Oak Leaves saves the day!

I apologized for yet again using my livejournal as a place to vent all the negativity in my life. I am grateful to have such an outlet and to know that at least one of you will read this, always an ear for a Druid with a heartache. I am striving, always striving for optimism. It's just such an uphill battle sometimes.

I have been having a really down several days. This always happens to me when I carry the weight of others during difficult times. Nothing is wrong in my life (except me ignoring the advances of my significant other, which I plan to make up for before I go camping), but I immediately send wards to those in need, regardless of the backlash to my personal life. It's draining. It puts my guard down and make me succumb to negative thoughts and influences.

And it adds up when the shite hits the fan for too many people at once. I have been so preoccupied with others' hurts and distresses that I didn't make the cake for my best friend (who does not have breast cancer!)'s birthday. She shrugged it off, apparently, but silly me felt compelled to ask her if I have changed last night over beer. (I hate beer. No I don't. How dare I say that!it's ) She answered by saying yes, I had. I never would have dreamed of missing a birthday cake (something for which I am known), but I didn't make one for her. You know, not a big deal; it's just a cake, she says, but I can see it is more.

I don't hurt people very often, and when I do, it almost consumes me. I have hurt three people this year. Empathy, though art not kind!

What prompted me asking her if I had changed? Well, the remarks of people close to me who have noted just that: this summer has changed me dramatically. J told me himself that many of the Cranes may feel they are meeting me again for the first time at Summerlands. Really, I asked him? Absolutely, he says. You are different. Not bad different, but stronger and more...well, different than you were.

I chose to take that as a compliment.

So, negativity has flowed through me, and it has almost consumed me. Depression was setting in, and then I got my Oak Leaves.

There is a several page spread about the Wellspring Bardic Chair competition, including pictures and even sheet music from my song. As I flipped through the pages, describing all that we accomplished at Wellspring this year and all the new beginnings that we initiated, I felt my chest swell with joy and happiness for the part, though small, that I am playing in all of this. I cried as I read, not because of the words on the page, but because of the words behind the pages, of the emotions expressed by those who wrote them, of the ideals they stand for and the part I play in them--and they play in my life.

Thanks, Oak Leaves, from a girl who has recently been through the ringer, for being a beacon of hope when the world makes you feel alone and unimportant. When everything seems against you, and you feel laid to waste, it is then that Awen Rains Down...