As a practicing witch, I simultaneously welcome and dread the massive culmination of holidays that is Hallowe'en.
There are so many things wrapped up in the date that I, good little neurotic that I am, pin a hell of a lot more expectations on the date than any one day has rights to.
It is the end of the Witch's Calendar year, so it is my new year's.
This is a time for reflection on the theme and growth of the last year and a time to prepare and project for the new one. It is also the last harvest, so it is a time for feasting and celebration. I like to take inventory of my accomplishments, of what has come to fruition, and what I'd like to reset and refocus for in the coming quiet, fallow months of winter.
It is also the time at which our loved ancestors who have passed on are closest to mind and spirit. If there are messages to be received or sent between the veils, this is the best time to send them. I like to offer to do palmistry and card readings for my near and dear ones on this night because I consider the avenues to be clearest, and any way that I can help people communicate who wish to is part of my duty as a good little craft practitioner.
It is also a great night for nostalgia and parties!
I love seeing children trick or treat, decking out the house with decorations, baking up a storm of orange and black and pumpkin and bat themed delicacies. I love bobbing for apples, watching spooky movies, making toasts in the graveyard and taking wild whooping walks through the piles of leaves and howling at the moon at midnight.
That's a lot of pressure I put on one night.
It pales, however, in comparison to the amount of pressure I've been putting on myself.
Eating has been very difficult as of late.
Work is mad. October is the busiest time of year for any business in Salem, and we have been rocking it. I am also dealing with a completely green crew, many of whom have never worked in retail before, let alone booming, touristy, holiday retail. There is very little time spent in my bakery without me overseeing, retraining, explaining, trouble-shooting, fixing, petting, coaxing, planning, helping, and giving. Sadly, I get very little of that in return from customers, who deem it their right to take everything, my employers, who think that because I have informed them I plan on leaving in 9 months (that's nine months of notice people!) I am no longer contributing to their business and do not care about my job, and my crew, who don't realize how much work it is to take care of their needs on top of everybody else's.
On top of all this, i am also in the last three weeks of my first semester at grad school. I owe forty pages of writing, about half of which must be critical, and based upon almost one thousand pages of reading that needs to be done.
Most of the time I'm so busy I forget to eat, and then suddenly I'm furious or weeping for no reason, and I can't understand why I'm so miserable, except for-Oh Wait! I haven't eaten in thirteen hours! That's what it is!
On Saturday, I got up at 6am, so I could get dressed up like a phoenix for the halloween theme at work.
I walked my usual two and a half mile trek to the bakery, and immediately jumped into the fray.
We had wave after wave of people from the moment I arrived until four thirty, when I ushered the last, straggling tourist out the door and locked it.
After supervising enough of the clean up that I felt the staff could survive without me, I ran out the door to meet up with a good friend I hadn't seen since before I got married five years ago. Out of nowhere, he just decided to drive down to Salem and hunt me down for coffee. He's been out of the country for at least four years, and I was absolutely gob-smacked to see him.
We spent two hours strolling through the crazy streets of the city, catching up. There were lines and crowds of people around every corner, and eventually we sat on some grass near the ocean. It was nice, but I was starting to feel strange. After a good long hug with my friend, I began my commute home. Another two and a half miles back over the bridge to my apartment.
Somewhere around the top of the bridge, I put my hand in my pocket and discovered a small square of dark chocolate. When my fingers closed around it, I suddenly realized why I felt weird.
It was six o'clock at night, and I'd had one cup of coffee since I'd woke up all day.
There's a moment, before a binge, where I can see the green, furry monster of indulgence poke his head out of my subconscious. He has black horns, leather black paws and disgusting yellow eyes, and he pulls his head out of my routines and points a gleaming, onyx claw at me.
I'm coming for you. He says, and I feel my knees shake.
I'm getting better at recognizing him, so I stopped at a local shop and bought a super delicious, mega healthy spinach wrap, stuffed with falafel, veggies and hummus. I even paused at the corner store for a bottle of my favorite red wine, reasoning with myself that it was a treat that would pacify my demon.
I got home, and there was a new movie on netflix i wanted to see.
It sucked the the herrband wasn't able to be there. He had an all day photography job, and I missed him. With all the work I've been doing, we rarely get to hang out anymore, and any time we do get is in the evenings, since we don't have common days off right now.
Because of his photo job, however, I wouldn't see the beard until almost midnight, so I plunked down on the couch with my sandwich and a glass of wine, and thought to myself, Ah yes, here is the reward for today.
By then it was after seven. I hadn't eaten in about twenty four solid hours, and my stomach had ceased even to make grumbly noises. It mewled like a wet cat.
In a trice the sandwich was gone.
I'd barely even tasted it.
Then I thought, well, I have blueberry muffin that I brought home for the herrband, but he didn't know I was bringing it, so it doesn't matter if I eat it.
Which I did.
Then a handful of halloween candy.
Then I remember the stollen experiment from work earlier that week, and (fully in the clutches of my green demon now) I pulled out the half loaf of thick, sweet, almondy, dried fruity, sugar laden bread, and devoured it. Piece by piece, with no mind to the now squeaking kitten that was my stomach, paralyzed under its weight of food, I polished off every last, rum soaked raisiny crumb.
The demon threw his hands up in the air and did his victory dance.
I had caved.
I was so full I felt ill. My poor body had no idea what to make of the situation. Denied for so long, it couldn't handle the amount of food that had crash landed like a ton of bricks, and I swayed with nausea.
Lucky for me, the demon has trained my body well, and I do not throw up. My gag reflex is under lock and key.
I finished watching my movie, then exhausted, ashamed, and defeated, I retreated to the bedroom, to lie on my back, and will my stomach into serenity. All the while praying that I can get through Sunday without a repeat performance.
Now I know this is a classic routine. The starvation followed by the binge.
It's a dance me and my demon have been doing off and on for ten years, but the self forgiveness thing is still damn near impossible.
Faced with the pain of the overindulgence, my body stays mad at me after these episodes.
I wake up with indigestion. I don't feel hungry until very late in the next day, and then it comes upon me in a rush, setting me up for another overindulgence unless I work incredibly hard to keep the binge demon locked in his cage. It is a very new rarity, that I succeed.
Still, I have succeeded more than once in the last year, and I have to count that among my victories.
The negative shame voices that fill my head are so natural they feel like an instinct I have no control over, and they set in with a spitefulness I feel to my core.
My websites help...It's like having people I can actually talk to about these foul ups and body betrayals. They forgive me when I simply can't, and I'm very grateful for their generators, because without them, I'd feel utterly alone.
I am trying to find my theme for 2015, for last year's was "What happens if you just say yes?"
And I would say that it worked quite well for me. Truly.
This year, I think my theme needs to be:
"Let go. If it's worth it, you don't have to hold on so hard for it to stay."
What do you think?
Can I let the wheel of the year turn, and in doing so, take with it this iron clad grasp i have on so much expectation, so much responsibility?
Can I just let go, and let the healing in?
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