Yes, that is a deliberate double negative.
After having written four days ago in a state of surprised and surprising calm, and reflected on my own detachment from the emotional side of my return, I find that strange dispassion... it has not... gone away, exactly. I don't believe that anything I said then has become untrue. I still await the future with great curiosity, without certainty, without demand... and I think, ready to face a disappointing answer if that is what awaits me.
However, perhaps in response to having thought about it more seriously for the first time in quite some time, I notice a more emotional side of my experience. Perhaps it is rising up in response, or perhaps I am just noticing it in response, in all of the little ways that the things I said do not show the whole picture. The details of my life that those words do not adequately describe. Perhaps a combination of both, and I think this is more likely. I always seem to think of an exception to an assertion just as or after I make it.
Like rules in Magic: the Gathering always interacting with one another, and allowing for so many variations and conditions that almost any absolute statement you make will have exceptions. Like, "You won't have more than one sorcery on the stack at once." I have to admit, dear memory, I have enjoyed your Topdeck Tutors podcasts and videos a great deal. I listened to them many times, much like rewatching CarlSagan42's videos over and over again, which you also introduced me to. I like your taste, dear memory. The things you do and recommend have often been interesting, hopeful, clever and funny. Much like you...
I told the story of my relationship with you to one of my co-workers today. She has been working with us only two weeks, rather than the five that I have shared with the other summer students who joined at the same time as me. She is more than ten years younger than me, and working together with a co-worker more than ten years younger than myself feels very strange indeed. It gives me a sense of being older and more experienced in my surround that is very distinct and I am not sure how to react to it. I feel I should be a voice of wisdom and experience to some degree, but am also concerned against being a pretentious adult as I know I used to see adults who would try to talk to me: who thought they knew better, and needn't listen to me. I never want to be like that. I think I am managing not to be, so far.
I told her about meeting you at tabletop society, inviting someone else at the table to walk, but having you answer that call instead, and noticing you in a way I had not noticed before. The March-a-thon, and the long walks you markedly failed ever to make an excuse not to show up for. The discomfort on your face when I mentioned a lover from home. The request to kiss you. A relationship beautiful and intense and supportive, but always bound by time to end with the school year. My own desperate reluctance to leave you behind. A promise perhaps unfairly extracted. Intentions forged from fear of letting go. Inability to keep up a relationship worth having between the pain of distance and the dissynchronicity of time zones. A coming apart, first resisted, and then formally agreed. An attempt to move on. A song, a breaking point, a realization, and a decision, to come back. Plans, applications, formalities; step by slow, beaurocratic step. Success. Acceptance. Further plans. A plane ticket. And an email, requesting your consent to meet me. And a message, charmingly misspelled, 'of coarse'.
I was crying a little by the end of that story. I am crying a little recounting it here. The feelings... they are still there. Of course they are. How couldn't they be? And yet, none of the words I said four days ago, I think, are false. I do not think I am obsessed anymore. I do think I am ready to take whatever comes. It remains true, so far as I can tell beyond a veil of perspective behind which I cannot be objective, that the travel and the adventure may have been welcome even if I did not have this exceptionally romantic excuse to undertake it. That I expect the adventure to be welcome even if the answer I find is not what I hoped it might be.
Beside that strange dispassion is a shining storm of quiet passion, controlled... in some way respectful... perhaps even polite. But passionate nonetheless, moved into a whirl that twists the air into eddies and currents, that pulls me, although perhaps not inexorably. That moves me, because I consent to be moved by it. It would be a great struggle not to move to this current in some way or another, but I can direct it, I think. I can channel and turn its flow. I still am convinced this is not really a contradiction. Like so many other things, my dear memory, in this ball of seeming contradictons, as you called me long ago. I don't think I ever claimed, or ever expected, that I would not feel. I don't think I ever said, even to myself, that I would not cry, or hurt. Only that it would be worth it. It was, and is, my choice. The story worth telling, both the bitter and the sweet of it.
Friday, July 27, 2018
Monday, July 23, 2018
Dear Memory: As Seasons Change and The Time Draws Near
My upcoming trip back to Ireland becomes more real week by week. It is less than a month away now, and begins to solidify, develop the practical gentle urgency of something I need to prepare for. I went out today, and bought a luggage to fit close to the maximum dimensions for an allowed carry-on luggage as permitted for my flight. The one I found at Talize that I decided to buy was missing a handle, but seems roomy and adaptible. Part of its length is collapsible with an extension zipper. It also has little wheels on the bottom, and I know well the value of being able to pull, not carry, wherever the ground permits. I have begun to sew on a new handle, made of a synthetic strap that I have among my collection of various potentially useful objects and materials.
It has been a while since I've done any sewing, although I had a stint of it a while back, before I got this summer job, and I look forward to finishing my backpack as well, before I finally go.
The job... The first genuine interview I got this summer led to a hire. I must have been doing something right, and that brings a little soft smile to my face, although I know it also took me some effort and stress before I got to that interview. I have been working in maintenance at the Boys & Girls Club of London, and my direct supervisor is often impressed with the thoroughness and care of the work I and my co-workers who are also summer student hires do. Even, sometimes, with the speed, although this is far less one of my strengths. I have had sore muscles and joints in at least one place almost constantly since I started - it is physical work, which I have not been used to in recent years; and involves a lot of crouching and bending, which is hard on my feet, and thighs, and knees. However, the staff there are friendly and diverse, encouraging and gentle. They remind me insistently to take breaks and I think they want to make sure I take care of myself, which it is hard to remember to do when I am focused on proving my worth - at work, I always am.
For the first week of July, distant memory, I went into the United States to visit with another friend from the internet, who has seemed to be quite smitten with me for some time, and has been a great source of comfort and companionship. It was a very pleasant week of luxury and relaxation. I was treated to a hotel and swimming and I suspect I would have been bought restaurant food every day I was there had I not pretty much insisted on showing my cooking chops - so one night, I made us sandwiches and then my host bought us a hotplate so that I could cook a jambalaya (a boxed meal that caught his eye when we were shopping) and a soup and a good meal of pasta.
My dear host also offered me the opportunity to take a new laptop with me when I left, which caught me thoroughly off-guard. He had bought it just to have for our time together, he explained to me, and would have returned it otherwise. Although it baffles my awkwardness about money and worthiness, and jarred against my pride clamorously, I accepted; my budget for the coming year is likely to be stretched as it is, and my old laptop is in awful shape, just kind of waiting for one last problem to make it actually unusable. It already has no useable battery (and cannot run at all without being constantly plugged in) and often stalls and threatens to crash when dealing with anything complicated.
My trip in July was romantic, and my relationship with the one who invited me there as well. It continues to be a strong and fond connection. I wish for you to understand that although it took me some time to be ready to open my heart again after losing you last summer, and losing you much more thoroughly in October... I have been able to. I want you to understand that this is not an indication that I do not care about you or am no longer fond of you. It is, however, part of the plan. I needed to let you go, in order to come back to you freely, and with the strength of independence. Forging new romantic connections again, once I was able, has been part of that, a small and vital part of letting you go. But they do not displace my promises, or my hopes. There is a throne somewhere in my heart, now perhaps a little dusty, for I have left it mostly alone for some time... that sits reserved for you, should you want it. I have set up my other relationships to be secondary, to give primacy to the potential of you. If the primacy of you does not come about, I will adjust. If you make clear that you do not want the throne, I will adjust. Offer that place to someone else, or destroy it and build something else.
I think of you only occasionally now, and I think of you as a feature of the future more than a feature of the past. I do not have much to think about you that I have not already covered, and I think I have settled into a reasonable comfort in waiting. I went very thoroughly over all this, emotionally and practically, earlier. I chose my strategy, now it only remains to carry it through, and this I can do quite simply.
It occured to me while I was taking a shower at some point, perhaps a week ago, perhaps two... that there had been a time that a former state of Serp was thoroughly obsessed with you, and that state of Serp had had little else in its focus than you, and what might be the best way to have the best chance to know you again, and to have all the good of your company. That Serp decided that in order to have the best chance, it must cease to be the obsessed Serp that it was, but make a plan to pursue you gently and without being obsessed, so that the future, non-obsessed Serp would not simply ignore you or fail to make any effort. And so my past self plotted, and felt, and dreamed, and wrote you letters here, burning out its passion and resigning itself to pass away, giving way gradually and by its own will to a different Serp with a very different state of mind.
It feels like a different person wrote those letters, a little. This Serp, this present I... I do not think it is obsessed. I do not think I am obsessed, but regard this whole adventure as just the way that things are going to go. In respect for my past self, and in accord with the arrangements and work already put into the plan, in acquiring an acceptance from another Irish school, a deposit from my father, committing to my landlord to leave. I do not feel all that romantic about it day by day, but from time to time I do think about the future and wonder what will happen, when I will actually meet you. What look will be on your face? What will you see when you look at me? Will you notice some differences right away? Will I seem calmer? Stronger? Thinner? Happier? The subtle changes that take place over months are rarely well observed by one who lives through them. They are rarely drastic enough to notice, and even when they are, the new way of things quickly becomes merely normal again. But perhaps you, old memory, will notice.
And so that I do not leave it out, because it is still part of the reason, I do come to Ireland in order to find out. In order to see you, and speak to you, and in order to answer the question of whether we can and will love one another again. Perhaps I will feel a wash of emotion as soon as I see you again, eye to eye in real time and real space. Perhaps I will remember my obsession and be again entangled. I think, however, that I will be able to resist becoming obsessed for a time, by being careful, so as to not overwhelm you or make myself a nuisance by being too attached if it is not reciprocated, or if it is not desired of me. It is not, now, a demand... as my past self insisted it should not be, and I think I am ready to fulfil that. It is not a need for you. It is an open question, one in which I remain interested and curious, and very much inclined to pursue. Will we love one another again? Shall I be your companion for some substantial amount of time? Will your life and my life fit together? Can we make them complimentary in a way that makes each of us stronger? Will you want to?
I remind myself, in a reflex, to imagine that the answer could be no. And I smile a little to myself, because I think I genuinely have managed to prepare to accept that gracefully, by reminding myself every time. It would be alright. It would be satisfactory. The question would still have been answered. Don't get me wrong, I expect it may be at least a little disappointing... But my cunning past self knew just what it wanted its strategy to be, and set it in motion and then lay down and passed peacefully into the past so that I could emerge as I am, as planned, and I have to say I am somewhat impressed with myself. I didn't realize I could do that.
I think I'm ready. I am prepared for long travel, and to face uncertainty with confidence and with ingredients gathered around me from which to forge all manner of alternate plans. I am ready to meet you and be rekindled as a lover, or embraced as a friend. An... old friend... I remember the words, and my mind is transported back to a grassy field, a gentle rise, a tense and tearful conversation. My eyes leak in sympathy with the past and I feel curious, and wistful, and I continue to think about the future, but note that there is still this possibility of being reminded vividly of the past, like a movie playing over again, known fondly and memorized.
I have begun to sell some of my things. Took a bunch of photos and made a bunch of listings the other day. It has demanded more organization from me, and I have done it. It is useful on its own anyway.
I knew it'd been some time since I wrote here. There are a good many things I struggle to make time for, in those moments when I have power and confidence enough to choose to do something, and then go ahead and do it. Rather than going through my life desperately from reassurance to reassurance like it sometimes feels like.
I have three weeks left at my summer job, and then another handful of days left to myself, and then a long, long travel back to the country where I met you, old memory. Since you will not be able to meet me the day I land, there is not really any need to plan the meeting in advance. I will take up the offer given me by my college and be transported to Carlow to begin to settle there, and then I will probably feel I have the right to speak to you more freely, for I will be there, and available at the expenditure of a few hours in transit. I breathe. I sigh. Until then, then, old memory. Heh. The reunion comes.
It has been a while since I've done any sewing, although I had a stint of it a while back, before I got this summer job, and I look forward to finishing my backpack as well, before I finally go.
The job... The first genuine interview I got this summer led to a hire. I must have been doing something right, and that brings a little soft smile to my face, although I know it also took me some effort and stress before I got to that interview. I have been working in maintenance at the Boys & Girls Club of London, and my direct supervisor is often impressed with the thoroughness and care of the work I and my co-workers who are also summer student hires do. Even, sometimes, with the speed, although this is far less one of my strengths. I have had sore muscles and joints in at least one place almost constantly since I started - it is physical work, which I have not been used to in recent years; and involves a lot of crouching and bending, which is hard on my feet, and thighs, and knees. However, the staff there are friendly and diverse, encouraging and gentle. They remind me insistently to take breaks and I think they want to make sure I take care of myself, which it is hard to remember to do when I am focused on proving my worth - at work, I always am.
For the first week of July, distant memory, I went into the United States to visit with another friend from the internet, who has seemed to be quite smitten with me for some time, and has been a great source of comfort and companionship. It was a very pleasant week of luxury and relaxation. I was treated to a hotel and swimming and I suspect I would have been bought restaurant food every day I was there had I not pretty much insisted on showing my cooking chops - so one night, I made us sandwiches and then my host bought us a hotplate so that I could cook a jambalaya (a boxed meal that caught his eye when we were shopping) and a soup and a good meal of pasta.
My dear host also offered me the opportunity to take a new laptop with me when I left, which caught me thoroughly off-guard. He had bought it just to have for our time together, he explained to me, and would have returned it otherwise. Although it baffles my awkwardness about money and worthiness, and jarred against my pride clamorously, I accepted; my budget for the coming year is likely to be stretched as it is, and my old laptop is in awful shape, just kind of waiting for one last problem to make it actually unusable. It already has no useable battery (and cannot run at all without being constantly plugged in) and often stalls and threatens to crash when dealing with anything complicated.
My trip in July was romantic, and my relationship with the one who invited me there as well. It continues to be a strong and fond connection. I wish for you to understand that although it took me some time to be ready to open my heart again after losing you last summer, and losing you much more thoroughly in October... I have been able to. I want you to understand that this is not an indication that I do not care about you or am no longer fond of you. It is, however, part of the plan. I needed to let you go, in order to come back to you freely, and with the strength of independence. Forging new romantic connections again, once I was able, has been part of that, a small and vital part of letting you go. But they do not displace my promises, or my hopes. There is a throne somewhere in my heart, now perhaps a little dusty, for I have left it mostly alone for some time... that sits reserved for you, should you want it. I have set up my other relationships to be secondary, to give primacy to the potential of you. If the primacy of you does not come about, I will adjust. If you make clear that you do not want the throne, I will adjust. Offer that place to someone else, or destroy it and build something else.
I think of you only occasionally now, and I think of you as a feature of the future more than a feature of the past. I do not have much to think about you that I have not already covered, and I think I have settled into a reasonable comfort in waiting. I went very thoroughly over all this, emotionally and practically, earlier. I chose my strategy, now it only remains to carry it through, and this I can do quite simply.
It occured to me while I was taking a shower at some point, perhaps a week ago, perhaps two... that there had been a time that a former state of Serp was thoroughly obsessed with you, and that state of Serp had had little else in its focus than you, and what might be the best way to have the best chance to know you again, and to have all the good of your company. That Serp decided that in order to have the best chance, it must cease to be the obsessed Serp that it was, but make a plan to pursue you gently and without being obsessed, so that the future, non-obsessed Serp would not simply ignore you or fail to make any effort. And so my past self plotted, and felt, and dreamed, and wrote you letters here, burning out its passion and resigning itself to pass away, giving way gradually and by its own will to a different Serp with a very different state of mind.
It feels like a different person wrote those letters, a little. This Serp, this present I... I do not think it is obsessed. I do not think I am obsessed, but regard this whole adventure as just the way that things are going to go. In respect for my past self, and in accord with the arrangements and work already put into the plan, in acquiring an acceptance from another Irish school, a deposit from my father, committing to my landlord to leave. I do not feel all that romantic about it day by day, but from time to time I do think about the future and wonder what will happen, when I will actually meet you. What look will be on your face? What will you see when you look at me? Will you notice some differences right away? Will I seem calmer? Stronger? Thinner? Happier? The subtle changes that take place over months are rarely well observed by one who lives through them. They are rarely drastic enough to notice, and even when they are, the new way of things quickly becomes merely normal again. But perhaps you, old memory, will notice.
And so that I do not leave it out, because it is still part of the reason, I do come to Ireland in order to find out. In order to see you, and speak to you, and in order to answer the question of whether we can and will love one another again. Perhaps I will feel a wash of emotion as soon as I see you again, eye to eye in real time and real space. Perhaps I will remember my obsession and be again entangled. I think, however, that I will be able to resist becoming obsessed for a time, by being careful, so as to not overwhelm you or make myself a nuisance by being too attached if it is not reciprocated, or if it is not desired of me. It is not, now, a demand... as my past self insisted it should not be, and I think I am ready to fulfil that. It is not a need for you. It is an open question, one in which I remain interested and curious, and very much inclined to pursue. Will we love one another again? Shall I be your companion for some substantial amount of time? Will your life and my life fit together? Can we make them complimentary in a way that makes each of us stronger? Will you want to?
I remind myself, in a reflex, to imagine that the answer could be no. And I smile a little to myself, because I think I genuinely have managed to prepare to accept that gracefully, by reminding myself every time. It would be alright. It would be satisfactory. The question would still have been answered. Don't get me wrong, I expect it may be at least a little disappointing... But my cunning past self knew just what it wanted its strategy to be, and set it in motion and then lay down and passed peacefully into the past so that I could emerge as I am, as planned, and I have to say I am somewhat impressed with myself. I didn't realize I could do that.
I think I'm ready. I am prepared for long travel, and to face uncertainty with confidence and with ingredients gathered around me from which to forge all manner of alternate plans. I am ready to meet you and be rekindled as a lover, or embraced as a friend. An... old friend... I remember the words, and my mind is transported back to a grassy field, a gentle rise, a tense and tearful conversation. My eyes leak in sympathy with the past and I feel curious, and wistful, and I continue to think about the future, but note that there is still this possibility of being reminded vividly of the past, like a movie playing over again, known fondly and memorized.
I have begun to sell some of my things. Took a bunch of photos and made a bunch of listings the other day. It has demanded more organization from me, and I have done it. It is useful on its own anyway.
I knew it'd been some time since I wrote here. There are a good many things I struggle to make time for, in those moments when I have power and confidence enough to choose to do something, and then go ahead and do it. Rather than going through my life desperately from reassurance to reassurance like it sometimes feels like.
I have three weeks left at my summer job, and then another handful of days left to myself, and then a long, long travel back to the country where I met you, old memory. Since you will not be able to meet me the day I land, there is not really any need to plan the meeting in advance. I will take up the offer given me by my college and be transported to Carlow to begin to settle there, and then I will probably feel I have the right to speak to you more freely, for I will be there, and available at the expenditure of a few hours in transit. I breathe. I sigh. Until then, then, old memory. Heh. The reunion comes.
Saturday, June 9, 2018
Out of the Fire and into the Pan
It has been a stressful month or so for me, increasingly so over financial debts and concerns that I may not be able to arrange things adequately even to get myself to Ireland, much less beyond... I was very reluctant to return to Ontario Works, but this week I did so, and spoke very humbly to the staff member there who was quick to listen and encourage me, and trusted me when I said I was job searching already and had applied to ten or a dozen summertime positions, which I had.
I've made up a chart on Google Sheets of when I applied to what and how long I spent doing it, and roughly what sort of positions they were, and I've given to my friends and to my employment counsellor at Goodwill Career Center a link to see it as I add to it. I was feeling so glum and reluctant one evening that I turned to examining the feeling and what exactly it was about. I decided a large part of it was probably the silence. I've never been able to happily endure silence as a response when I put myself out into the world, whether it's a joke or a request or, as now, a job application. It feels like casual rejection, which feels hideous. Although I know that keeping at my job hunting a little at a time, stable-like, is how best to make sure I can find something, it's awfully discouraging to me not seeing any mark of progress, because I've not got interviews or hire offers yet.
So I thought about that, and I decided to ask my friends to help me by setting up like video game achievements for me, so that to help me keep going with gradual consistency, I could measure progress by milestones like grindy achievements; applications X days in a row like studying on Khan Academy, or apply to five receptionist jobs, or to ten labour jobs, or thirty jobs in total, whatever it'd be. Then I'd have marks of progress to look forward to, and to look back on, that didn't depend on any feedback I'm unlikely to get from the jobs themselves.
So that seems alright, and I do think it's helping me stay happy, which ultimately makes everything better. One of my friends agreed in right away and will share with me a song from his music library or a sketch he's drawn that I didn't see before for each two online applications I submit, or each one place I submit in person, up to two rewards every day. And yesterday, I went through and did five applications online to mostly labour oriented positions, so I could focus on how to present as a good labourer rather than trying to organize a bunch of different fronts at one time. I like that strategy, I think it suits me well.
There's also mother. I don't remember whether I wrote it here, but I got back in contact with my mother, and that's been stressful. I think she's trying, though. I told her once a little while ago that she had been behaving unappropriately and to stop sending me any more messages until I could figure out what to say back to her, and then she sent me a message to say she would (because no-one ever apparently thinks that saying yes counts as saying anything), but since then has stayed quiet, and I've got a long email sitting in drafts that I haven't gotten back around to yet to trim down and decide whether to make it milder, but I've been focusing on trying to keep my morale high enough to job search. I might say more about my mother here later, or maybe I won't.
I've come 'round to sleeping days again, which is all a great frustration, but I can still do my job searching at least, in the evenings when I'm awake. Normally I'd try to push my sleeping forward and forward through the days some more until it was back around to nights again, only I talk to Iris in the evenings. He's been very sweet and loving to me, and it makes me feel happy to have that place and time when I'm welcomed for a while. I've got him playing through Doki Doki Literature Club, which I played my virgin run of a while ago. I thought we might be done with his own virgin (or I suppose you could say blind) run through it by now, but he goes through the game so slowly, reading the dialogue and discussing the poetry and thinking hard over every choice and talking to me about it.
We spent some amusing and interesting hours together finding a bunch of secrets in the game, much earlier than I would have expected and which I hadn't even known were there, so I was able to participate in unraveling them from ignorance and with sincere exploration myself, which was great fun. I won't say any more about that here, because between them being secrets and the type of game DDLC is, if any readers have not played it, I would want to encourage them to do so and experience it all themselves. Iris and I have recorded our playing the game and I might put it on YouTube at some point if ever I find a comfortable way to edit videos again, so it's not like our experiences will be lost if I don't write them here.
Last time we played, Iris had a substantial conversation with Yuri for the first time in the game, having mostly spent his time talking to Sayori so far. It was very fun for me to hear him read it, partly because it went like conversations he's actually had with me even more than I expected. I see a lot of myself in Yuri, a lot of my own strengths and weaknesses and fears, depicted very well in some places, and that gives me reason to love the game if I didn't already have an inclination to. I spoke to Iris about it and he can see what I mean by that, although he finds much more kinship in Sayori himself, which doesn't surprise me... Such a simple sweetheart, taking unabashed delight in the simple solaces of the world like restful sleep and tasty food. And what's better, he doesn't mind if I make a little fun of him for it. It seems I get along very well with fellows like that, who can remind me by example to enjoy the simple things, and aren't too proud to let me laugh at them.
I say simple, but it doesn't mean stupid. Iris and Fish and Coda too can understand the complexity and darkness in my perspectives well enough to empathise beautifully and sincerely; I know it's not any lack of understanding or capacity that leads them to deal with life on such simple terms, but their own preference, and oftentimes conscious decision about who they want to be. I can thoroughly respect that. I can enjoy walking a time with Iris's sunny attitude, knowing that he is sincerely willing to take his turn walking with me through nightmares... so spending time lighthearted doesn't mean denying the dark is there, in the way that it has often felt to me as though it does in broader society. It's not whitewashing. It's not stupid politics. It doesn't make me pick sides between two ends of a waveform as though they were contradictory to one another for the contrast. I love that.
Anyway, I started out this writing meaning to say that my benefit return from filing my taxes has come in, and now so has Ontario Works support for this month, since I hadn't paid my rent yet, not having the money, and I asked humbly if they could help me with that and was told they could and would. So I've paid my rent, and I also paid off most of the debt on my credit card that's been building up from groceries and stuff... And my plane ticket... and there's such a weight off my shoulders now about that. But I still need to work at finding work for those weeks of summer I have left if I can, because I can use all the money I can save up to get myself started strong in Ireland.
I've made up a chart on Google Sheets of when I applied to what and how long I spent doing it, and roughly what sort of positions they were, and I've given to my friends and to my employment counsellor at Goodwill Career Center a link to see it as I add to it. I was feeling so glum and reluctant one evening that I turned to examining the feeling and what exactly it was about. I decided a large part of it was probably the silence. I've never been able to happily endure silence as a response when I put myself out into the world, whether it's a joke or a request or, as now, a job application. It feels like casual rejection, which feels hideous. Although I know that keeping at my job hunting a little at a time, stable-like, is how best to make sure I can find something, it's awfully discouraging to me not seeing any mark of progress, because I've not got interviews or hire offers yet.
So I thought about that, and I decided to ask my friends to help me by setting up like video game achievements for me, so that to help me keep going with gradual consistency, I could measure progress by milestones like grindy achievements; applications X days in a row like studying on Khan Academy, or apply to five receptionist jobs, or to ten labour jobs, or thirty jobs in total, whatever it'd be. Then I'd have marks of progress to look forward to, and to look back on, that didn't depend on any feedback I'm unlikely to get from the jobs themselves.
So that seems alright, and I do think it's helping me stay happy, which ultimately makes everything better. One of my friends agreed in right away and will share with me a song from his music library or a sketch he's drawn that I didn't see before for each two online applications I submit, or each one place I submit in person, up to two rewards every day. And yesterday, I went through and did five applications online to mostly labour oriented positions, so I could focus on how to present as a good labourer rather than trying to organize a bunch of different fronts at one time. I like that strategy, I think it suits me well.
There's also mother. I don't remember whether I wrote it here, but I got back in contact with my mother, and that's been stressful. I think she's trying, though. I told her once a little while ago that she had been behaving unappropriately and to stop sending me any more messages until I could figure out what to say back to her, and then she sent me a message to say she would (because no-one ever apparently thinks that saying yes counts as saying anything), but since then has stayed quiet, and I've got a long email sitting in drafts that I haven't gotten back around to yet to trim down and decide whether to make it milder, but I've been focusing on trying to keep my morale high enough to job search. I might say more about my mother here later, or maybe I won't.
I've come 'round to sleeping days again, which is all a great frustration, but I can still do my job searching at least, in the evenings when I'm awake. Normally I'd try to push my sleeping forward and forward through the days some more until it was back around to nights again, only I talk to Iris in the evenings. He's been very sweet and loving to me, and it makes me feel happy to have that place and time when I'm welcomed for a while. I've got him playing through Doki Doki Literature Club, which I played my virgin run of a while ago. I thought we might be done with his own virgin (or I suppose you could say blind) run through it by now, but he goes through the game so slowly, reading the dialogue and discussing the poetry and thinking hard over every choice and talking to me about it.
We spent some amusing and interesting hours together finding a bunch of secrets in the game, much earlier than I would have expected and which I hadn't even known were there, so I was able to participate in unraveling them from ignorance and with sincere exploration myself, which was great fun. I won't say any more about that here, because between them being secrets and the type of game DDLC is, if any readers have not played it, I would want to encourage them to do so and experience it all themselves. Iris and I have recorded our playing the game and I might put it on YouTube at some point if ever I find a comfortable way to edit videos again, so it's not like our experiences will be lost if I don't write them here.
Last time we played, Iris had a substantial conversation with Yuri for the first time in the game, having mostly spent his time talking to Sayori so far. It was very fun for me to hear him read it, partly because it went like conversations he's actually had with me even more than I expected. I see a lot of myself in Yuri, a lot of my own strengths and weaknesses and fears, depicted very well in some places, and that gives me reason to love the game if I didn't already have an inclination to. I spoke to Iris about it and he can see what I mean by that, although he finds much more kinship in Sayori himself, which doesn't surprise me... Such a simple sweetheart, taking unabashed delight in the simple solaces of the world like restful sleep and tasty food. And what's better, he doesn't mind if I make a little fun of him for it. It seems I get along very well with fellows like that, who can remind me by example to enjoy the simple things, and aren't too proud to let me laugh at them.
I say simple, but it doesn't mean stupid. Iris and Fish and Coda too can understand the complexity and darkness in my perspectives well enough to empathise beautifully and sincerely; I know it's not any lack of understanding or capacity that leads them to deal with life on such simple terms, but their own preference, and oftentimes conscious decision about who they want to be. I can thoroughly respect that. I can enjoy walking a time with Iris's sunny attitude, knowing that he is sincerely willing to take his turn walking with me through nightmares... so spending time lighthearted doesn't mean denying the dark is there, in the way that it has often felt to me as though it does in broader society. It's not whitewashing. It's not stupid politics. It doesn't make me pick sides between two ends of a waveform as though they were contradictory to one another for the contrast. I love that.
Anyway, I started out this writing meaning to say that my benefit return from filing my taxes has come in, and now so has Ontario Works support for this month, since I hadn't paid my rent yet, not having the money, and I asked humbly if they could help me with that and was told they could and would. So I've paid my rent, and I also paid off most of the debt on my credit card that's been building up from groceries and stuff... And my plane ticket... and there's such a weight off my shoulders now about that. But I still need to work at finding work for those weeks of summer I have left if I can, because I can use all the money I can save up to get myself started strong in Ireland.
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