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[ Trying to get a handle on Bonfire. Bear with us here. ]
Something that bothers me occasionally is that there are sins for which I cannot get expiation.
There is no way to ask for forgiveness. There is no way to repair the harm. My part was a tiny one -- but it was a banal part, a just-doing-my-job part, a part that wasn't personal. The wounded will never know my name, know that I played any part at all. If I hadn't done it, someone else would have.
But it was still done.
When I remember it, I feel filthy. None of the ways of getting clean are available to me except for the oblique one, the sidelong one, the one that doesn't help the person whose wounds I could see through the news clippings in the file, the paperwork in the file, the life filled in between the lines of newspaper reporting and legalese -- the one that says "I can't fix it, but I can do my damnedest to keep it from ever happening to someone else."
It's good to remember sometimes, why I'm such a hardass about marriage. Why I don't have any space to compromise in my psyche. Why it matters so much to me. Because I think about those worst things I've seen and I want to scrub my hands until they bleed and the blood is clean, and I take that need to be clean and I go out and say "No more." Maybe the ghosts will forgive me enough that I can be okay, when people can marry, when their families are protected.
No more.
It matters too much.
This probably makes no damn sense and I've broken down in tears and hysterics anyway.
Too much thinking about marriage lately. Probably bad for me.
Something that bothers me occasionally is that there are sins for which I cannot get expiation.
There is no way to ask for forgiveness. There is no way to repair the harm. My part was a tiny one -- but it was a banal part, a just-doing-my-job part, a part that wasn't personal. The wounded will never know my name, know that I played any part at all. If I hadn't done it, someone else would have.
But it was still done.
When I remember it, I feel filthy. None of the ways of getting clean are available to me except for the oblique one, the sidelong one, the one that doesn't help the person whose wounds I could see through the news clippings in the file, the paperwork in the file, the life filled in between the lines of newspaper reporting and legalese -- the one that says "I can't fix it, but I can do my damnedest to keep it from ever happening to someone else."
It's good to remember sometimes, why I'm such a hardass about marriage. Why I don't have any space to compromise in my psyche. Why it matters so much to me. Because I think about those worst things I've seen and I want to scrub my hands until they bleed and the blood is clean, and I take that need to be clean and I go out and say "No more." Maybe the ghosts will forgive me enough that I can be okay, when people can marry, when their families are protected.
No more.
It matters too much.
This probably makes no damn sense and I've broken down in tears and hysterics anyway.
Too much thinking about marriage lately. Probably bad for me.
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I never know how to talk about this. Or how much I'm "allowed" to talk about it, given professional ethics.
But sometimes I just slag down, and this was a bad one.
(Fortunately, the gang of lunatics has proceeded to cheer me up by gently directing my breakdown into an attempt to explain Doug Winger to
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(Secret advantages of hydra-osity. Sometimes it's possible to have the breakdown quietly in the back of the head.)
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I occasionally get really fucked up about this. This is one of those go-rounds.
It's aggravated not only by lots of current events provoking a lot of discussion on the matter, but by some fraughtness in my private life around the subject of marriage which you have a little context for from locked entry.
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Maybe I should work Him into my ritual for dealing with this.
*files that as something to talk to Anpw about*
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Thank you.
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Not easy.
*hugs*
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...yeah, what she says. Of course, I dunno how much of that is also the Set "yeah, man! only one strong enough to DO this shit!" impulse, as manifested in stuff like Gavin Newsom *totally* going out there beyond the "acceptable" parameters of stated law to do something in service to the greater good.
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"This structure is UNACCEPTABLE. I will not use it." Yeah.
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So, ah, thanks again.
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