I am, especially to those who really know me, rather an emotional person.
I cry at the drop of a hat, smile when I see something I doubt others would notice, laugh for the little things and get irritated by stupidity (especially when it comes out of my own head). Positive and negative live and share the moments in my daily life.
When it comes to my "tarot face", I'm a rather friendly reader and will do what I can to only give my sitters the advice I see in the cards, and I always try and remind them, if it's bad, it gets better.
My "home face", on the other hand, is a complete shambles. Lately, my emotions have been completely out of sync with each other, and my two faces can't decide which one should be in place at which time anymore. I mean, really, I feel like the poster child for Bi-polar treatment most nights!
Tonight is one of those nights. I had a really amazing evening, vacuuming the house after the 5 pm cartoon (please note, I just looked for the number "5" on my "D" key), having a shower and then rolling and frying flatbreads for supper. I even watched both episodes of "Law and Order" on SABC3 and then "Supernatural", and decided, sod it, I only need to wash my hair tomorrow, not take a whole shower, so I did the dishes, too.
However, while I was busy with the dishes I thought about my friend Hannes.
I miss him so much. He died last May and I only found out October, not really because it was anyone's fault. We weren't the type of friends that spent hours talking on the phone or texting each other, but when we saw each other we spent hours catching up and chatting.
Just before J and I got involved Hannes and I met online. We both worked in Tyger Valley in 2005/6 and just never gave it a shot, so meeting a year or so later and chatting from there we became friends. It happened every now and then that we would both speculate on what would have happened if we'd ever started dating while we worked in Tyger Valley. He always said he was interested, but never showed it because at that stage he was still in a relationship, albeit an unhappy one. For my part, my gaydar was still in its fledgling stage, so I was clueless about him.
The point is, when we made ogies at each other we never spoke; when we did speak neither of us were ready for anything. And when I wanted to discuss it again, I found out he'd had a heart attack five months previously.
I think I thought about Hannes because of the course I'm on at the moment. It has been, politely put, an emotionally fucked up ride for me. Again, it's no-one's fault at all. In fact, the specific lesson I had in mind that sparked thoughts of Hannes went along these lines:
Our ollamh made us write out a list of eight people, a maximum of two celebrities; the rest were people we'd met or had in our lives. Then he said, "Write down one quality that person taught you about." So, in a different colour, we wrote a single quality our people had taught us (for instance, Jaqcueline Carey taught me, "Love as thou wilt" - be open and accepting of love and giving it). Then the ollamh said, "Under that quality, write a colour that you feel describes that person." Which we did. Afterwards we discussed the lesson and he gave us tips on how to bring those colours into our lives. One of the easiest ways is a bracelet, so he suggested we weave a bracelet with all the colours we listed so that each time we see the bracelet or one of the colours around us, we'd be reminded of that quality.
Hannes' lesson to me was to take joy in the surprises Life sends my way, and his colour is black.
I'm having so much trouble dealing with this that it's actually ridiculous. Right now, I miss my friend, and I want to discuss this with him. The horrid irony, despite knowing I'll meet him in our next lives, is that he is the one person I can't discuss this lesson with.
