Good evening.
You have been often on my thoughts. Only natural, I suppose. I do not know, quite, when I am to meet you. You have already been told, given that it was not practical to have our first meeting immediately as I was in the country, that I will wait until my arrival to arrange it. You judged it reasonable.
As the day draws near, the need to have a place to stay becomes more urgent. That, though, pales in comparison. I have spent the last week or so kind of out of sorts, feeling antisocial, bored, tired. It may have been partly the after-effects of a minor cold, or possibly of failing to notice a missed day of my medicine. It has not prevented me from getting anything done, however. I finished the essential part of sewing up my backpack. It is, although not as thoroughly secured and finished as I want it to be, ready to be used. I redoubled my efforts contacting landlords who might rent to me, and have several conversations going with regard of potential places. Two of my friends agreed to come and move furniture for me, to set up a yard sale. Another from out of town asked to meet with me briefly before I go, and I agreed.
I am on my last week of work. My direct supervisor has praised me over several times, for being a good and energetic worker. Proactive, reliable. Last week, I found and returned a ring that had been lost on one of the shuttlebuses when we were cleaning them, and I was given a card and little reward for it.
For the past couple of weeks, I have occasionally stayed behind after my shift to play piano, for there are instruments at various places throughout the building, and some of real old wooden make, with the soulful sound of an organic, resonant thing responding to my touch. It has been a long time since I had convenient access to such an opportunity to practice my playing. I am rusty. However, with a half an hour here and there, I have been able to reclaim a great deal of my elegance, if not my memory of specific songs. Several people have complimented my playing.
All this is procrastination. It is... details. I came to write here today because I thought... maybe... it would help my temper at work, and allow me to sleep a bit better at night, if... If I...
If I admit here, openly in writing, that I am afraid you will reject me.
There. It is said.
Although I have no particular reason to expect you to, and although I have coached myself on every fancy that I must accept whatever answer you give, I am nevertheless afraid. Although I have prepared to move on confidently, with the condolences and support of several dear friends, and the necessity of looking after myself by earning my keep in the more expensive environment to which I go... Perhaps I will sleep more soundly if I have confessed here that for all my preparation, I do care. I do have hopes, and they stand at risk of being disappointed. I do wish... and with a power that makes all this that I have done, to arrange for myself to come back across the ocean to see you again seem perfectly in line, not excessive. I want to share fondness with you again. I want to be permitted to love you again.
The time I spent in Ireland makes a grand story. If it is, as I have at least once named it, like a story that makes all that came before only a prequel, then the time since October has been another very worthy story in the series, and frankly one much better documented within its own time. But I could not have written everything I have felt, all the times I have thought of you. They have been too numerous. I could not have written all the different things I have felt, or believed myself to feel. There have been long weeks of distraction that I did not write at all. There have been weeks I myself have forgotten.
This second volume, second story within the series that follows the arc of you and your impact on my life, present or not, must be drawing to a close. Its content has been doubt, and the coping with doubt, and learning how to respect doubt and carry it healthily and act confidently despite it. Doubt must soon come to an end, and I have been feeling the tension building gradually around me, the thrill of coming closer and closer to the climax of the story, the resolution of the doubt, the answer to the mystery. How it plays out, I do not yet know, but I know that I am nearing the final pages, and feel that however it is this story ends, however the doubt ends... My memory will be watching, and the memory of it must surely be keenly felt and remembered as the next story, whatever its shape may be after this, begins.
The tension is killing me, and my heart is cheering for a happy ending as the days lurch and drag. Two and a half weeks. Two weeks. A week and a day now, and I find that I am imagining talking to you at all sorts of idle moments. The tension is killing me, but so sweetly poignantly that I could have no objection.
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