in the seemingly endless narratives the mind generates to move us forward. But also, it's just nice to find a quiet spot for a while sometimes.
But certainly change requires action, not just thinking, not just sitting. And action has not been my defining characteristic, for what, eight years now? I keep thinking it's been a decade, but I broke up with my ex in 2015 and I thought "well, I'll give myself a month to feel down about this" and well, 8 years later, i'm still more or less in the same funk. Not a smart choice to be honest, and I do not recommend it.
I have trouble expressing how empty my life feels right now. I have always preferred less people to more, and have relentlessly whittled away at my own social network until virtually nothing remains. I have no friends in town who want to hang out more than once every couple months, no confidants, no partners in crime, no friends with benefits, no prospects, no memory of how to make this happen for myself, and the crystal clarity in knowing this is the direct result of how I behave and the choices I make, for whatever reason. It's not great! I am very unhappy with the life I have made for myself, but I can't blame anyone else for it, not even the gods, they've been relatively generous to me I think, and I've largely squandered my opportunities.
And it's not so much that I'm wallowing in self-pity, although that is a daily challenge, but I am just sitting with it. This is where I'm at. I think I understand that the core issues here are indeed core issues. Beyond the anxiety and self-loathing, which are also daily challenges, I have no strong sense of self or purpose, I have no community and no clear idea of what kind of community I would even want. And lately, born out of too long a period of isolation, a very clear and deep longing for connection with other people, but no clear idea of who exactly, setting aside the fact that my social skills are at this point deeply atrophied.
And so I sat on my porch last night, in the twilight, waiting for some epiphany that never arrived. No helpful and shocking bit of context and clarity, but I did, for a few moment, catch some glimpses of what I used to like about myself and about how i was in the world. I'm still not sure who I am or where I'm going, but I guess a higher resolution version of me is in here somewhere.
Good enough for now.
