i do not fear February this time around, for the first time in literally years. This damnable month has been my nemisis for longer than i care to remember.

There was always the normal "i am single i hate this month because valentine's day makes me feel ugly and hideous and worthless" kick that destroyed whatever self-image i had managed to build up over the year. This was there, this was always there. This was, in the end, bearable. (and in retrospect, silly).

Far worse, it was in the February of eighth grade the friend i considered my best for years brought the gradual decline of our friendship to a sharp point... and stabbed me in the back with that same sharpness, betraying me and exploiting the weakness only she knew i had at that time. i still miss her.

and it was February, some years later, in which i sat, and waited, over weeks, to see if a condition a close friend had was merely excess vessels on her brain stem... or the serious medical condition that killed her father when she was in sixth grade. she was, in the end, OK. but it was sheerly terrifying.

there are things from over the years i do not even *remember* anymore--most of them i have literally blocked from my mind because of their pain.

None of these hells of February were anything, however, compared to the fact that it was in a February i began the long, and slow process of destroying my own mind.
It's interesting, now, in retrospect... what i did, and why i did it... equally as fascinating is that then, i was the tagger-on, the wannabe witch, while she took wicca properly. Now it is i who remain solidly pagan, and she who has wandered back to her roots of christianity...
it's 10th grade. February. i am lost in my mind. i have nothing to cling to, no faith and nobody and nothing makes sense anymore.
So i cling to *her*, the finn, my--since i lost the first--best friend. the one i ...tend to worship. for she is everyting a girl *should* be, tall, blonde, gorgeous, smart, charming. And she bothers to associate with the likes of *me*?
i need something, some belief something... she is perfect she is wise she is solid. she must be right, she can do no wrong. wicca is right for her, it works, she must be right she can do no wrong. this must be what i want too. if i take this... i may in some way become a shadow of her... the thing i thought i wanted to be.
that's it. that's the one reason i took wicca as my "religion". because it was hers. no thought as to what was good for *me*. just, it was hers, it had to be right.
after some months i realized what i was doing. that this was *not* working for me quite right. (not that wicca was not my path, i'd *alway8 been fascinated by energy and souls and minds. but because of my REASONS it was wrong. i about-faced and ran back to what i knew was safe.
For the better part of a year and a half i was "christian", but again, because it was easy. because it was safe. not because it *meant* something to me.

within this year and a half came the next february. at this time i *think* i am christian. i am afraid of being drawn back to my "sinful" ways of the previous year. i convince myself that i was most seceptable to the "demons" in february because it was february i first "gave in" to the "sin". i think i am "weak" during this time, and must resist "reverting" to my old ways. i fear to return.
and yes, the "voices" do return. they *do* call to me--they have been calling all year. i have merely been too much in denial to hear them. this time i can hear them. and i fight them. and i stay "christian". and i convince myself i 'win'.

by the following february i am *so used* to living in complete and utter terror of the month i literally almost give myself a nervous breakdown in february for the *waiting*. "its a week into february and all hell has not broken loose yet! something must be WRONG! the longer it takes the worse it will be!" and literally almost collapse from the fear. the one high point is being given a single red rose by my love, for valentines.

now, however, for the first time in *literally years* i am not dreading february. i do not have to fight the "demons" because i *am* the demons of my old mind, i am comfortably at terms with the fact the pagan path IS my way, my life. i have realized that people *do* come and go, and that loss is a way of life. and i have no need anymore to build valentines up to a massive massive colossus of a day--because i now know love is not about one day for giving tokens and proclaiming devotion. instead, *every* day means as much. (thank you, andrew-sama, for showing me this.). but for the first time in as long as i can remember... february is no longer a monster but merely another month.

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