31 August, 2016

a dead rushes' fleet drifting on a quiet tide

I will always love the false image I had of you, and that will not change. The person you represented yourself to be was the person I fell for, and that person I still love.

It is not you.

Arriving at this realization was difficult, in the extreme, but it is the truth of things, and I try never to run from the truth if at all possible. I am frequently anxious, I am frequently afraid, I have made bad decisions, and I will likely make more in the future. I have regrets, I am frequently impulsive, and more gullible than I wish to be. None of this is news to anyone who's followed this blog for any length of time.

What is news, if only to me, is just this: you aren't the man I grew to love. Your mask was. Which, I suppose, is fine as long as the mask comes off and there's a connection still, but...when the mask came off, I realized there was nothing there I adored.

Do I still miss you? Of course. I miss your wit, I miss your sarcasm, I miss your body. I miss cuddling in your lap and feeling safe. I miss watching Rifftrax films with you and teasing back and forth over the course of a day.

But these are things, these are individual moments that I am realizing can be replaced by other people I already love, masks on or off. The core of it, as sad as it makes me, as hard as it is for me to articulate...is that I do not love the man you are. I loved the man you pretended to be, and that man, my dear, does not exist.

Perhaps he never existed.

And I need to finally come to terms with that, and find a way to let go of the love I still have for your false face. I wish you all good things, and every happiness you can manage, but I cannot keep you as special to me, because you were not the one that was special. I believed in the man you held up before the light of your soul, and it is my own fault, as well as yours, that I only saw the shadowed reflections of that light.


17 August, 2016

I can hear myself singing that song, over and over until it belongs to me

Malware programs have finally leapt to mobile devices. This is a really, really bad sign.

Want a truly random piece of art? Go play. The system creates the art; you name it beforehand so it has something to work with. It's an interesting concept.

Google will soon kill off Chrome apps. Their reasoning is that since the net is a more powerful entity now, than when they introduced the apps system, that there are other, better ways to do the same things.

If you're worried your system's going to be affected, realize you have until 2018 to find alternatives, so it's not going to happen next week. Google's just letting Chrome users know well in advance what they plan to do.

There's an upcoming Lost Boys television series. Start dreading all the things now.

This may be the best family tree for the Norse gods ever.

Need fake, royalty-free music to use any way you desire? Go to the Fake Music Generator site and 'create' to your heart's content. No content claims, no worries, just royalty-free themes to use in your animations, vlogs, let's-play videos, and whatever else you might need.

And let Kyle McLachlan describe the plot to Dune completely in emoji. It's brilliant.

13 August, 2016

when meaning's gone from every word

(( RP mode...sort of. ))



There are times in life where recovery demands change. I went to hide in the shadow spaces, to breathe in the fae lands, as diminished as they are. I needed to know the face I'd grown accustomed to seeing in the mirrors of Sakura was not the one I wore at present.



I feel frail, fragile, weak. And it is the greatest struggle not to pull my tattered shields around me, strap on what armor I have left, and pretend I'm stronger than I am. It is so very difficult to remain open to wisdom from the universe, to the things I need to hear. The things I would not hear if I was armored, shielded, shut down.



I recognize so few of the fae now. The Unseelie Court scattered to the four winds, and to this day I do not know where. Imprisoned as I was on the forbidden isle, I think I forgot how to even ask after those I'd known when I broke free, or was released, from the Queen's punishment.



But even the edges of the fae lands are healing. And my walls are currently paper-thin, ribbons of their former sun-baked clay and solid stone. I will heal, even if I have to retreat again and again, make myself believe anew that I am more than what I pretend to be. More, greater, a deeper presence, a stronger core.



And yes, if my gates are held open, there will be weak points in my structure. If I close those off, everything off, become a smooth and perfect sphere, no doors, no windows...well, what has no way in, also has no way out. And I no longer wish to lock myself away from the whole of the world. Just those parts of it that are currently hurting me.



In the meantime, the shadows will comfort me, when I cannot stand the light. I will reinforce what I need to, recover, remold myself yet again as I move through the glowing waters that were formerly home. I will heal and find comfort again in the mask I wear, for it is teaching me what I need to know about the human world, again. And I will seal off the access points I need to, to survive. Rebuild my walls, to grow strong again. And reemerge whole enough to continue.

After all, it won't be the first time.

10 August, 2016

the hardest part of ending is starting again

Yesterday, I got an offline:
[2:05] Xxxxxxxxxx: When's the last time you said something about me that didn't involve the word "manipulate"?
In our past few conversations, before he decided we were shattered, it did come up quite often. His manipulation of me to get what he wanted, or just to affect me in a certain way towards a certain outcome, or for all I know, just to upset me so he could score points in a mental tally. I truly have no idea, but he is right; 'manipulate' came up. Manipulation, manipulative, manipulated; it was all there. No breakup is ever easy.

There were, there are, good things about him. He's funny. He's smart. He's witty, which is even better. He likes many of the same things I do. He did fulfill needs that I am trying to figure out how to fill now that he's gone, and I don't just mean sex. Though he's really good at that, too. I do miss him, now that he's gone. I can't, and I won't, demean that. I do miss his conversation, his intellect, his presence, and that's not going to be easy to replace. I'm not going to try.

But, while I was sorting through all this mentally, and wandering the grid through various odd events, this happened:
[23:37] Xxxxxxxxxx: How manipulative am I today?
Wow. That's...well, I'd say very, because that is an alarmingly manipulative statement. I asked a love about it, in fact:
[23:38] Emilly Orr: The answer is, I don't even respond, right?
[23:39] Fxxxxx Axxxx: Yes
[23:39] Fxxxxx Axxxx: Because that is, ironically enough, manipulative.
[23:39] Emilly Orr: Okay.
[23:39] Emilly Orr: And I agree, but...you know how hard this is for me.
Because ignoring conversations that people send to me? It has always struck me as unutterably rude, and disdainful, and cold. Not to respond to any conversation, even hurtful ones, bothers me, flat out. I don't know that it's ever not going to bother me.

I must have dithered about this too long, though, standing firm on my 'no responses' stance. Because a bit later he sent this:
[23:50] Xxxxxxxxxx: Anyway, if calling me manipulative is how you absolve yourself of any responsibility in your own mind, go for it. I've been called worse. See you around.
I'm not absolving myself of responsibility in this. I am broken in entirely the wrong ways to be with him, and none of that breakage is his fault in any way. I have issues that I'm working on, some with my therapist beyond the screen, some with my loves, but whether that work results in any cumulative change may take months, or even years from now. Right now, in this moment, there are too many ways to slip through my cracks and cause great harm, and that is no fault of anyone I'm with, it's just the fracture points from earlier damage. I am not as strong as I was. I am not as capable as I was. That is a disturbing thing to admit, a saddening thing to admit, but unfortunately, right now, it happens to be the truth.



I am clinging to the concept of kintsugi in these moments, because the Japanese have taken a very unique approach to broken things. If something of value breaks, that is the technique used to make it into a thing of value again. The fracture points become very visible, but at that point, part of the design, adding to the piece, not subtracting from it. It is no longer what it was, this type of repair work says--but it can still be beautiful, useful, and be of value.

And I am still of value--both to myself and to those who love me. I am of value in all worlds, not just one. And just as I do not absolve myself of responsibility, so do I not absolve him of responsibility for the breakup. If he had been willing to talk rationally, instead of lashing out, we might not be where we are. If he spoke first, without the need to cause pain, we might not be where we are.

But we are here, and there is no going back. We were equally at fault for the disaster of separation, and we both hurt, and I at least pine for what was, what will not be again.
[23:57] Mxxxxxxx Bxxxxxx: I am sorry he is doing this to you.
[23:59] Emilly Orr: It's who he is.
[23:59] Emilly Orr: At least he went past the seven days. I suppose that's something.
I suppose it is. For what little value that holds, for whatever reason, he did wait. It's something that is not negative, that I can carefully stack with all the other things about him that are not negative, that I did like, that I did, perhaps, even love...and then carefully move those into storage, where they can no longer harm me.

07 August, 2016

when what's real becomes just another source of hurt

Silence stretches. Endless expanse of quiet, solemn silence, far too much space for thoughts and self-recrimination. But quiet. It has been quiet.

The first day was full of dread, nerves strung taut like wires awaiting unpleasant vibration. Sleep was broken, unsettled, the fragments of remembered dreams all about plans that went awry, connections that were missed resulting in breakage of bones, hearts, cities.

But when the second day passed with no contact either, breathing was easier. And each day that spooled on became another small balm on the wounded spirit, until, close to the end of the seven-day unspoken limit I'd set myself, I thought perhaps, he'd learned. He'd grown. Enough to give me the space I needed.

Enough to perhaps, begin a conversation again.




Today, looking through my friendslist idly, thinking about other things entirely, I noticed something. He wasn't on the list anymore.

At some point over the past few days, he had unfriended me. That I hadn't noticed was not that I'd discarded him, or moved on callously and coldly; it was because even looking
for his name on the friendslist made my heart ache. I had chosen to take the space, the silence, breathe through old and new issues, and not make more trouble for myself in the process.

But he'd left. He hadn't been respecting my need for space. He hadn't been waiting until I spoke again, giving me the space I'd asked for. No, he'd left in a fit of pique, thinking that lashing out in this way would make me run back to his side and beg to be refriended.

It was all a ruse. It was just another manipulative attempt, in a string of other manipulations. It was the purest example of
exactly why those closest to me wanted him gone in the first place.

Maybe I needed just such an example. Maybe it finally hurts too much to ever reach out to him again.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...