A few items of interest:
My shift at work has suddenly changed. Beginning tomorrow I work Monday through Friday, Noon to Nine PM. This is a shift in shifts I have been time-shifting as long as possible… since about mid-November, when my father got assigned the 12:30-9PM shift and the car situation first became stressful again. Recent increased stress with co-workers has made me want to share the smallest possible number of hours in the same room with them, and they all work early shifts, so now I’ll only see them for a few hours a day, then have four or five hours of peace and quiet to work in. Which should be nice. It totally preculdes any social life on weeknights, which is the precise reason I’ve been avoiding taking it on these last three months, but I just lost access to my social life, so what they hey?
Yes, yes, I know that’s partially my own choice; she volunteered to avoid the meetings so I could attend. But since part of half of the meetings and almost all of the other are people by people who either began or have recently become poisoned to the idea of me, I figured I’d save myself the pain and be the one who gives up his social life. I can’t control other people, and the remaining members of the shared social group who have not been turned against me have discussed meeting on another night and/or location so we could all be together. I suppose it’ll have to be a weekend, now.
I already said I finished the first draft of the book I’ve been working on, right? Basically did half the book between Friday, Saturday, and a very long Sunday. That’s a lot of momentum, but I half don’t want to move right into another writing project. It’d be nice to take a break. I definitely want to get Book Two edited before I try writing Book Three, and I probably won’t start serious editing of that until … tomorrow? And I’m thinking of working on another project or two before I tackle Book Three. I have until the end of May to release Book Three without falling behind, and considering I can (theoretically) whip the whole thing out in … about 60 hours’ work for the first draft… that should be plenty of time to get something else going. Heck, I’m meeting my three-month goal for Book Two in addition to having a very engaging, tumultuous, emotionally involving whirlwind relationship with someone during two months of the same period, and as you may know, such a relationship can be quite time consuming and distracting, even as it energizes and refreshes.
Speaking of which, the longer I have to try to deal with the way things have gone, the way things are working out, the better I feel. I knew time and patience were the answer, but… that’s so hard to see from the hottest, brightest point of pain and fire, where every instant burns on for days. Anyway, I’ll probably try posting some of the content of a paper journal I’ve been keeping here, for my own future, searchable reference… some stuff about how I felt during and after things changed between us that I think will help me remember …
I know I was acting out of truth and love and only the best and brightest interests for everyone involved, following the path of what I know is right. I was following my ideals and hoping for the best. Whether she knows it now or not, I was not trying to achieve some hidden goal or play some intricate game or brainwash or manipulate or trick her or anyone else. The things I did, the sacrifices I made and was willing to make and am still willing to make were not for my own gain or for their own sake; it would not be logical to think, for example, that I went to all that trouble to convince someone to have sex with me. I have been turning down sex for years, I have been holding out for True Love and the belief that it will be part of something lasting and meaningful for twenty-six years, and if what I was looking for was just a little action, there have been dozens of easier opportunities for just that in the short time since we met, thousands since I turned down the first opportunity years ago. I can’t really imagine what you could think I might have been manipulating you to get, what the point would have been.
I don’t know. I do know that … I’m not writing this for her, I’m writing it for me. Even if it sounds like i’m not. These are thoughts I’ve been working through for myself, and I’m putting them here for me, and for my friends. Putting thoughts into words helps make them more real, for me, easier to understand. I know I can’t have her back. Not now, probably not ever. But from what I can tell, she doesn’t just think things didn’t work out, she thinks I’m an evil bastard who was trying to take over her life and is likely to try to cause real physical harm to her, her family, and/or her intellectual property. From what I can detect, she thinks that if I say a single word to her, send a single IM, or if she reads a single line in an email, I’m going to turn her against her better interests for my own devious schemes. It almost makes me want to come up with some devious schemes. Except… I haven’t done anything like that that I can remember since 1999 turned into 2000, the last devious scheme working its way out before midnight, before the end of ’99. I gave all that up, turned to truth and honesty and trust and openness and …
…and it results in a lot of pain, obviously, and isn’t easily believed. Too many other people in the world with devious schemes and ulterior motives and manipulations to trust that everything I say is true and motivated out of trying to do what is right, and right out in the open.
I hated having to keep it (us) a secret. Obviously, I’m bursting at the seams talking about it (us) these past weeks, and you knew I wasn’t keeping it (us) a secret from my real friends. Discretion, though, can be important, and I was trying to respect your wishes and prior commitments, trying to do everything I could to cause the least amount of pain and harm for you.
And I don’t know how you can believe I might ever try to “steal” your books or writings. Haven’t I always been helpful and encouraging? Didn’t I offer to publish you myself, to help you find an agent or help you seek out more traditional publication if you prefered? Didn’t I offer suggestions and drive to get you effectively editing your novel, and then spend weeks going through the one, line by line, making suggestions, trying to help, much of it after you’d scorned me and turned me away? I have my own books to try to write and edit and publish and sell, and I think you know how small-time that’s been. I don’t even bother with the “poor man’s copyright” – none of my books are registered or protected as well as yours are, even now, though part of this money was supposed to be earmarked for copyright registration once I’d ISBN numbers to assign them. Heck, some of this money was earmarked for registering your books to you, and if you liked, assigning some of my ISBNs to them so they could be sold in book stores. I don’t want to steal your books, I want you to find success with them, however you can. Before I lost access to do so, that meant wanting to try to help you find success. Now I can just hope and pray.
Not just for your books, but for you, generally. You’re going through, beginning to go through, a difficult period in your life. I wish I could be your friend through it, to help you and support you and encourage you. But I can’t, so … I just hope for the best, for your happiness and health and success, and I pray for you. What else can I do without you thinking it’s in my own interest rather than yours? What can I do?
I just don’t know.
What else? I noticed today that my left hand is … peeling. Huge chunks and swaths of skin are flaking and breaking and peeling away from the palm of my hand. I’ve never seen such a thing in my life. I probably ought to have photocopied my hands some time in the last three months. I said I should, I knew it. I didn’t, and now … it looks like it’s too late. I keep looking to see if I can tell what’s different underneath, but … I don’t have a reference. I don’t have access to the only reference I can think of. The changes are subtle, though, so … maybe … maybe I haven’t … lost too much, changed too much, gone too far off track by losing her. Most of the action seems to be around the end of my ‘fate line’, though whether it is deepening or disappearing or just changing in character, I cannot yet tell. Perhaps it’s all nothing. All nonsense.
And if it is? And if it isn’t?
What am I supposed to learn?
I’m so tired. I can’t remember if I meant to post something else. On the other side of today, the world looks different, time is changed, and the reality of things is truly altered. And yet fundamentally the same. I think I’m going to spend some time going back through the archives of my journal, see what I was doing with my time before I met her, how I lived my life, spent my days. I’m still somewhat in that place where I can’t quite remember how I ever lived without her. But I think I can figure it out if I try.
