From 628a080a5a25d3a9d3444796a548a8f71b55e439 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Madison Scott-Clary Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2022 11:34:50 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] update from sparkleup --- writing/post-self/selected-letters/012.html | 9 +++++---- writing/post-self/selected-letters/014.html | 8 +++++--- writing/post-self/selected-letters/021.html | 3 ++- 3 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/writing/post-self/selected-letters/012.html b/writing/post-self/selected-letters/012.html index 3a3a3af19..93a731a6f 100644 --- a/writing/post-self/selected-letters/012.html +++ b/writing/post-self/selected-letters/012.html @@ -15,13 +15,14 @@

Sorina Bălan — Ioan Bălan

systime 227 (2351)
+(transmission delay)
(transmission delay)

-

Ioan (and, I guess, Aurel),

+

Ioan (and, I guess, Aurel),

I sent my last letter before receiving Aurel’s. I will not apologize for apparently predicting that I would receive such when I spoke of seeking out someone to fill that role in my life. My congratulations to them, I suppose. To you? Aurel doesn’t seem so long-lived as either Codrin or I.

Is that what one does in this situation? Congratulate? Either way, I wish them the best.

It’s also spurred a line of thinking within me that I’m still trying to tease apart, and I’m hoping that writing you will help in that. Doubtless you’ll have some insights, sure, but also just the act of writing — to someone I trust, no less — should be helpful on its own.

-

Let me begin by saying that I appreciate the way that the clade has provided me options for opting into dealing with topics regarding the Odists. It was initially quite helpful, but as I work through my thoughts on the matter, intentionally engaging with them as a topic has proven quite helpful. So long as that content is clearly delineated, I see no reason to hide it behind eyes-only segments. If I’m up for reading it, I’ll read it. If not, I won’t. Thank you for all of your thoughtfulness over the last few years.

+

Let me begin by saying that I appreciate the way that the clade has provided me options for opting into dealing with topics regarding the Odists. It was initially quite helpful, but as I work through my thoughts on the matter, intentionally engaging with them as a topic has become my new goal. So long as that content is clearly delineated, I see no reason to hide it behind eyes-only segments. If I’m up for reading it, I’ll read it. If not, I won’t. Thank you for all of your thoughtfulness over the last few years.

So, why the Odists? What is it about them that leads to us working so well together? We’re hardly the same. We’re hardly an exact match. We are two puzzle pieces in the broader whole of the world. Not matching puzzle pieces, but close. We don’t fit together perfectly.1

And perhaps that’s it. Perhaps it’s the way we both accept that, internalize it, make it part of who we are when taken in combination. I loved — no, still love — Dear. It was so weird, and it drove me fucking nuts at times. It could be too much, too intense. Sometimes, it was too wrapped up in its art to thoughtfully engage with the world around it. It was prone to tantrums and sulking.

But me? I was dense. Not just when I was new to the concept of relationships (though certainly more so then!), but throughout our time together, I was constantly misreading cues, misunderstanding the depths of emotions, falling apart when I hadn’t the emotional literacy to deal with what was happening around me.

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Hearing you talk about May Then My Name has tallied quite well with this, too. She’s taught you much the same, and you’ve added to each other’s lives without necessarily being a perfect fit. She’s sometimes too much: you’ve complained often enough about her being too emotionally intense or requiring a bit more engagement than you’re always prepared to give, but you still find ways to work with or around that just as I did with Dear.

Twice is a curiosity, three times is a pattern, as we saw with Codrin#Pollux and Serene. And now four (five?) times with Sasha?

Yes, there’s a third of Sasha who is already someone you love, but whether or not you realized that you were doing so, you also spoke quite fondly of True Name over the last year that she was solely herself. You had your hesitancies, of course. You equivocated about whether or not you were friends, on what your role actually was in interacting with her, sitting between her and your partner. We’ve all expressed our frustration (or even anger) with her over her role in both our lives and the System as a whole, you included.

-

But as you mentioned in letters during that year, you were also called out on this by both Sarah and May Then My Name more than once. Hell, that you were equivocating speaks to the fact that you were even thinking about it in the first place. It wasn’t some foregone conclusion that you were just, as you put it once, “cordial and intentional acquaintances”. You recognized that friction.

+

But as you mentioned in letters during that year, you were also called out on this by both Sarah and May Then My Name more than once. Hell, that you were equivocating speaks to the fact that you were even thinking about it in the first place. It wasn’t some foregone conclusion that you were just, as you put it once, “cordial and intentional acquaintances”. You recognized that friction: it was an artifact of inexact language rather than emotions.

Don’t even get me started about how you talked about E.W.! Yes, I wish I’d had the chance to meet him, too, but for a while, nearly every letter you sent included some story followed by that exact sentiment.

Congratulations are due to Aurel, yes, but I am in absolutely no way surprised.

So what is it about them? Why the Odists? How come we keep winding up in relationships with them? Is it some core aspect to them? Would we have gotten on so well with Michelle, had she been singular enough and in our lives at the right moment? Or is it just those with the right “perpetual hyperfixation”, as you so eloquently put it, who fall into our lives?

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