and don't you know, it's a beautiful new day

*chhhz!* "This is the conductor of the Orr Express, please brace yourselves for hairpin curves ahead..." *chhhz!*

When I started the day, this afternoon (and far too late besides), I was here:



Oh, not literally--literally, I was wandering around some tropical area behind a screen of silver mist, wondering where the industrial grime and metal of Goth1c0 had gotten to...

...but metaphorically, so to speak. I was braced for disaster. Tragedy was on the horizon, I knew it to my bones.

*chhzzrt!* "Conductor! There is no fire in the crew compartment! I repeat, there is NO FIRE! What do we do?"

*chhhz!* "Relax."

*chhzz!* "...what? Uh, repeat, sir, we don't know how to do that--"

*chhzzrt!* "Then you'll LEARN, won't you?"

And that one spoke up. And we talked. And I made a deal with myself--good or bad, over or not, you will not shade the truth today. You will not angle, you will not slide away, you will not misdirect, you will not treat conversation as a series of glancing blows and painful interchanges. You will stand there, and you will speak truth, and you will LISTEN, damn it, and you will stop mucking about.

And I didn't hold back. I told him that yes, that lad in the corset was something akin to a drug, and I had yet to figure out if it was an addiction I needed to break, or more, as I'm beginning to suspect, a necessary replacement for something my heart sorely lacked...and that yes, I'd shown preference, and yes, I'd neglected my loves, and no, I didn't know how to fix it...

...but that yes, I still loved him, and no, I hadn't turned away, and yes, I'd understand if he had, and yes, in the long run, I think we're bad for each other, and yes, I can see this happening again, even if I'm careful. And I apologized.

Around every conversational turn, it felt like.

And we kept talking. Staggering a bit, here and there, in the midst of a skin designer flinging demo skins at me to wear and decide over, in the midst of picking and choosing which of her drop-dead gorgeous gowns I thought would go with her skins and her hair (I'm telling you now: sachi Vixen's Venetia gown at Adam & Eve. Save up for it. Buy it. Adore it. It is. The prettiest. Gown. EVER)...we kept talking. Long past the point that limbo, by design, should have swallowed me.

And he told me a thing, which also is bound into the silence of the rest of it, but...I felt such a weight lift, it was astounding the freedom I felt in that single moment. I could breathe again. I could move again. My heart burned like a silver lamp in my chest. We'd be fine.

And more, even more incredible...I know now we'll be fine even if he leaves me. How often has that happened? Let me say that again, because it sounds vaguely important.

I know, I know, to the soul of me, to the center of my bones, with every fiber of my being...that if he says goodbye, or if I do, it will not ruin us. We will be friends, we will still care, I'll still love him.

That's happened...twice. Twice. In all my years. I can be acquaintances after, I can be friends, once or twice, as said, close friends...but it's far from the usual pattern. Far from what my brain typically understands.

Now I fling off into limbo to spend the rest of the night, and part of tomorrow, and I'm here:



Such a vast difference. Such a relief. Such a balm forgiveness is.

It's good to be here.