it spirals as I ache to find holy embrace

the gate is closed, I'm left outside...

I am suddenly finding myself in the position of having a readership--don't look at me that way, I know I have a readership, I will just always continue to think of it as a small readership for my own peace of mind--that knows me. In some cases, very well. And for the first time in...ever...here, I'm thinking of editing what I send out.

Don't misunderstand me. The blog will not change. It is simultaneously confessional and chatroom, and courtroom and playground, and haunted house, high theatre and fashion runway, why would I abandon what hasn't worked so far? Get real. This is me, after all.

But I come to the well sometimes to drink from the waters, and sometimes to speak truth into them, and sometimes to look at my reflection and see if it's changed...and sometimes to cry out against the injustice of all things. And...that readership, you see. If I'm not very careful in how I phrase things, I'm going to sound as if I put too much emphasis on something that was, essentially...very minor.

So this one may be more oblique than usual.

Yesterday, something new had been added to Gearhaven. I'd gotten up very early the night before, head full of static, unable to sleep, so I'd logged in and started creating things that would make the empty land feel...0.00005% less empty. I'd rezzed out some benches to fill the corners of the garden, until I figured out what and how I wanted to do things there, and had been in the process of decorating a simple gazebo to take up the rest of the space, when the energy gave out and I stumbled back to bed.


(What had been done so far.)

A few hours later, I got up again, logged back in, and started creating something else from an idea I'd woken up with. It may not last. It feels very much like just a sketch in mesh and prims currently. But it gives me an idea of what the idea was, if that makes sense, and I may or may not be able to do better in time.

And I had noticed the thing that had been added, and the glowing ring (seen in the image above) removed. Which, I suddenly realized, was much larger than the space I'd intended to drop it in. So...suddenly, we needed more space around the Ocean Club. Which meant I had to drop the land to the very bottom of the ocean floor, hollow out more space, and make sure everything was clear around the club itself before I could fill anything in anywhere.

But I did that. It's now seated on the ocean floor, roughly in the center of the bay of Gearhaven, as far as I can tell, fully functional. And I went to drop a port circle to make it another destination, and...got a message I had never seen before. To quote a bit of chat from elsewhere:

[11:41 AM] Emilly: Oh, I just saw a weird new dropdown: "Unable to create item that has caused problems on this region"
[11:41 AM] Emilly: Wha?
[12:02 PM] jxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: yeah.
[12:02 PM] jxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: my guitar.
[12:02 PM] jxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: in the music room.
[12:06 PM] Emilly: blinks
[12:06 PM] Emilly: I....what?
[12:07 PM] Emilly: How...if it was your guitar, how come I couldn't drop anything?

Still a good question, but turns out what she meant was, she'd noticed the same issue with her guitar. Oh. So I'd been in the process of relogging, and when I logged back in...bigger issue.

[12:07 PM] Emilly: And how come everything fell off....
[12:12 PM] jxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: i don't think the guitar was the problem.
[12:12 PM] jxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: i think it was a symptom of the greater problem the region was having.
[12:16 PM] Emilly: Right.

But on the grid, I was panicking, completely. Because when I say everything fell off? It wasn't just outfit, hair, heels, eyes, and body...it was all my attachments. And, okay, fine, I've had the back necklace get detached before, I've had the anklet detach--neither of those are locked on, but I consider them on permanently, so I like to make sure they're there. That wasn't what shocked.

My collar vanished. Which was locked around my neck. And, considering the recent unnevenness with the dominant? This was...I couldn't get my mind around it.

I relogged twice, both times back to Gearhaven, and still nothing, and nothing would even attach from my inventory, and finally, I ported to another property we own, and slowly...slowly...watched things attach. But not everything.

I was helpfully reminded, and thank you, dear, you know who you are, that I had saved outfits that did include the collar, so I switched to one of those, and...it came back. I was already late for the Aruba ballroom, because I'd intended to break at noon to go; I nearly had an arm cramp from terraforming; and I was shellshocked, so I just set everything aside for the first hour and went and danced. After that, I sent three IMs (that, it turned out later, I had to grab from history, because none of them went through anyway) to said dominant, informing him that I had not in fact, run off and left his collar behind, and then, after the dance...went back to Gearhaven.

Or tried to. Because it was in the process of folding in on itself.

Over the next two hours, we went from a sim that had issues, to a sim that was visibly tottering, to a sim that finally dragged me down into oblivion with it, to the extent that I had to delete my copy of Firestorm and reinstall a fresh one before I could relog into SL. And I couldn't relog into Gearhaven...I'd never seen anything like it.

I hadn't completely managed to ditch the stress of the collar disappearance, and now this. One day before the gala. What were we going to do?

And while that was happening, I realized that half the maps I'd rezzed out in the foyer of Steam were no-copy. Which meant they were now locked in the void along with Gearhaven.


(As in...this picture is taken in the Dark Sea. Gearhaven should be clearly visible behind me.)

And I tried to put it all out of my mind. I did. I logged off, I went to take a nap, I made some tea, I had dinner...I thought I'd calmed down. Until I logged in and Gearhaven wasn't back.


(It's just...creepy. That tiny little sandbar? That's the other half of Darktow, the half that's in the Dark Sea. The rest of it is missing...along with everything on it from that side...along with the rest of Gearhaven.)

Crisis. So. Deal with necessities first. Went to Oceanpoint and grabbed a landmark to send to our DJ, in case the gala ended up being there. Dug out all the maps I had, found ones that were close to the ones I'd set out originally, and put them up on the walls. Moved everything that had been in the foyer into the music room. Put the art that had been in the foyer in the kitchen. Worked with our attaché to rez out and set down forty more overbright chairs for seating. Tried to figure out what else could be done before I had to log off at eleven.

Then, at ten...it happened. Something that on any other day would have earned an amused smile and a wish for joy and wandering off with a light step. (This is the thing I'm not going to go into, more than that.) And I know that, is the thing, I am absolutely sure on that. I know--rationally, logically, mentally--that it was a culmination of an extreme day of stress, and I was far more emotionally fragile than I realized, in that moment.

But..I was far more emotionally fragile than I realized, in that moment. And it just...cut me in half, how it went down, and I had to figure out how to reassemble enough even to walk away, at first, and then once I had...I couldn't go to Gearhaven, it wasn't there; I didn't want to go to the Dark Sea and sit on the cold stones; I desperately did not want to be alone, but...there it was.

I found myself just staring into the flames of the firepit by the cabin in Playa, telling myself I should just log off, just call it a day and leave, but...I couldn't...move. Because I had been thinking of asking for an extension to midnight, for...potential things, and...well. No need for that, now, was there?

And the dominant asked what happened. And I told him. And he ported back home, and held me, and I cried on his shoulder, and could breathe again. And while I will never, ever, welcome emotional pain, whether it turns out to be good for me or not, this at least was useful, because...in that moment, I needed support. I needed to be held. And he gave me both of those. The strong, steady presence of him that had made me agree to his collar in the first place...and which had started to feel profoundly missing this last year.

So...I'm going to go to sleep now. I may or may not sleep the night through, but I am going to try. I'm going to get up tomorrow, and likely strap on armor I haven't needed these past few months, but...I suspect I will definitely need it tomorrow. And I will take that step back from certain entanglements so I can figure out why this hit so hard, if there's anything I'm not seeing. Which may cause a bit of minor strife, but...for once in my life, I'm claiming self-preservation first, before I worry about everyone else.

And...ultimately, this is just one night. This is one thing that slid off the rails into shadow when the rest of the train travels in golden light, knowing I support and am supported, knowing I love and am loved. One thing. And this will pass. And I'm not broken. Probably bruised a bit; possibly even slightly dented.

But I'll heal.

Which, you know, considering some of my history...that alone is a miracle.

But I do need to think about this. And that may take longer than one night. I'm too close to everything, right now, to see exactly what went wrong, so I need a bit of time to gain that clarity. And then I can move on.

All things considered...I've been hurt less and suffered more, prior to this, so...maybe this is a sign of growth? Maybe. We'll see how it plays out from here, at any rate.