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.
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.
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).
-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
+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.
+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.
+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.
+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.
+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
(but they still have each other, so each of their letters kept dragging me back into it)
(reframing as exes)
(if I sound panicky, it’s because I am; I’m forgetting)