Meg, Thy Name is Macropod

It seems that about half of the wangsting that goes on in The Daemon Forum is about forms – which makes sense, the form being one of the most publicly noticeable aspects of a daemon. People always want to be settled, want to have a “cool” form, and somehow see settling as necessary to fitting in or whatever (not the case!). There are also the various camps on whether or not settling actually happens or not. Proponents of the “no-settling” group theorize that no one can be the same personality their whole life, and that the daemon’s form will change according to those shifts.

I belong to the other group. I do believe that daemons settle for one’s whole life, though the age at which this happens varies according to the individual. I feel that there is a core part to the personality that will never change, which makes us recognizable to others even after years of separation – this part is represented by our daemon’s form. I dislike that people seem to think that a settled form is limiting or constricting; rather, I feel that one will settle in a reasonably fitting and comfortable form and proceed to grow into it, reinterpreting and exploring as is needed. Points of an analysis that didn’t work before may do so in the future, and other points may be seen in a different light. A settled form should feel right, your whole life. If you become “de-settled” or the form doesn’t feel okay anymore, than you either weren’t settled at all or you had the wrong form.

Jamal and I have been settled for over a year, and although for the first few months he was a Grant’s gazelle, after a little while it stopped being so comfortable. I knew I was settled as something similar, but gazelle wasn’t it. Jory suggested yellow-footed rock wallaby and it stuck. Wallabies and gazelles inhabit the same ecological niche and have many of the same habits, but the details of yellow-footy fit much better than the gazelle. And so we’ve stayed.

However, there have been points and features of the wallaby that didn’t fit me when we first found it. One of those that particularly bothered me was that I see most macropods as being pretty laid-back and relaxed, while I’ve always been a little high-strung. I shrugged it off though and forgot all about it until recently.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of drama online and off, an unusually high amount. I suddenly realized, though, that it wasn’t bothering me as much as it used to. Instead of anger or hurt, my reaction was to shrug, chuckle, or just go, “Uhh, okay.” Drama-mongering, shit-talking, and general human foibles simply don’t irritate me as much as they did, say, two months ago. I’ve matured a lot in this time – to the point where I’ve grown up a little more, and grown into my settled form a little more. After I let go a lot of my stress and hurt and pain I was feeling, learned to chill out and not worry about it, I just…relaxed. Completely. I can just sit back now, crack a grin, and not feel ruffled at all, a sort of sarcastic zen that I've incorporated into myself without even noticing. To me, that’s definitely a marsupial quality, and my own little proof for my theory.

Exam time is harrowing for most people, but it always seems to be a touch more hectic with a daemon on hand. Probably because they don’t put up with any “Oh, I’ll do it later”s. We always seem to argue the most when it comes to assignments and such, his sensibility warring against my positively appalling tendency to procrastinate until I have no choice but to engage in frenzied working or fail.

Today was fairly bland. I slept in late, because I’m a lazy bum and happen to like sleeping in late. Also my current job often requires me to get up at six-thirty in the morning, so whenever I can catch some extra snooze time, I take it. After realising that, whoopsie-daisy, we’ve gone over our bandwidth limit thereby reducing the internet speed to an agonising crawl, I decided to make pancakes. Because I like pancakes. And to my utter delight, I actually managed to pull off a decent batch. Note for the future however: that recipe needs more sugar.

Then it was off to alternately studying, and mooching on the internet. I’m preparing especially for my history exam, because if I do well on this last thing, I reckon I can get a seven for the subject overall, and I really, really need those higher marks to boost my GPA. Killy naturally started up a lecturing spiel every time my concentration lagged, and I at least managed to organise my notes, and brush up on a bit of ancient Greek, industrial revolution, and Cold War.

After the internet threw a hissy-fit YET AGAIN I gave up in despair for a bit and went downstairs to wash up. Washing up is my particular chore, and I hate it with a passion. If I can somehow dodge it, if only for another day, I will. Drives Mum up the wall. Hence my dear daemon’s astounded stare as I almost willingly trudged to the sink and proceeded to completely drench myself and the floor. I’m a bit dangerous when it comes to household activities.

For some reason, I then decided to play the piano. I stopped taking lessons at the end of last year, after about nine years (and only second grade in exams, shut up I was lazy when it came to practise as well). To my utter devastation, almost a year away from it somehow completely took away my ability to even play a C major scale. However, task memory kicked in after a little bit, and I’ve mostly managed to recall one of my favoured pieces; a slightly advanced version of My Heart Will Go On.

And that was about it! Not the most thrilling of days, but not full of pain and anguish either, so I guess it will pass.

I didn’t want to go in. I’d had enough of clinics and doctors and emergency situations. It was just a migraine; it was something I could handle. I didn’t need a doctor or a roommate or anything. I was fine on my own and without help.

It’s your third migraine in the past 24 hours, she said. I knew exactly what she meant by that. She meant You need to go in. She meant You can’t torture yourself just to spite your roommate. And I just sighed and reached for the phone. I texted the roommate to tell her that I’d go in if it wasn’t better by noon. Of course, it wasn’t.

The lights and the sounds and the smells of outside were horrible to my head. I internally grumbled, pretending to blame it on Mar. If it weren’t for her, I feigned, I wouldn’t even be going.

I got checked up and poked at and asked a million questions until they decided they wanted to give me some drugs and keep me at the clinic for a few hours. I was taken to a little room with two beds. It reminded me terribly of going to the nurse’s office in elementary school. Except in elementary school you weren’t given cups with pills or shots of pretend serotonin.

After she gave me an injection of Imitrex, an anti-nausea pill, and some painkillers, the nurse turned off the lights and left me alone in the room, saying she’d be back to see how I was doing in twenty minutes or so, and that the anti-nausea medication would likely make me tired.

I really didn’t want to be there, but Mar sat at my feet and that somehow made me stay. The injection site still stung horribly, and I was beginning to feel the tightness in my neck and the burning of my face that always comes with Imitrex. The injection was worse than the pill, and my head hurt almost as badly as the first time I tried the Imitrex.

Just be still, said Mar, The nurse said it would be over more quickly with the injection. I just wanted to go home.

But then my migraine started to get better instead of worse. And as that happened I started getting woozy. The bed felt like it was moving, like a car; when I closed my eyes I saw round mutli-colored spidery shapes flashing. I realized my halucinations, however, and whimpered.

It’s probably just the anti-nausea medication. It will wear off soon. So I laid down, and before I knew it I was dozing off. That’s when my roommate started texting me. She’d said she would pick me up, but now she was telling me to find another way to get home. I whined again, not wanting to take a taxi and yet not wanting to walk on my own. Forget her, Mar said, She’s not worth your time like this.

I could hardly disobey, as the medication was still making me feel very weird and sleepy. The nurse came back in, gave me some graham crackers, pudding, and naproxen, and said I could go once I finished them all. I sat up and worked quickly, wanting to get out of there. Pace yourself. Remember how nauseous you were before? I sighed, and resigned to eating more slowly. Then I downed the pills and started to put my boots back on.

The journey back home was interesting, even though the walk wasn’t far. I told my roommate and my mother that I was fine to walk home; my roommate unwilling to pick me up as she was across the city and my mother having no way to do so. I didn’t want to take a damn taxi. I felt a bit lightheaded and stumbled a bit, but it was an oddly aware lightheaded. I stood for about five minutes waiting for a train which basically doubled the trip time. When I finally got home I collapsed onto my bed, and then remembered that my time at the clinic made me miss my biology lab.

Don’t worry about that right now! Get some more sleep. I complied. I don’t know what I’d do without her.