<p>I’m breaking my communications embargo to message you directly. I don’t know the details, but I’m pretty sure this will pass through Castor without pinging Codrin or my exes (or anyone, for that matter). The last thing I want is yet another tearful letter from any of them just because my name flashed across their feeds.</p>
<p>Well. I say ‘yet another tearful letter’, but there’s only been three — one for each of them — so I’m hardly being bombarded, but I just…I can’t, Ioan.</p>
<p>I need to talk to someone about this. I need to talk to someone who truly understands. I talk to Sarah quite a bit, of course, both in a therapeutic and a professional context, but there needs to be that sense of connection to the matter on a more personal level than just therapist to client. She’s a delight to work with and an amazing teacher (as are Artante and Anin Li).</p>
<p>In our sessions, we came up with a very specific way to deal with this decision that I’ve made. In order to ensure that I can learn to cherish who I was and who was in my life, I need to reinforce the positive memories of what I had. I need to make sure that those are stronger than the negative ones. I don’t want that final, terrible morning to weigh on me more strongly than all of the good times that we had together.</p>
<p>You know, it’s weird, though. I say ‘final, terrible morning’, but at the time, I don’t remember it being such. I remember being very tired. I remember waking up and slipping away from Dear and making coffee in a cone of silence. I remember walking out onto the prairie. I remember suddenly seeing Codrin beside me, walking, head down in thought, as I focused on becoming me as quickly as possible. I remember walking past that brand new failing in the land with Codrin and not even having the mental capacity to think about it. All I remember doing was forking with each step, becoming who I am by the second and trying to move as far away from the life I had without losing my sense of self.</p>
<p>It wasn’t terrible. It was busy. It was purpose-driven. It was constructive. I walked from that cairn to the next with Codrin beside me and then we talked for, what, five minutes? Ten? And then I kissed em on the cheek, grabbed a stone from the cairn, and left.</p>
<p>It’s not a terrible memory. The worst part was Codrin asking if I wanted to go back and say goodbye, but that was over in a flash as I made my decision not to.</p>
<p>The rest of the morning wasn’t even that bad. I stepped to Convergence and waited for True Name to show up and then walked into Customs and then I was off to Artemis.</p>
<p>Codrin was the first to contact me, about a month after I left. Eir message was…well, I said tearful, and I’m struggling to put it any other way. It was just text on a page, but if it had been an actual letter, mailed across the millions of kilometers between Castor and Artemis, delivered to my stoop, surely the ink would have run from a tear drop or two. I could hear eir emotion through the page, and I could feel the very same tugging in my heart that I knew ey was feeling, for are we not alike?</p>
<p>Bu we aren’t, Ioan. We rushed that differentiation, that individuation, didn’t we? We pushed as hard as we could for me to be a different person from em, and all we had in common was a last name and a history.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard since in the years since I arrived, but I worry that ey’s still heartbroken. There must be some word for that little piece of yourself that lives on in your up-tree instances, even if it’s only the memory that they were borne from you</p>
<p>(This letter in the strictest confidence, I will be in touch with more, less painfully immediate news)</p>
<p>I love you, Ioan. I love you in that weird, roundabout way that a distant up-tree fork does. I love you for your completeness. I love you for being me, and yet not. I love you for being Ioan and not Codrin. I love you for the solidity that I remember of you through Codrin’s eyes. I love who you used to be. I love who you’ve become. I love who you will be.</p>
<p>I want nothing more than to say pass on my love, but please, Ioan, please don’t.</p>
<p>I’ll just say “all my love” and be done with it.</p>
<p>Sorina Bălan<br/>
13 er-ularaeäl, 4778 Artemis Reckoning</p>
<p><strong><em>END IOAN BĂLAN INDIVIDUAL-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL</em></strong></p>
