Me and QoH have a long, silly, interesting, smart, creative, and often challenging relationship. We became friends my sophomore year of high school. We became friends in French class, after I got dumped by my first love. QoH didn't really like me at first, but somehow we got past all of that.
In the 18 (holy cow!) years that we have been friends there have been times when we see each other every weekend and there have been times when we hardly talk for a year. We've grown apart more than once, but somehow we've always managed to come back together. I could go into detail here, but really what is important is many times life took us in different directions.
So, what's the point? And, more importantly, what does this have to do with Paganism? Hang on, I'm getting there.
I attended my first public ritual in 1995 with QoH. In my beginning years of witchcraft we played at magick together. We read rituals out of books and did little spells in her parent's living room. We read tarot and dreamed of magick being more like the movies (well, maybe that was just me). Over time my interest in Paganism deepened, while her's fizzled.
No biggie.
But in the last couple of years it has become a biggie. Our lives have taken us in completely different directions again. Although I feel that we still have a lot in common and we have a long history of love, there are a lot of differences too.
Part of this most recent growing away from each other has been related to me getting deeply involved in my spiritual community. Because of the connections that I am making, some of my more mundane relationships have suffered. In my search for spiritual community, I lost some of my personal community; the people who love me as Dani and don't know Phoenix.
I love my spiritual community and I am happy with the commitments that I have made to it. Changes are going to happen and there is nothing that we can do to stop that, but life is all about balance. I am okay with the two of us coming together and playing catch up because we are living different lives. That actually feels really good to me, like coming home. But it wasn't good for her. She still needed the relationship that we used to have, the me that I used to be.
QoH isn't the same QoH that she used to be either, just like Phoenix isn't Dani anymore. I get it in my head, but it doesn't change how yucky it feels in my heart. I don't really know what the answer is on this one.
But I do know that going forward I will use all the lessons that we learned together on how to be friends. I hope that we grow towards each other again, but I understand that might not happen. And I know that the foundation we built together will continue to support the new relationships that will come into my life.
