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.