update from sparkleup

writing/sawtooth/limerent-object/lo-discernment-4.md

@@ -4,9 +4,9 @@ I was hardly run out of the campus the moment of my decision. I was given the re
 
 It was more than enough. My stuff was packed into two file boxes within an hour. After all, all of the furniture in the room belonged to the school. What had I besides clothes and books? Clothes, books, and my rosary.
 
-I carried it with me always, then, my fingers marching through the decades of beads as words tumbled through my mind, spilled from my mouth without a sound. Over the next two weeks, I prayed the Rosary dozens of times. Hundreds of *Hail Marys* and *Our Fathers*.
+I carried it with me always, then, my fingers marching through the decades of beads as words tumbled through my mind, spilled from my mouth without a sound. Over the next two weeks, I prayed the rosary dozens of times. Hundreds of *Hail Marys* and *Our Fathers*.
 
-I knew not what drew me to begin this litany of prayer. I strove to pray the Rosary every day, as a rule, but now, I needed that reassurance of faith. I needed some sign --- whether to myself or to those around me I wasn't sure --- that this decision was one of vocations, not of faith.
+I knew not what drew me to begin this litany of prayer. I strive to pray the rosary every day, as a rule, but then, I needed that reassurance of faith. I needed some outward sign --- whether to myself or to those around me I wasn't sure --- that this decision was one of vocations, not of faith.
 
 With my possessions packed away, I had little to do beyond pray and spend as much time in the library as I could before it would no longer be available to me.
 
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ With my possessions packed away, I had little to do beyond pray and spend as muc
 
 The library and the woods, the quad, the lakes, the sky.
 
-The Saint Bernard was waiting for me, sitting on the stone and cement bench by the statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. The dog had rested his shoulders on his knees and clasped his hands, and was looking down between his feet through the opening this had created. Or, well, not looking. Father Borenson was not looking at anything.  He had the absent expression of thought or prayer.
+The Saint Bernard was waiting for me, sitting on the stone and cement bench by the statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. The dog had rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands, and was looking down between his feet through the opening this had created. Or, well, not looking. Father Borenson was not looking at anything.  He had the absent expression of thought or prayer.
 
 I had been making a round of all my favorite spots on this, my last day, and my final stop was here. A statue, a stone bench, a lake. Trees and heavy air.
 
@@ -38,21 +38,21 @@ Borenson was the first to break the silence. "Dee, do you know what discernment
 
 I nodded numbly. This was already wildly outside of my normal interactions with Borenson. Less academic, more informal, emotional.
 
-"We don't really tell our students because we want you to come in feeling devoted, but there's a whole set of guidelines already in place behind the scenes to deal with this. Has been for centuries, really. It used to be, you'd be whisked away before you had the chance to even say goodbye. We'd box up your stuff and send it to you. It was a different church back then.
+"We don't really tell our students because we want you to come in feeling devoted, but there's a whole set of guidelines already in place behind the scenes to deal with this. Has been for centuries, really. Used to be, you'd be whisked away before you had the chance to even say goodbye. We'd box up your stuff and send it to you. It was a different church back then.
 
 "Now, we see it more like a process. Discernment is something that takes place over time. You're in your twenties, you're not going to have it all figured out, much as you might sometimes imagine."
 
 I frowned. *St. Kateri Tekakwitha,* I prayed silently.
 
-> Favored child and Lily of the Mohawks, I come to seek your intercession in my present need. I don't know what to do...
+> *Favored child and Lily of the Mohawks, I come to seek your intercession in my present need. I don't know what to do...*
 
-"It's a little clumsy, but the analogy I always use is to think of these first few semesters of your degree like dating. You and the Church --- the Church as an institution, not just a faith --- like each other, and want to maybe get closer, but you're going to try things on for size for a bit. See how it works out."
+"It's a little clumsy, but the analogy I always use is to think of these first few semesters of your degree like dating. You and the church --- the church as an institution, not just a faith --- like each other, and want to maybe get closer, but you're going to try things on for size for a bit. See how it works out."
 
 Outwardly, I nodded. "That makes sense. It's not a divorce, just a break-up before it gets serious."
 
 Inwardly, I was doing my best to let go. Let go of this place. Let go of my study. Let go of the idea that I had built up over so long a time of what life would be like. 
 
-> I admire the virtues which adorned your soul: love of God and neighbor, humility, obedience, patience, purity and the spirit of sacrifice. Help me to imitate your example in my state of life.
+> *I admire the virtues which adorned your soul: love of God and neighbor, humility, obedience, patience, purity and the spirit of sacrifice. Help me to imitate your example in my state of life.*
 
 "Right," the Saint Bernard nodded. "Just turns out you and the Church get along better as friends than in...well, the metaphor breaks down somewhat here, but you can see how ordination is rather like marriage."
 
@@ -60,13 +60,13 @@ I smiled weakly. "Yeah."
 
 "All this is to say that I think you're doing the right thing, because no one wants a bitter priest. Some folks might think ill of you, but don't worry about them. You've got your path ahead of you still, and God needs saints more than He needs priests."
 
-> Through the goodness and mercy of God, Who has blessed you with so many graces which led you to the true faith and to a high degree of holiness, pray to God for me and help me.
+> *Through the goodness and mercy of God, Who has blessed you with so many graces which led you to the true faith and to a high degree of holiness, pray to God for me and help me.*
 
 I stared at the statue of the coyote. I knew that if I were to try and look at Father Borenson, to engage with this conversation any more directly, I would not be able to keep from crying.
 
 "I'll leave you be, Dee, but before I do, I'm curious. What will you do after this?"
 
-I worked on mastering the lump of emotion swelling in my chest before replying. "I'm going to go home, stay with my parents. Work on the farm for a bit. Then, um..." I swallowed drily in an attempt to sound less hoarse. "Then I think I'm going to transfer to University of Idaho and get my masters in social work."
+I worked on mastering the lump of emotion swelling in my chest before replying. "I'm going to go home, stay with my parents. Work on the farm for a bit. Then, um..." I swallowed drily in an attempt to sound less hoarse. "Then I think I'm going to transfer to University of Idaho. I've been looking at maybe social work."
 
 Borenson perked up, his tail thumping against the concrete and stone of the bench. "A therapist, hmm?"
 

writing/sawtooth/limerent-object/wallow-2.md

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-I hate to say that relatively little happened for the rest of our visit, but we did rather front-load our plans. There was the movie, the concert, then I did my hike, and after that, we spent the rest of the visit just kind of...hanging out.
+Relatively little happened for the rest of our visit, but we did rather front-load our plans. There was the movie, the concert, then I did my hike, and after that, we spent the rest of the visit just kind of...hanging out.
 
 We spent a lot of time reading together. Reading and listening to music. Kay spent a morning putting together a playlist of songs that she knew that we both liked, and we listened our way through that as each of us skimmed through our books --- at least, I skimmed through mine. Kay didn't seem keen on reading through her newly-purchased scores while other music was playing, and I certainly don't begrudge her that. Instead, she raced through a few novels that she had pulled from her bedside table.
 
@@ -8,15 +8,17 @@ She freely admitted that she did not have the slightest clue about where I was c
 
 I mostly managed to keep my yap shut when she talked about her parents and youth. Something about growing up autistic with autistic parents was outside of my realm of experience, and the desire to dig deeper into that was strong, but she seemed to need to speak her thoughts out loud more than she needed the process of sharing.
 
-It made sense to me, too. After all, that's what I've been doing to a greater or lesser extent with this journaling experiment, and I certainly got plenty out of simply stating aloud my memories of and thoughts on discernment.
+It made sense to me, too. After all, that's what I've been doing to a greater or lesser extent with this journaling experiment, and I am certainly getting plenty out of simply stating aloud my memories of and thoughts on discernment.
 
 Leaving her behind was sad, of course. I wished that I could spend more time with her even just doing nothing, just being normal together, despite also being glad that I was heading home. Sad, yes, but not in the way that I expected, I think.
 
 I will miss her, that goes without saying, and I wish that I had more time to be close to her, but I was was also distraught due to the mess that my emotions were left in after we said goodbye.
 
-Nothing changed between us. Nothing changed, and I am struggling with the competing thoughts of:
+Nothing changed between us.
 
-* Of course nothing changed. We were friends going into this, we were friends during the visit, and we are friends now that it's over; and
+Nothing changed, and I am struggling with the competing thoughts of:
+
+* Of *course* nothing changed. We were friends going into this, we were friends during the visit, and we are friends now that it's over; and
 * I wish that I had had the courage to tell her, such that things might have had the possibility of changing.
 
 I am a coward.
@@ -37,8 +39,8 @@ I will miss her wit and her sarcasm and her intellect, though we will doubtless
 
 I'm sad to be leaving her behind, but beyond that, I am sad to see what I have become, what limerence has made me. I am sad that I have been split in half. I am sad that I am less of an entire being when I think of her, and I am sad that I can't help but think of her. I am sad that some part of me has decided that she is just a limerent object rather than a friend, that I am the subject, and that even if the feelings I have for her *were* real --- for now I'm sure that they aren't --- I am too much of a coward to actually do anything about it.
 
-Limerence, I have read, fades when feelings are either reciprocated or rebuffed, and yet neither happened, so I am back to hoping against hope that they simply fade with time. I don't want them, these feelings. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to be tearing up while writing about a girl on a steno pad in an uncomfortable bus seat.
+Limerence, I have read, fades when feelings are either reciprocated or rebuffed, and yet neither happened, so I am back to hoping against hope that they simply fade with time. I don't want them, these feelings. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to be crying while writing about a girl on a steno pad in an uncomfortable bus seat.
 
-I just want my friend.
+[^lentfood]: So long as it isn't lent, of course. She requires meat with every meal, she joked at one point, and I laughed, though I am not sure how much innuendo was behind that comment.[^innuendo]
 
-[^lentfood]: So long as it isn't lent, of course. She requires meat with every meal, she joked at one point, and I laughed, though I am not sure how much innuendo was behind that comment. Innuendo! Look at you, Dee, all grown up, thinking about innuendo.
+[^innuendo]: Innuendo! Look at you, Dee, all grown up, thinking about innuendo.