Hey Occulties,
You know, today was my friend Shea’s birthday. She would have been 35. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her. As I’m sure many of you know through your own personal losses, it’s very hard to lose someone you love so very much. The pain never really goes away – at least in my experience, – one just gets used to it.
Since she is heavy on my mind, and still so much a part of my soul, I would like to share a story about her with you. It’s a spell story, and a funny one at that, because Shea did like spells. 😉
When I was maybe 22/23 and she was maybe 21 (yes, I was in college for five years, feel free to judge me, ha!), we were both into spell casting, but she was very new into it. I don’t recall her as having a boyfriend at the time, and I’m almost sure she didn’t have one. She had come to my house and asked to borrow one of my books on love spells, and I of course lent it, telling her not to worry too much about x or y instruction in the book (it was one of those “THOU SHALT NOT INFLUENCE OTHERS!!!!” types of titles, but if you ignored that and tweaked the spells a bit it wasn’t so bad,) and gave her some advice on what she might try. She’d also borrowed a few others, but the love spell one is the only one I can remember what it was about.
As I remember it, she had been very vague about what she had wanted to do, spell-wise, or love-wise, and though I’d offered a few pointers, I could tell she was not going to give me a complete idea of her motives. And I remember it being summer, though I could be wrong, – what I am sure of is that it was during a break in college…summer or winter, I can’t say, but I’ll lean towards summer.
The phone rang in the afternoon, and since she and I spoke at least every other day, if not multiple times a day, even when school was on vacation (and these were the last of the days of the landline, and expensive long distance, lol, so that wasn’t cheap!) I saw it was her on the caller ID, and of course assumed we were going to have a gossip. “OMIGOD, CAT, OMIGOD, I FUCKED UP!” she said into the phone.
“OH NO, WHAT HAPPENED!?” I replied, thinking maybe she was in jail, or something worse.
“You’ll be mad…” she said.
“OMIGOD, SHEA, JUST FUCKING TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED, AND I WON’T BE MAD!” I yelled back (we yelled a lot when together, and swore a lot…can you tell?)
“Well,” she said, “Remember I borrowed that love spell book you had?” I said I did remember that. “OK, and then I borrowed that [other book that escapes my memory which one it was]?” I said I did. “Remember how you told me that I would probably need to tweak the spells to get something good?”
“Well, yeah, sure, I remember that. Why, who are you love spell casting on? OMIGOD, is he like, some psycho, and like you only found out like when he got hit with the spell? Is there a psycho after you? OMIGOD! I will kill him! Who is it!?”
“No…” she replied reluctantly. “It’s worse than that. See, remember you told me I had to tweak things? I did that, by like, mixing two spells, sort of. Like, I read in one book not to cast a spell on someone directly or it might be bad, so I really wanted my ex to call me, then I thought what if like he could run into me instead of call – that’s okay too, but then I thought, ‘What if I don’t mention my ex BY NAME’ because like, that’s indirect and I have some exes, right? But like, I thought what if it was like I said a guy who has been with me before or liked me before or something, right? I mean, my ex is one of those guys because he did like me and we did fool around. Well, so I [did a bunch of stuff that I only remember her using rose quartz and some pink candles but which is far more complex than that] and then it happened.”
“HOLY SHIT, SHEA, WHAT ASSHOLE DID YOU CALL OUT OF THE ABYSS OF YOUR FUCKING EXES?!” I cried.
“FUCK YOU, YOUR EXES ARE EVEN WORSE AND YOU DATE KEVIN AND YOU HATE HIM!” she countered.
“I BOTH LOVE HIM AND HATE HIM AND YES, SOME OF MY EXES SUCK BALLS! Now tell me what happened?! Who showed up!? It wasn’t [guy who is still my friend who I’m kind enough to leave anonymous], was it?”
“Well, no, Cat, it’s ALL OF THEM!”
“What do you mean, all of them?” I asked. You mean [guy who shall remain anonymous] did show up?”
“Oh, he fucking called, of course, yes. It’s bad, though. So like, there’s this kid, and like I made out with him in high school, and he’s like, gay now, and he saw me out to dinner with my parents, and he’s a waiter at that restaurant, and started hitting on me. I mean, he’s fucking gay! He does not like girls, and he flirted with me. Like really flirted! And-“
“Shea,” I interrupted, “omigod, a gay kid was hit by your spell, that’s so funny. Maybe he’s not so gay after all.”
“NO! SHUT UP! I’M NOT DONE, BITCH!” Shea said, cutting me off. And yes, we called each other bitch, slut, and whore all the time as terms of endearment. “He is very gay, and I’m sure he’s gay, but that’s not all. So I ran into my other ex from high school at the mall, and he like, wanted to go out with me. And [anonymous friend of mine] called, and also [another anonymous friend] – because you know we made out, and then also…” Now, instead of labeling a few people just anonymous, I’ll let my audience know, she listed several of our friends, most of whom had probably only ever shared a kiss with her, and went on to say… “It’s every guy I’ve so much as ever smiled at since I went through FUCKING PUBERTY, and ALL OF THEM! ALL OF THEM ARE COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK AND TRYING TO FLIRT WITH ME OR HOOK UP WITH ME! WHAT DO I DO!!!!???”
By this point, I was laughing. “Well, why don’t you hook up with one of them?”
“You don’t get it, Cat, I hate this! Most of these people are people I never ever ever wanted to see again! I don’t want to touch any of these guys dicks! Not a one of them! A few of them, I ever forgot I made out with them or like, liked them because it was so not even something I wanted to remember.”
“Shea,” I said, “You asked for all of your exes to miss you. What on earth did you think was going to happen? You should have just named the one you wanted.”
“But the book said that was bad, Cat. What do I do? Tell me!?”
“Um, enjoy it? I’m enjoying it, and it’s not even happening to me,” I giggled. “Anyhow, I told you that book was over-cautious. You can always do a work-around. Why didn’t you just call me and ask me what to do?”
“Because I didn’t want you to know I wanted [whichever ex this was, but it’s not the first one I said should remain anonymous.]”
At this point, I was laughing so hard I was almost crying. “Shea, I don’t care who you want to hook up with. This is me you’re talking to. Anyhow, you should just let this keep going so you learn your lesson. That’s what I’d do. It will wear off, but the experience will teach you what it means to mess with this stuff and not do the instructions right.”
“CAT! BUT THE ONE I WANTED WAS NOT EVEN EFFECTED! WHAT THE FUCK!”
“Well, maybe he will be, so you don’t want to crush the spell just yet,” I offered, “and anyway, like I said, things blowing up in your face can be a good learning experience for you.”
So, as I remember, things did calm down in a week or two, and I believe the young man who she initially had hoped to attract did offer to take her out, but that is the story of the time Shea refused to name names in her spell casting and brought back 70% of the people she so much as ever kissed into her life for the next 3 or so weeks. The moral of the story is: Stop being indirect, just ask for who you want when you’re spell casting OR don’t complain when you get bombarded by bad choices (er, I mean people) you made out with while drinking. 😉
As an amusing side-note, some years later, I’d asked a friend who owed me a favor to set a light for me for attraction. I’d needed to borrow a bit of money from an ex who had since married and who was just a friend, but who was more apt to lend the money if he thought I looked cute. I wasn’t looking to do the nasty, just hoping if I was super cute to him, he would be more apt to lend the large-ish amount I was requesting. It did work, the guy lent the money, and seemed to appreciate that I was cute, but didn’t come on to me… However outside of him, when my friend set this light, the next thing I knew, it seemed like every other guy I’d so much as just smooched (some of whom were/are happily married,) that I was still in touch with in some form (mostly facebook friends only,) was suddenly coming on to me. 😉 When I told Shea this, she was like “I hope you’re enjoying it. Not fun, is it!?” It was actually hilarious, lol, but I suspect she felt vindicated, as I did more or less insist she just let her “calling all my exes” spell wear itself out. 😉
Happy Birthday, girlie. I miss you tons. There is nothing in this world that can ever take your place in my heart.
~Cat
Cat’s Rants: Confessions of an Occult Mastermind 