The first two weeks of July found me in Dublin, Ireland for my second of three two-week-long residencies for my MFA in Creative Writing through Cedar Crest College. This was the residency that made me choose this program, so I found it fitting that it should be the residency of the year when I found myself able to return after stepping away in 2021 due to the difficulties of the pandemic and its deleterious effects on me.
While I was there, I made a trip to the local occult store with my new friend Sofia and bought myself the “Celtic Spirit Oracle.” Today I used it for the first time to draw a card to help me write a blog post. The card, once pulled, felt perfect to the moment, to this season of my life as a writer and as a person.
Surrender. Keywords: let go, freedom, flow.
The artwork features a faery in profile. Naked, hair flowing, arms wide behind her, accepting. Chin raised, eyes closed, floating into the embrace of the what is to come.
In April, I quit my job. In July, I remain unemployed. I am not desperate for employment, though I do seek it. I’ve spent this year releasing things that weren’t working for me, accepting that which fills me with joy and supports my success where I put in the work. I released desperation along with it.
I do miss going to an office, helping seekers of knowledge answer their questions, teaching them how to get what they need, rubbing elbows with interesting, brilliant people. I don’t miss having my perspective ignored, languishing in a basement without proper ventilation, waiting for work that isn’t coming, not being sought for backup where I am qualified to help, or even being allowed to participate in opportunities that are not completely aligned with my niche job description.
The trauma I have released myself from reliving with the submission of my notice has ebbed enough that I can see where I could have asserted myself more, made my time there bend towards my goals instead of away.
But PTSD can only be Post-Traumatic if you’re not still experiencing the trauma. It’s just trauma continued, stacking one brick onto another, increasing the difficultly day-to-day. It’s finding yourself stuck in thick gelatin while it eats you alive. The gelatinous cube from Dungeons and Dragons that lurks in dark dungeons.
I know you’re not supposed to speak negatively about your employers because then the next employer will always consider you a negative person, but at this point, I can’t find it in me to diminish myself and my experiences for the sake of a job. I was harmed. I advocated for myself and my colleagues before that harm could be a possibility to no avail. I was told in my exit interview by our recently hired HR Director that she would never have let that happen had she been there, and I want so badly to believe her, but she can’t roll back the time, the pain, the institutionalizations, the break in my psyche. Can’t stop every flinch at loud sounds, the panic when I can’t figure out how to make them stop, my anxiety around basements.
I have no problems admitting that I am not sane. I am a person in a world that makes no sense. I am more surprised by people whose minds have remained intact. How do you maintain your mental health in a world so thoroughly lacking in sense, empathy, and community? It’s taken a lot of work, but my Dr. Jekyll controls my Mr. Hyde well enough these days.
Why? Because I surrendered. I let go. I looked at the things in my life that hurt me, that drowned me in pain, fear, anger, and I said no more. Not me. I’m done.
From that moment, my heart lifted, my creativity broke free, I started writing again. Really writing again. New ideas and new energy started coming out of me like nothing I had experienced before and I felt light. That feeling was not fleeting, it stirs within me now, rustles in my chest like Emily Dickinson’s thing with feathers. I listen in awe to the birds in my trees and on my power lines. Free.
My residency in Dublin was everything I could have hoped for. I met amazing writers, got extraordinarily fantastic feedback, honed my ability to do the same for my peers, learned new things, reinvigorated old connections. Surrendered to the flow.
Bought an Aran sweater jacket because even in July Ireland is cold and my jacket was too thin.
Today, I sit in my home office with this card in front of me, this blog post nearly done, considering the steps forward. I am free, I am happy, I am guided. I have so many ideas, so many delightful paths before me. I have a thesis to write about Halflings, a craft essay about folklore and worldbuilding to research, a literary magazine to plan, a YouTube Channel to work on, my laundry to put away.
Oh, so many ways to surrender.
The Druid Scholar 