Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
anada340
..............................................
.* * \ /\
.* O . . .. ..O .. 340 17 Apr 2001 ) ( ')
.* O O* o o o o o o o ( / )
* ***O O O O O O O O O \( _)|
* O o o.*..o.*..o.*..o. .net "Lead Time" *
* O *
*. o |\ _,,,---,,_ *
* /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ *
* |,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-' by Infernal *
* '---''(_/--' `-'\_) *mE0w* o
*. .......................................*
'Anada is cat-friendly..o*`
Wow.
It's really weird when you (or at least when I) go through a lot of
emotional upheaval. A short amount of time seems to take forever, and
what happened a month ago can seem as remote as potty-training. Hey! I
think I've found the secret to eternal youth! Just lead a life of
emotional turmoil, and every day will take a century to live through.
Sure, you'll probably be eaten into a puddle of battery acid by your own
ulcers, but you'll be here forever! How about that!
I digress. My point is, when you write a lot -- text files on an
e-zine, or entries in a journal -- the distance from one entry to the
next can be measured in the dry husks of numbered days, or it can more
accurately be paced off in the bloody footprints of what we could call
"emotional time." Thus, it can startle the daylights out of you to
re-read something you wrote a week ago, apparently scribbled on sack
paper in feces at the bottom of a well full of jagged spikes and broken
glass. Was I THAT broken up? Did it hurt THAT much? Could it have
possibly?
I know I was and it did, because on paper (or, if you wanna be a
picky asshole, on screen) is the one place I don't know how to lie. I also
know it hurt that much because I still feel the echoes, and I suspect I
will for a while yet. Like a physical scar that heals to a baby pink,
but throbs when it rains, my latest heartbreak will fade from a seeping
wound to a little train-track blemish, one that no one can see unless I
let them, and one that I must not forget is there.
In the last two weeks, I feel like I molted out of my mourner's weeds
and rediscovered my own skin again. I remembered friends, and music,
and my family, and my career, and my talents. Amazing, how easy it is
to lose possessions so big they make up your whole existence, but
somehow I managed. I got 'em all back now, though, and I'm feeling
better than I have in a long, long time.
That "wow" that kicked off the festivities here was simply my
reaction to my last text file. In the lead time between when I submitted
it, and when I read it on screen as a public document, I managed to heal up.
The fact that my angry, petulant words of a few weeks ago shock me now
is a good sign -- an indication of how much healing I've managed to do.
It's good to have screeds like that lying around, sort of like maps of
unexplored territory, reminding me not to step into the quicksand again,
or to make sure the boat's a little sturdier before my next trip through
the rapids.
A lot of adventurers don't get a map and a second chance. I'm
grateful.
When I was eleven and a very inept Boy Scout, I nearly lopped off my
right index finger with an axe while chopping wet firewood. That scar
is still there, and ten years after the fact it would still ache a
little before a thunderstorm. I think I'll use it as a physical
reminder, the next time I get into such a potentially bad situation
again. If I can get in the habit of surreptitiously touching it with my
thumb every time I am introduced to someone, it can be a permanent
reminder (much more effective than tying a string around that same
finger, which some people used to do to remember things, if Fifties
sitcoms are to be believed).
It can send a message to my big, dumb, gullible, happy brain, and the
message can read:
"Hey dumbass -- all your scars are healed over now. They don't hurt
anymore, and they make great war stories. But you don't need any more of
them.
"Okay?"
..................................................................
/\_/\ *
( o.o ) (c) Anada e'zine anada340 by Infernal o
> ^ < o
********************************************************************
