2. Hibernation Aftermath.

• Hibernation Aftermath.
  

I put all this nonsense of being anything other than a straight hetero adolescent boy out of my mind, even though it doesn’t work like that, I place it all on hold without my knowing. After a time, I forget that I all the things that make me unique that are not status quo. I forget that I am anything resembling the possibility that I like men as much as I like women. I forget, and banish the thought, that I myself am a woman. All these things that make up my own uniqueness are locked in a deep dark corner of my mind, and I lose the key. 

One notable quirk about me is that even for being a social butterfly at times, or a little shit of a kid, or protective of my family; I am also skittish. As time passes, I begin to withdraw from the world in several ways: I become less of a social butterfly and begin seeking out solitude as often as I can. In this solitude, I can lose myself in the art that I begin to covet as frequently as I can.  

There are a couple points where I begin to feel depressed in a harsh way in regards to myself, and most of all when I pay attention to having women as partners. It gets bad enough that one day as my new girlfriend and an ex quarrel for the rights to have my attention, I simply stop functioning and slump into another depression spell where the only thoughts I have are “I do not deserve them, I do not even deserve myself.” Eventually, after the recess bell tolls, it takes both girls to snap me out of my spell. I instantly get up and move away from them and head to my next class without saying another word. 

However, as much as I feel horrible on the outside as I project to be, on the inside in order to keep my strength up, it feels like somehow I am gutting and feeding off myself in order to continue a farce. 

My time with my mentor, who encouraged me at one point to start coming out, I tell him about my choice to put it all out of my head as a flight of fancy. I noticed a hint of disappointment in his face, but he loves me still. Over time even my relationship with my mentor begins to fade away into the background. I am no longer in my teens, I am in my twenties and I have college and work that takes much of my attention rather than facing my mentor and a deep down and not so easily pegged shame. I do still hang around his house occasionally because I am working in Halcyon at the time, but anything relating to his mentorship is strained or held back to a greater degree. 

There is a concept out there that I need to know at the time, but don’t learn till much later in life, the shadow self. In attempts to remain a straight hetero male, I become a serial monogamous lad and bounce from one relationship or another. 

It is in one of these such chases that end in rejection that I am hit hard. I stop my chasing for a moment and begin to lick my wounds, but I am feeling hurt and heartbroken. At this low point I begin to contemplate crossing several ethical and moral lines just to have sex with a woman, but never follow through on any of these things. Instead, I begin to go down another depression spell that makes me cry inside and out with the feelings of inadequacies, and severe loneliness. One day as I once again mull in my head the copious amounts of loneliness, and beginning to ask myself if I am indeed worthy of any form of happiness; I begin to feel a stirring in me. I am twenty-five years old at this time. I first interpret this feeling as I am beginning to come out of the closet as a woman, being bi again. But as I look at the world around me, I recognize that I am seeing air Sylphs, and Faeries in the flowers and I can hear the Eucalyptus trees talking, and the earth talking to me and trying to soothe me. I am on my way to work this day; a beautiful sunny morning in Halcyon, and I am beginning to wake up again. I feel like I am going mad. I begin talking to the spirits I run across as I bike on this beautiful morning to work, and for a few weeks afterward I feel like I am going mad still for talking to voices that aren’t there. I’m pretty sure that people who talk to voices are crazy. 

About a month later, I receive word that the girl I was seeing all those years ago is returning to the central coast area, and excitedly, I meet that childhood friend again after over a decade. I first met this girl back in my elementary school days, and remember the heartfelt moment when I said goodbye to her after our seventh-grade year. I remember loving her then, and as she returns to my life, I don’t see nor care that she’s grown up; I see my childhood love again – and I glom onto her with all my might. I am afraid of coming out in any sense of the word. Hell, I have grown up too, but I acknowledge that I am a bit screwed in my head because I am lacking somewhere. By doing this I ignore the fact that I’m waking up in all respects again. I don’t care that I have a feeling in the back of my mind that I am betraying who I am. I run to my love, and propose marriage within a month. 

We are engaged for a long while where we are sorting ourselves out with each other. I finally get my wish and have many a sexual encounter with her. 

She is a studying Wiccan. The idea is a curious one to me, so I also study the material lightly so that I can understand her perspectives. I don’t agree with these ideas so much, but I run with the ones that I do comprehend. I am inspired to use some of my trade skills in woodworking and sketch art to craft a wooden bound Book of Shadows, a lectern, and a small desk for this new craft that has been introduced to my life. 

It is a sad point in my engagement that my fiancé would listen more to her mother’s wishes over trying to create a life with me, but under the excuse of love and being who she wanted me to be, I went along with being cast aside in my choice of engagement rings, wedding rings, and our marriage. I am a small suburb person and a small religious community person. My sights are community oriented as that is where I draw my strength. Yet under the excuse of love, I was told that my small community base support is unacceptable for the mother’s daughter. Again, I go along with it and began burning bridges with my own family along the way. 

Now I live in a house with a friendly ghost in it, and my fiancé and I move into the mother-in-law suite as we needed the room. My Grandparents are dead now. I watch as my grandfather weakly draws his final breath, but somehow, I gave him last rites without knowing what else to do for him. My grandmother dies a couple years later, and she visits me in my dreams on the day she passes to say goodbye; but that she would help me through my trials. I think nothing of it at the time except that my grandmother and Matriarch is dead. My Fiancé and I move into the apartment to tend to my grandmother’s aging cat. The cat is my grandmother’s familiar, but he rejects my fiancé and me when we moved in. He does pass away soon after we moved in believing that he was being pushed out by my fiancé and me, that and that we have gotten a dog not long after we move in. 

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