Minotaur State of Mind
Feb. 1st, 2026 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gillman I do have to wonder if I am a minotaur because of how often we are in a state of transition. Transition has always been very hard for me. As a child, transition meant I was leaving a place of comfort (my mother) and going to a place of stress (my father). When it comes to my sensory issues, a transition means going from one sensory experience to another, which may be unexpected or unpleasant. In school, which I have not yet left, it is always a transition from one grade to the next. I bounce between science and the arts, in both curriculum and career. There is a never ending application process, constantly looking for a new place to live and new roommates. And within myself, I am in constant transition between someone I want to be (queer, expressive, a bit strange) and someone I have to preform as (straight, a good sorority girl, keeping up appearances for my family.), or between a version of myself that I have crafted to keep me safe (the fictional gillman) and the version of myself that remains untouched (the wild jersey devil). My gender, my family history, other things that I won't dive into here....
Much of this is because I'm young. My childhood was unusual in that way, but adolescence and young adulthood is nothing but transition after transition...
The Minotaur is about transition, about that state of being In-Between, unable to fully pull myself up onto one bank or the other. I think about being a gillman and a jersey devil, about how I struggle to draw lines as to where one ends and the other begins. There is such a distance between them, the things that they embody and experience, but they are just two points on my spiderweb. I remind myself that in being a Minotaur, I will likely never be able to draw clear lines within myself.
I'm sure adulthood will sort itself out and I will become more sure of things. I'm sure that my reasons for being a Minotaur will eventually fade into the background and become just a small pebble on the mountain of identity-formation. But right now the yolk is heavy, and I haven't gone to the gym in a few months.
All of this being said, I don't think being secure in things would make me happy. Knowing things such as housing or grad school results would ease me, of course, but within my identity? I don't think I could ever wish my complexity away. I think wishing and washing and tumbling along is apart of it. I think that being still or stationary or sure in anything takes away a bit of the allure. I am in a bath of ice water, and it is good for me, and I just need to dunk my head in and relish in it. I am generally good at relishing in things, so long as I remember to try. I think about one of my favorite songs.
Much of this is because I'm young. My childhood was unusual in that way, but adolescence and young adulthood is nothing but transition after transition...
The Minotaur is about transition, about that state of being In-Between, unable to fully pull myself up onto one bank or the other. I think about being a gillman and a jersey devil, about how I struggle to draw lines as to where one ends and the other begins. There is such a distance between them, the things that they embody and experience, but they are just two points on my spiderweb. I remind myself that in being a Minotaur, I will likely never be able to draw clear lines within myself.
I'm sure adulthood will sort itself out and I will become more sure of things. I'm sure that my reasons for being a Minotaur will eventually fade into the background and become just a small pebble on the mountain of identity-formation. But right now the yolk is heavy, and I haven't gone to the gym in a few months.
All of this being said, I don't think being secure in things would make me happy. Knowing things such as housing or grad school results would ease me, of course, but within my identity? I don't think I could ever wish my complexity away. I think wishing and washing and tumbling along is apart of it. I think that being still or stationary or sure in anything takes away a bit of the allure. I am in a bath of ice water, and it is good for me, and I just need to dunk my head in and relish in it. I am generally good at relishing in things, so long as I remember to try. I think about one of my favorite songs.
Slouching towards the sky's extent
From the edges of a waste
With something darker than a hope
Something brighter, still in fate
In the saddle of my tauntaun
Is a sapphire studded ring
And I keep it to remind me
Who I am and what I'll be
When true simplicity is gained
How much then is lost?
I invested in them feelings
I paid dearly for them thoughts
