27. Fire signs.
To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which, for better or for worse, constitutes self-respect, is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference…. To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect.
-Joan Didion, Self-respect: Its Source, Its Power. 1961
Something happened this week, something uncannily synchronous with the onset of my period: this week something broke in me where my sadness and guilt and fear gave way to pure, glorious, white-hot, vengeful, rageful, furious, indignant, incandescent anger. It moved through me, lighting me up from the inside, evaporating my tears and burning off all the tender spots, cauterizing the wound; a healing, cleansing wave of wrath and in its wake: a breath, a peace—fertile soil.
This summer I’ve been writing, thinking, feeling, and ruminating about the recent and distant past, about slights and wrongs, real and perceived, my own and others’; about being disliked and disapproved of; arguing with myself about myself, trying to puzzle out this impossible dilemma of how much of myself I can tone down, compromise, or modulate to make other people happy while still managing to keep my soul intact. This week, I’ve come out on the other side—the fuck it side, the fuck you side. I’ve come out on my own side.
As someone in recovery—from trauma, from substance use, from people-pleasing—as someone whose identity has been built around making other people happy, displeasing others by refusing to abandon myself can feel like death, like total annihilation, like a sweeping blaze, torching everything in it’s path. But the right kind of conflagration can be life-giving, seeding the forest floor with new growth, opening the canopy to new light, the rain and ash permeating the soil, slaking the earth’s thirst and hunger for nourishment.
I’m coming to understand that anger is a necessary and healing creative force, and the more we suppress its natural expression, the more resentment builds up like dead wood. Anger is generative, and so is conflict, and neither anger nor conflict is the same as abuse, no matter what an aggrieved other might have us believe.
I’m coming to understand that integrity means developing one’s own internal values system and living in accord with it, rather than—and without regard for—what other people may think. This requires a trust in and a commitment to one’s self, which, when it comes down to it, is so simple: why not trust in yourself, when, ultimately, you’re all that you have? The only true abandonment is the abandonment of the self.
I’m coming to understand that, whether by trauma response, coping mechanism, or an innate feature of my soul or spirit or personality; my insistence on my own truth—my insistence on the autonomy of my own mind—has kept me alive, has kept me intact, has saved me, again and again. I haven’t come this far only to come this far.
Because I’m utterly dedicated to my own well-being, survival, growth, and thriving— because I will no longer, can no longer abandon myself—you will not find me ashamed, squeezing myself into spaces where I’m not welcomed lavishly and loved well. You will instead find me alive, alight, ablaze: setting good fire to dead wood, giving me back to myself.
The Tower
The Tower is the card of the promise that all that has grown calcified, outdated, and overwrought will crumble under its own weight, eventually. There is nothing to do but watch it fall; the danger lies in trying to hold on to that which is crumbling. The Tower speaks to cataclysmic change, upheaval, disruption and turmoil, but do not be afraid: the old world must die to make way for new life, and after the Tower comes the Star- the symbol of new life, new hope, faith, renewal, inspiration, and beauty. And so it is.
Home + The World explores the ways we become exiled: through trauma, addiction, oppression, grief, loss, and family estrangement; and the ways we create belonging: through food and cooking, through community care and recovery and harm reduction, through therapy and witchcraft and making art and telling stories and taking pictures and houseplants and unconditional love and nervous system co-regulation and cake. All content is free; the paid subscriber option is a tip jar. Thank you for being here and thank you for being you.
⚔️❤️ Jodi
Yes, Queen! Burn, baby, burn.
Oh, my… transformation on fire. As someone who has lived through these ages and stages, just wait until the anger passes.
At one point it protected me and helped stop the aggression of others. But then you know what they say about when you have a hammer??? Eventually, for me, anger became a door to walk through - no one hangs in the doorway. For me it’s a red flag that I’m not seeing myself.
This is so darn well written and loaded with vulnerability. I love reading about you and your musings of your life.