Enough

So, you may be asking yourself, what the hell happened the last couple of months? Well, the answer is many things. Many things happened, many of which can’t be shared here for privacy concerns; but suffice to say, job instability, financial problems, and the final nail in the coffin, my body’s tendency to fuck me over at every opportunity.

Being disabled isn’t easy. Physically and mentally my body limits what I can do to the point where, very often, weeks pass and I’ve barely registered it, because I can’t summon the energy to go outside, to exercise, to do anything but do my job and lay back down in my bed again. COVID made that worse. I’m plural, so not all of the members of my system feel called to the Netjeru. Hell, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes the only act of worship I can muster is a desperate plea to anyone that will listen: please, make this easier.

As you might imagine, maintaining a full ritual calendar and sticking to it isn’t easy given all of these conditions. But I felt good about what I was doing, when I was doing it. It felt meaningful. I hated myself for not being able to live up to my lofty expectations, even though the reality of the situation was quite clear. I am ill. I have other things going on in my life that prevent me from putting my whole life into this. I wanted it to feel okay, but it didn’t. If I didn’t do it, who would? Where is a thriving community of Kemetics to take up this work? Did I fail the gods?

So that’s where I’m at. I can’t tell you I feel better, I can’t tell you I’ll ever feel better, ever feel good enough to be able to keep up a calendar. I hold onto the idea that sincerity of faith is what matters; not belief, but rather, that I am trying my best. In matters of ritual, in matters of Ma’at. Because in the end, even if I’m bedridden, even if I can’t find it in me to light a stick of incense or pray at shrine, I can do the right thing. I can do Ma’at in my everyday life.

That’s enough, I think. That will always be enough.