My community disappeared
And I'm so grateful for it.
I’ve been fighting the urge to give up all my dignity and go total goblin mode with emotions to social media about how my community abandoned me and until now, this is a hill I was prepared to die on.
I think I was severely disillusioned by the TV show, Friends, as a kid in middle school and high school. I believed (and sometimes still do) that true friendship, true community is one where everyone is available all the time, no matter what, and everything can be solved with the power of friendship. Everyone knows every little thing about each other; every moment, good or bad, is experienced in a close knit collective forevermore.
As an adult, I’ve learned that it’s not quite like that.
But I promised myself I wouldn’t make this post about the woes of loneliness and anger I’ve felt this past year, especially while going through this medical journey. Because the truth is, even if I had a giant community of people around me at all times, I would still be in pain and wouldn’t be any closer to getting answers.
The deepest truth, the one that I’ve been avoiding for a long time, is the only person who is going to get me through this is me. Descending into the Underworld is not a girl’s trip with all my closest friends where we all get fun bracelets at the end.
The nigredo is not and never will be a group project.
It’s just me, staring down the open maw of the cave, refusing to go in because, well, I’m scared shitless.
I do have an amazing support system and I am deeply loved by all of them but no one is going to swoop in on a mighty steed and take the pain away from me. And while help is needed sometimes (we’ll get to this in a minute), asking someone to take over while I just chill isn’t an option.
No one can or should carry my water. The only way out is through.
It’s no one’s job to save me or heal me. It’s no one’s fault that I’m hurt. It just is. Which is, by far, one of the most profound and most annoying phrases on the planet.
“It is what it is.”
Which is oddly, but not-so-oddly, very close to, “So mote it be.”
Huh.
It’s really a spell of letting go, right? “Whatever will be, will be.” Just a simple, little phrase filled with so much magic and wisdom. This may not be my season of community and that’s okay. I’ve had community before and I’ll have it again. But I cannot keep this anger about the loss of said community inside me anymore. For so long, The Wheel has kept turning but I’ve stayed in the same stage, burning and burning but never allowing totally disintegration. I keep stoking crumbling embers, afraid to let the fire go out because, holy shit, what if I’m different when I come out? What if the burning is all there is and the other parts of the cycle are so far beyond me? I had a realization that if I want to fully integrate and be able to see the light of the albedo, I absolutely have to let the blackening tear this fear, this envy, this entitlement away from my bones; from my very soul.
The point, I’m realizing, is not to find myself in a village being lifted up, but to make myself a better villager so I can lift up others when the time comes.
Another major part of my nigredo is venturing through the Land of Two Truths on a pretty regular basis; holding the tension of the opposites as it were. The most recent adventure brought me to to an understanding that no one is going to save me but at the same time, I do actually need help sometimes and asking for it will not, in fact, kill me.
Even if my brain keeps trying to convince me otherwise.
It’s that deep part of our ancient survival instinct that still perceives danger in the forest but now the “danger” is in our minds, replaying the possibility of abandonment, rejection and being truly alone over and over again like an old, distorted VHS tape. Normally, I would rather suffer in silence than reach out for help. But part of the descent into the unknown means reaching my hands out, pushing through the thickly woven membrane of isolation that I worked so hard to build and into an experience of true connection. What lies on the other side might not be what I expected but it could be better than I ever hoped; it just takes the steps forward to find out.
This isn’t spiritual bypassing or putting a toxically positive spin on my pain. I’m still angry. I’m still hurt. I still feel the emptiness in my heart where community used to be. And that’s okay. A nigredo is not going to magically burn away the emotions that well up inside me; that’s not the point. It will, however, make me look at those emotions in the face and find out where they came from, so I can greet them better when they come to visit.
I have no idea what’s going to happen with my health or finances or any of it and even less so on when I’ll have a healthy community again. But it’s not my job to figure any of it out right this moment.
For now I’m going to let my psyche burn down to the prima materia while the unpredictable winter rolls in. The Great Work is calling and I must meet it head on.
Thank you so much for following along on this journey with me. It means the world to know people are willing to read my rants while I slowly but surely build up my writing muscle again, which is also part of this cycle in my life.
I keep this Substack free because 1) I’m just starting out, 2) paywalls are annoying and finally, 3) even getting the guts to ask people for financial support for my work is something ELSE I’m working on (the list is extensive, believe me) but in the mean time, if you feel like supporting me in other ways, you can buy me a coffee! There’s no pressure or expectation but anything helps, so thank you again, dear reader. <3
🖤🖤😘😘 ill always buy you a coffee