☾ What did it feel like? ☾

When a Spell Backfires: Grace, Ghosts, and the Power of Showing Up May 05, 2025

Song Mood: “Under the Milky Way” by The Church

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After a string of hard nights and harder lessons, this is what I'm holding onto.

It's the part no one prepares you for: the crash after the thrill. The silence after the spell fizzles. The space between bad dates and real clarity. The kind of heartache that doesn't come from being wronged—but from not finding what you were hoping for.

I've had three rough dates in a row. Not horror stories. Just… mismatches. Nyx, with her dungeon and contradictions. Madison, with her bright mind and warm heart but no spark of attraction. Another with promises that never showed up in person. Nothing cruel. Nothing unforgivable. Just real people being themselves—and me realizing that no amount of shared interests or kind texting can replace mutual desire.

That's a truth I have to honor. Because if I pretend, if I fake it, someone will get hurt—and not just me.

It's moments like this where I can feel that old pull—the bitterness, the retreat, the urge to blame. But I've grown enough to know that those are just pain in disguise. Bitterness is pain with armor. Blame is pain with a mask. I don't want either of those in my house.

Years of my life were filled with that bitterness and pain. The blame of what I must have done wrong rising like bad gas station coffeee threatening to make me sick.

I want to run from it, the pain, the feeling of loneliness and that thought that I am broken and no one will ever see me.

So I sit with it. I let the pain speak. I let it burn, just a little. And then I rise. Not bitter. Not closed. Just clearer. Still soft. Still seeking.

And I remember what helps: the rituals I've built. The water I drink in the morning. The music I play at night. The stories I tell here. The magic I try to shape with every honest word.

I slap in headphones and let the music do the heavy lifting until I am crying alone in the dark at 3 am and it feels like heaven.

I know that in the morning my second place awaits.

My Coffee House coven.

A little drive-thru, a dozen or so women—cis and trans—who smile at me in the morning and flirt and talk and pass me coffee like a sacrament. It's where I go to remember that the world is still kind. Still curious. Still alive.

I draw power from them. From their kindness. From their presence. And I walk out just a little taller. A little lighter. A little more ready to stay open.

Three bad dates in a row.
That's more enough to make the old ghosts whisper:
“Run. Hide. Blame.”
“No one loves you fat boy.”
But I know now that bitterness is just pain in armor.
So I let myself feel it.
I sit with it.
And then I rise.
Still open. Still soft. Still seeking.

I didn't lose anything. I learned something. And the next connection—real, mutual, electric—won't have to fight through my defenses to reach me.