Splitting Headache
It's time for all this to be over. And by over I mean not just my departure but the end of the absolute insanity that posesses this house.

You really have no idea. And I really don't want to go into it.

But I think I may seriously lose my mind here. I may lose it and then it will just be gone and I will be a blithering idiot for the rest of my life.

I am completely overwhelmed: by dream, by memory, by noise, by violence, by frustration, by obligation, by calling, by lonliness, by anger, by fear.

Where the hell am I?

Earlier today my sisters errupted in violence over who had the rights to a pair of scissors. Liz attacked Eleanor and ended up herself bleeding and then hitting Alyson in the head three times so hard she broke down crying. All Alyson was trying to do was intervene between a second grader who was acting like a second grader and Liz, who was acting on her psychotically violent temper. Liz is a very smart girl, she just has ... problems. In some ways, I identify with her intellect, creativity, and sense of fantasy more than I identify with Alyson's tempered passivity and maternal instinct. But Alyson has the same dislike of noise and conflict that I have and a great love of compromise and conflict resolution. I sat there the whole time they fought, paralyzed, holding myself still and silent on the couch. As soon as I was sure no one was going to die and I'd gathered myself enough to chase Liz away from her attack on my other sisters, I got in the car and left.

I am a ghost in this place. I am nowhere, stifling and stolid. I am breaking into pieces and what is left of me is showing me things that I don't want to see; important things that I can't ignore. But I'm so frightened they're just more lies I'm telling myself to make myself feel important and real. You see, I thrive on the sense of something epic. That's why I'm a writer, a wiccan, and an idealist. That's why I'm me. But I'll often create these situations out of nothing, to feed off of them. But I do have real needs and real wants and real desires, it's just a matter of deciphering them from all the rest of the emotional garbage in my life.

Maybe I dream too much?

Today I had a calling and I'm not sure whether to answer it. I went back to my high school to visit my teachers. I was visiting Mr. Prufer, my anthropology teacher, and telling him a bit about life, the universe, and everything. Prufer is a very unique guy... he seems to see everything objectively. He also teaches the high school's World Religions course... and it was with him that Alyson and I found our way over to Seattle at 5:30 AM one spring break a few years ago just to take part in a Buddhist meditation service.

He was on his way out the door to a teacher's holiday party today when I mentioned that I had recently "converted" to Wicca. He seemed surprised for a moment and then blurted, "You should come and speak to my classes tomorrow!" I knew what he was talking about, he always has someone from each lectured "Religion" come in and do a Q and A with his classes. I had always wanted to come in and hear the Wiccan speak but was always too timid to give myself a reason to. Now he was asking me to be that person for everyone else. And I feel completely unqualified. I gave him a look like Who, me? You want me to do WHAT?, which he very obviously saw. Just at that moment, a girl opened the door and poked her head into the room.

"Oh, the other witch!" he said, and introduced us. "I was just asking Kat to come in and talk to the classes tomorrow (the last day before break) about Wicca. I don't think she wants to."

"Uhhhh..." I said.

"Woah," the girl said, "I was just coming to ask if you'd found anyone to talk to our class about ... that..."

and so we all fell into a momentary stupor of Serendipity, three Seekers in a highschool classroom.

I guess I should go talk to them. But really, I am totally not the person to talk to. I'm solitary, I'm a complete newbie, I'm unusually neutral about christians, I don't externalize my "faith"-- I hardly represent the majority of Wiccans. But maybe that's a good thing. And maybe I need to talk about what I feel to understand it. Maybe I need some more faith.

But my dad wants me to go snowshoeing with him tomorrow and I won't be able to any other time. I never spend time with my dad, mostly because we don't get along that great. He wants me to be something I don't care to be and he doesn't understand who I am. But that's parents for you. Sigh.

Should I answer the calling or perform my obligation to my family? That's life here for you, torn in both directions. Now of course mom wants to know why Prufer asked me to speak in his classes and all I can do is grunt and shrug. They don't want to know and I don't want to tell them.

I don't know what to do. I need a hug.