Tags
death, Dreams, Drink Me, Fake tan, hallway monster, heart break, imagination, loo, Mad Hatters Tea Party, monsters, Queen of Hearts, super powers, wenches
There’s method in my madness, although it may be utterly unintelligible to others, or even to my own good self.
One of my many, many quirks is this – I’ve always considered my imagination to be a secret weapon, kind of like a super power.
As a young child, I had a wildly over-active mind, full of ghosts and goblins and invisible people. Who knows, perhaps some of them were really there? Anyway, two main night-time fantasies persisted, around the concept of monsters.
My monsters looked a little like Sully (see pic) although perhaps a little scarier.
First – I had this idea that when us kids had gone to bed, my parents took off their ‘skins’ and underneath they were really monsters. I never thought they wanted to kill us or anything, just that they had another ‘face’ we never saw.
Second – there was a hallway monster, who wasn’t either of my parents. And he was really scary! He hung around outside my bedroom door which meant he was in the way of me getting to the toilet. I learned I could have a ‘conversation’ with him, in which we made a deal. He could be outside my room all he wanted, except when I needed to go to the loo (Aussie word for ‘toilet’). And since we never formally crossed paths, I figured it worked. 😉
As I graduated from monsters to real life fears, I found different ways to use my imaginal powers. I had endless horrific nightmares from the ages of 10-16. I dreamt not only of my own death, but that of almost every person I knew. I’ve been at my funeral many times over in my dream world. Some of the dreams I dreamt of others were frightening. Like the one where my sister was beheaded and no matter what I tried I couldn’t stop them…
In response to my night time terrors I actively imagined all sorts of things. I had this theory that if I dreamt or thought of it first, it could no longer come true in the real world. In this way, I protected the people I loved because I’d taken away horrible possibilities by thinking about them already. Weird, I know!
Moving into adulthood, my terror became that of heart break. I would seek to expunge the ‘last memory’ of being somewhere special with ex-boyfriends/partners by taking myself back to those places whenever I could. So they no longer held any fear or sadness and once again became ‘just a place’.
It seems like another lifetime ago that I had these funny ideas and ways of handling my emotions.
The exception is dealing with the ‘Andre’ stuff.
I’ve been near and around where he lives, but not by design. It wasn’t so long ago I figuratively dropped my lunch when my therapist asked me how I’d handle things if I ever did come face to face with Andre again. I’ve never purposely sought out any of the places I’d spent time with him.
But tomorrow night I’m going back to the ‘scene of the crime’: the club where we first met. And that’s because my good friend L and I are going to a fancy dress party!!
Hence the fake tan. The reality of my costume involves a fair bit of flesh on display and my beautiful Thai suntan has faded in Melbourne’s lingering Winter.
The fake tan is also a thin chemical layer of protection. Something between me and… the spectres of ‘past-Svasti’ and ‘past-Andre’.
Actually, I’m not really going there on purpose to exorcise ghosts – its just there was a party on that I damn-well wanted to go to! And I decided, after three years I’m way past ready, damnit!
L knows the deal with all that stuff ofcourse, and we’re both there for each other in the good chick friendship kind of way as well as the – let’s be dirty little stop outs kind of way…
Logical brain says – I don’t expect he will be there. Ofcourse he won’t be there. I know he won’t be there.
Fear says – but what if by some freak happenstance he is there?
Shut up says my intuition. Its just not gonna happen, okay?
I’m going over to L’s place after work tomorrow. We’re picking up our costumes on the way. At her place we’ll primp and preen, do hair and make up, help each other into our outfits and drink outrageous amounts of vodka.
The theme is ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’. And we’re going as wenches at the Queen of Hearts’ court. Ofcourse! There’s a red velvet corset, a short, sassy bustle-y skirt and some stay up fishnets coming my way. And a faux black velvet hat. Plus accoutrements.
Should be a hoot. I really and truly don’t party like this very much or very often. Must be the arrival of Spring – both L and I decided it was time to let our hair down and then the party came up.
Actually, I’m so darn toey that I’m just hoping there’s fun with some tall, dark ‘n’ handsome Mad Hatters – and I betcha anything if I opened the “Drink Me” bottle, there’d be some short term amnesia involved…
~Svasti
P.S. Jay – no rude remarks about the number of posts I’ve made this week please!! Yesterday’s came out of nowhere and so did today’s. Sometimes a girl’s just gotta write…
P.P.S. I’m still in a little bit of shock that I’m actually gonna post this to my blog…
Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness 
Have fun! You deserve it. I hope he won’t be there. ♥
Hi Lee! Thanks for visiting my blog. I’m pretty certain he won’t be there… its just residual fears gasping their last breath before they’re proved wrong 🙂
Like I’d pick on you for posting like a million times a week….
Seriously, that’s interesting about your parents, particularly since it’s true: even the most benevolent parents generally do put on masks for their kids, pretending they’re a lot more together, a lot more in control than they really are (it amazes me now whenever I think of my peers with kids and compare them to how I looked at adults as a kid–thinking “wow, could those grown-ups back then really have been as clueless and lost as my friends and me now?” Of course, the answer’s yes…. )
@Jay… subtle! 😉
It is kind of interesting about the ‘monster parents’ thing. I remember my sister and I constantly trying to work out what we knew about our parents as kids. We found them very mysterious and we didn’t feel like we understood them at all. Little did we realise the world of pain they were clearly living in.
Fake tan works for me. There’s no way I’m going to sunbake when it’s 42 degrees!!
Interesting… when I was a child I was convinced that there was a skeleton hiding in my parents’ bedroom and I was terrified to walk past it in the nighttime to get to my own room.
This post brought those memories back, Svasti.
I can even pinpoint my fear of skeletons to an episode if Homocide (remember that show?) when I was about 4 years old. It was called ‘Skeleton Key’.
It opened with a young couple on a bushwalk, and they were mucking around, got into some wrestling and the girl rolled down the hill and smack!! Face-to-face with Mr Grinning Skull.
I was at my grandparents’ creepy old weatherboard house in Rockdale (Sydney’s south) at the time and I was seriously freaked out for years about the dark and the skeletons hiding in it.
I was still freaked out til I was about 23 or 24…
Silly, aren’t I?
@Amanda – sunbaking blows, its definitely not on the top of my list of things ‘to do’…
Childhood fears express our sense of separation. I think too often parents (at least of our generation and earlier) didn’t treat kids like small people who could understand things. We were all too often kept in the dark.
And ofcourse its hard to shed your fears when you haven’t been taught how to, or what really lies beneath them.
That’s why I love being a yogini and the dharmic path. Its an antidote to all that crap. Not that it means ofcourse, we’re never gonna be fearful again, just that the understanding of the world continuously expands and life and people become much less mysterious… or moreso, if you know what I mean. But in a good way.
I’m glad you got over your fear of skeletons. Personally, I like looking at skeletons and bones when I get the chance. 🙂
It’s the pits to not go places because of fear of who you might run into. I hope this all goes well for you and you have a great time.
@risingrainbow – good news is, it was almost an anti-climactic experience. He wasn’t there ofcourse. And it seems to be the last nail in the coffin of the latent fears that were still kicking around. At least I hope so!!
Svasti my sweet,
You went, you saw, you conquered!
He wasn’t there, which is fantastic. Write this down and remember it for another time when you need it.
Next time you are filled with fear, pull out your writing about this. You went to a place you feared, exposed enough to need a fake tan and dressing in costume, no less.
So, you can do anything.
@Dano – yeah it was cool, but also kind of anti-climactic… a little bit of unexpected dotting of the ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s and all that… 🙂