Beginnings

I'm a witch.  I guess.

I still lived at home when I first started practicing.  I snuck around late at night after everyone had gone to bed setting up altars in my room and doing whispered rituals.  My first real working was actually in response to a letter from an ex-boyfriend.  We only dated for a short time, but I was young and fell hard and believed the lies he spun.  Two years after he dumped me, he felt the need to make a cryptic apology--for what I still don't know, there were so many many things to apologise for--and mailed me a letter that bothered me way more than I felt it should have.  So my first real Samhain was a ritual burning of his letter and severing of psychic ties, and it worked, and I suppose I should thank him for that small grace if nothing else.  He devastated me, but at least he helped me find out who I am.

I read a lot of books. (That shouldn't be past tense; I still read a lot of books.)  I whispered and snuck around. I lost a Christian boyfriend because I told him nature was my religion.  And then, right before leaving home to move to a small town,  I connected with a woman who was putting together a coven..  I joined anyway, and kept in touch, and when Small Town Boyfriend Number Three didn't work out, I moved home and became a regular member.  

After hiding my inclinations for so long, and almost losing myself in Rural Hell, I decided to quietly "come out".  I started wearing a pentacle, even to work.  I didn't volunteer the information, but for years if I was asked my religion I stated I was a witch (or a wiccan, depending on the company).  I didn't feel "ready" to assume the title, but given my issues with feelings of unworthiness I decided the best way to grow into it was to embrace it upfront.

It didn't really work out that way.

My circle broke up after about 5 years. Our growth had petered out anyway; rituals had become little more than hanging out in front of a bonfire.  I moved again, and tried to find a Craft community, but only found posers and hedonists.  I had no safe place to practice ritual outside, so I stopped.   Now I live overseas, in a highly urbanized area that, while interesting to be in overall, is at best "intolerant" of this type of spirituality.  I am in hiding again, but this time I feel disconnected from that core, the essence that sustained me when I was younger.  I've failed no one but myself, but isn't that the hardest failure to deal with anyway?  And I'm not wholly sure how to get back.  

Ritual feels empty.  But then I feel empty.  And at its heart, I suppose that's the problem.