Dear Sleep

Dear Sleep,

I have tried to begin this letter to you now three times. Each time I dive in, telling you I miss you or asking where you've gone. And each time I think I sound over eager, so I erase what I've written and wonder whether or not even trying to contact you is a lost cause.

So here it is all on the line. I miss you. Where are you?

You left me so suddenly- things, I thought, had been great with us. Lazy mornings together, even quickies in the afternoon from time to time. I even thought you liked my dog. Remember how the three of us used to cuddle in bed on cold winter evenings? Wasn't that nice?

Even our arguments seemed relatively innocuous. Remember the time I came home with those red sheets? I was so excited about them, and it took you a while to tell me that you didn't like them. You preferred plain white. But I listened, didn't I? I eventually changed the sheets, promised never to use them again, and things were better than they'd ever been. At least I thought.

But then things got tough at school, and I guess if I'm honest with myself I started ignoring you. I would come home late and instead of making time for you, I'd keep right on working into the wee hours. I guess I thought at the end of all that you'd be there whenever I wanted you. But I guessed wrong. Eventually, I guess you got fed up. All my early mornings and late nights, taking you for granted. I assumed we could put eachother on hold, and go back to the honeymoon when I had more time. But we couldn't, and now I'm afraid you've found someone better, someone you like more, someone who appreciates you and never sacrifices the time you share.

I miss you- did I already say that? At night especially, but in the early mornings too. Which is mostly when you miss things that are gone. The dog misses you too. At about five this morning, when I thought I just might be on the brink of dreaming of you, thinking you were just outside the door, he started crying, sending the cold reality of your absence back into the room like a blast of freezing air.

I stood up, put on my shoes, and took him outside on a leash. A tiny part of me still hoped you'd be there when I got back- returned to me without a word. True love means never having to say you're sorry, or something like that, right?

But you weren't there. The apartment was still empty, my bed still perfectly made. You hadn't come by- not even to pick up the rest of your stuff- slippers, eyemask, all those little things. Don't you want them, or did you leave them behind on purpose as talismans to make your absence feel all the more acute?

At this point I want to call you dirty names and tell you that you've always been too mercurial. That you're flaky and selfish- you never think about the fact that it is exactly when I have fewer hours to lavish on you that I might need you to stick it out with me the most, stealing moments where we can.

But I know none of these angry words will make you come back to me. In fact, I have absolutely no idea how I might lure you back.

Let's forget, for the moment, about who abandoned who, about questions of love, or the finer points of our incredibly long history together. Let me just say, that in these past weeks, since you left that Monday morning and just never came home, that my longing for you have only increased, my pain seeping deeper into my bones, settling into my limbs and collecting near the back of my neck. Aside from the pains of the heart I suffer at your absence, I feel a madness taking over my brain. I feel a visceral reaction in my cellular structure. I need you. My body needs you, and my mind needs you, even outside of the desperate longing of my heart.

Remember the vacations we took together? To places in time, historical settings, wild cartoon dreamlands where elephants spoke? We can have that all again. And this time it will be different, baby, I swear it. This time I'll put you first. Think about it. The nights are too long without you.

Beatrix

What to do, what to do

For a while, this blog has drifted away from the personal narrative and become a conduit for the little things I like to write. This time, I need to get something off my chest so I can look at it, outside myself, and start understanding it.

Here's the story-

I've been dating the same guy for about five years now, and we're starting to talk about the possibility that we would move in together and/or be married. He is agnostic, I am Wiccan. He has always been supportive of my witchy practices, and is really respectful about beliefs he himself doesn't share.

His family, however, is Christian. Very devotedly Christian. And my family is Christian as well, though of a less, I would say, vigorous variety. Because he and I have not ever lived in close proximity to our families in the last five years we've spent less time with them than you might think. I'm not out of the broom closet, as it were, to my family, and I'm certainly not to his.

I tend to think people's spirituality is their own business. However, I can see that it might be a nasty shock to come to a wedding or someone's home and find out you're actually at a handfasting, or that the person you assumed was just like you is actually pagan.

I have no idea how my family or his would take this, but I can imagine not very well. Recently my father has been asking me about church, and his family has been asking him to return to church as well. I don't know what to do. I don't feel that as a Witch, I need to just out and out sit people down and have some big conversation with them about it. I am who I am, and people find things out about me as they get to know me, right? But in this case, I'm wondering if I need to say, hey boyfriend's family, your son is dating a Witch. And if we make moves to bind ourselves together as a new family, he and I, this new family will be at least one half pagan.I'm wondering if I need to tell my family that too.

If I'm honest with myself I feel fearful about talking about it, too. The stereotypes about Wiccans that people have make me feel really disappointed in the people that have them. And part of me has no desire to engage with those stereotypes directly. I also don't think that my spirituality ought to be anyone's business but mine. However, there is that gap between theory and practice, and in practice, other people's religious proclivities are other people's business, especially when it comes to biological family structures.

So what in the world am I going to do.