Fettucini

So, this one was really difficult for me... I'm actually about to reveal things about myself that I don't normally divulge even to my friends most of the time. This task actually came up purely as coincidence to some crap that happened to happen two days before i did it. My ex fiance decided that she no longer wanted to talk to me, see me, be my friend, or ever have anything to do with me ever again... Then my friend Pixie told me about this task. I decided to do it to bring myself some closure. I ended up burning a few pictures of her and us, a wallet she bought me a long time ago, a valentines day card she handmade three years ago, a handpainted portrait of the two of us, and then I crushed a quartz crystal pendant she had bought me for my birthday and threw a pinch of the quartz dust in the fire as well for symbolism. And I have to say, I honestly feel a bit better after this whole experience. I feel like I'm no longer trapped by the "what might be" and am free to move on with my life. It was a very emotionally and spiritually freeing experience. I was moved by this feeling of freedom to write a poem.

Burned away all the emotional debris in my heart and soul. The fires of cleansing make way for the yet to be had, and leaving room for the new experiences to come. like the phoenix, I rise from the ashes, and my new life unfolds before me. I am Sean Campion, and i am reborn.

One of my rare and randomly eloquent moments. These don't happen very often often, so I felt that it should be recorded somewhere. So, here's to burning the past, and living in the now, not letting your past destroy your future.

Møbius

A piece of my past? Really?

Well, I straddle the line of people who believe that every experience bad or good should be embraced as something that helps us be who we are now, as well as being things that we need to firmly move beyond lest we begin dwelling on them and allowing them to interfere with life's continuance. So needless to say, this task made me feel like John Kerry during a war debate.

I gathered my materials with care, searching my half-cleaned bedroom and garage for things that seemed sentimental, but I had hidden from myself to prevent dwelling and whatnot. I came up with a shirt from my first real job as an adult (7-Eleven, where no one actually is an adult, just really good at pretending), which was a deeply childish place that would have trapped me forever had a sad accident never threw me from that garden, a shirt from my middle school (an evil place that tried to take away my childhood and replace it with endless stacks of physics and calculus books), a bit of decoration from the front of a book of poetry I wrote for my first love, a girl who I'd known since third grade and flirted with until we dated in freshman year, a letter written to me by a girl who I loved and was engaged to for a short period of time (on the back she'd drawn a picture of me and the girl I was dating after her - she meant well, but really that was insane), and a ribbon I wore on my wrist for almost a year as I pined for a girl who I let break my heart not once, but three times in just under a year.

Needless to say it all needed to run into a Firebat in a dark alley.

Lacking a pressure suit equipped with a flame thrower, I did the next best thing: wrangled up my fellow Adherents, lit up the chiminea (sp?... Never mind. It's spanglish.), put on some appropriate music (Eisenfunk, then Military Set on bagpipes) and started ceremoniously interring our memories into the flames.

As we did so, I felt part of me evaporate away, and a weight lift. For a split moment, I was at a loss, something had departed my soul, and I panicked. Ease came to me, though, as the fire cleansed and cauterized, and the realization settled over me that while I had all those memories still, I was freed from their bonds of grief.


Afterword

I know this isn't the most original completion of this task, but it's one that I feel bears being evaluated on spirit, not originality. If we don't get a bunch of votes, I won't care. We did this one for our own reasons, and it did it's job. We're sharing it with you not to be judged on it's completeness, but so that this community I've grown richly within and that Fettucini is beginning to come into can see a bit of our souls and get to know us a little better.

Thank you.