Lux

"You are not consumed by the darkness because you are full of light."
-- Robin McKinley,
SUNSHINE

Just Wow

So last night I stayed up at least an hour and a half later than I should have so I could finish reading The Evolution of Ethan Poe by Robin Reardon. Today I am stupid tired, but it was TOTALLY WORTH IT. Observe:

"Bats are special to you, right?"
"They're supposed to be my power animal."
He nods. "I wondered if you knew that. Who told you?"
"Heidi. Etta's friend."
"Friend?" His voice gives the word an odd inflection I can't interpret. And then he says, "Heidi Wolcott. Of course."
I don't know what this means, either. "Yeah. She's into, you know, energy, and power animals, that sort of thing. But what's the bat got to do with this?"
Shane's laugh is friendly, gentle. "Ethan, your power animal has to do with everything. But that's another topic. I was just trying to find out if you'd heard about the concept. Because the dog is a power animal, too. And the powers it brings have to do with healing emotional wounds, and with unconditional love." He takes a sip of coffee. "I'm going to say that last bit again, because I want it to sink in." He pauses and makes sure my eyes are on his. "Unconditional love. Do you have any concept of what that is?"
It's a term I've heard before, sure, but any deep meaning isn't all that clear to me. "I guess not really."
"It means there is no condition, no situation whatsoever in which that love would go away. There is nothing you could do to lose it. There's nothing you can do to get it, either; it comes to you or it doesn't. And you are one lucky son of a bitch. You had it in that dog. And the fact that that particular dog could just as easily have ripped your throat out is huge. So you were given unconditional love from an animal with healing powers who could have had you for breakfast. Most people never get it anywhere. You were damn lucky to have it, but that makes the loss just about the worst thing in the universe."
He shrugs. "Lots of parents think they give it to their kids, and I'm sure many of them come damn close. Still . . ." He shakes his head and sips again, and in the silence I hear my mother's words: Can't say I'd be happy about it. And I can't even imagine what my dad would say if I told him I'm gay.
I fill my mouth with bitter coffee and swallow hard. "I sure as hell don't get it from Max."
"Oh, you'll never get it from a lover."
This stuns me. "Why not?"
His empty mug makes a loud thud on the wooden table. "You're not giving it to him, either. All he has to do is not sit with you on the bus and you don't love him as much. And when he expresses confusion over why Two's death is so hurtful for you, instead of telling him why, you fly into a rage because he doesn't know you well enough. Lovers make lots of demands on each other. That makes it conditional. And that's the opposite of unconditional love."

AND ALSO:

". . . love spends so much time between sweetness and pain that sometimes they feel like the same thing."


So, yeah, thoroughly enjoyed. More later. Still digesting.

Why I'm Loving Fablehaven

"The magic inside you is dazzling. By comparison, he is like a faint star next to the noonday sun."
"I don't know how to use it," Kendra said.
"Don't ask me," the fairy said. "You're the gifted luminary our Queen chose to honor. I can't show you how to unlock your magic any more than you can teach me how to use mine."
-- from the second book in the series, Rise of the Evening Star by Brandon Mull

This Deserves Its Own Post

"When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out.
"But it's a lie."
- Laurie Halse Anderson, WINTERGIRLS

Spiffy Philosophy

. . . Which reminds me of two quotes from WINTERGIRLS:

"When you're alive, people can hurt you. It's easier to crawl into a bone cage or a snowdrift of confusion. It's easier to lock everybody out.
"But it's a lie."

"The nasty voices are always on call, eager to pull me back down

::Stupid/ugly/stupid/bitch/stupid/fat/
stupid/baby/stupid/loser/stupid/lost::

but I do not let them."

Magic Incantations

"Adrenaline kicks in when you're starving. That's what nobody understands. Except for being hungry and cold, most of the time I feel like I can do anything. It gives me superhuman powers of smell and hearing. I can see what people are thinking, stay two steps ahead of them. I do enough homework to stay off the radar. Every night I climb thousands of steps into the sky to make me so exhausted that when I fall into bed, I don't notice Cassie.
"Then suddenly it's morning and I leap on the hamster wheel and it starts all over again."
- Laurie Halse Anderson,
Wintergirls

NO. No no no no no! I was never this bad, but I came ever so close to beginning to get this bad. I got so good at not eating for days at a time, and weighing myself constantly, and feeling bad for wanting a veggie burger,* because Depression thinks I'm fat.

How did that even happen?

No, stupid question. Meaningless.

The important thing is that I have taught myself how to kick his ass, and I am strong enough to continue kicking his ass for the rest of my life (and maybe even teaching other people how to kick his ass -- 'cause he's a fuckface who'd kill us all if he could, slowly).

The important thing is that I, Ryan Timothy Bish, do not even recognize the person I used to be when he was in control. I am funny, I am brave, I am beautiful, I am intelligent, I am fucking fearless, I am insightful, I am the best big brother Cara or Abigail could ever hope for, I am the little brother Kiki chose as her own even though she already has one, I am confident, I am strong, I am so perceptive I can pretty much see the future, I am a stubbornly loyal friend, I am a total nerd and that is charming, I miss Dad but I'm not stuck in the past, I wish Mom acted like more of a friend but I'm not mad at her (okay . . . not constantly), I know what I want and I'm not afraid to let myself have it, I know what I want and I'm not afraid of not getting it, I read all the time, I pray even though I'm not sure who's listening and rather suspect I'm just talking to myself, I can't sing but that's not stopping me, I lost everything but I'm putting my life back together and it's the most personally enriching thing I've ever done, and he will never have any power over me ever again.

Because I won't give him any.

The power is ALL mine now, and literally anything is possible. Even if I don't actively try to make it happen, awesome stuff just can't stop happening to me.

Who knows what I'll do next?

P.S. Cassie is a ghost. If you want to know what happens to Lia (the narrator), I highly recommend picking up the book. But be careful. The author wrote it "because of the countless readers who wrote and talked to me about their struggles with eating disorders, cutting, and feeling lost." She did a supremely good job (although, um, OF COURSE SHE DID -- this is Laurie Halse Anderson we're talking about), so, even if reading a book about those subjects won't be a trigger for you, it is very . . . heavy. I've read it twice before; even though I know how everything is eventually going to play out, it is extremely difficult to read. Even more difficult than Speak. And that's saying something.

*Yes, I seriously have a "food journal" from November of 2009 where I regularly got mad at myself for wanting and then having a veggie burger. With soy cheese. I wish I were making this up as a really sick joke. But not so much.
I still have it, by the way. No one is allowed to read it, but I keep it to remind myself just how much Depression had encroached his way into every facet of my life -- and to remind myself of just how far I've come.

Even in Australia

So.

It's rapidly getting better, but -- before one p.m., by the way -- today was so horrible that . . .

I had a goddamn cigarette. 

I can't exactly say that it really "helped," but it did last ten full minutes, after which I did feel quite a bit more peaceful.

For about half a second.

An hour later, I had another one.

We should probably talk about it, but I don't wanna.