< The Transfer | Strategist | Resigning >

Six months.

Still two weeks to go officially, but it began six months ago. The slow climb.

I listen. I analyze. That is my habit and my nature and, were I forced to list one, my single 'power.'

I do not journal. It's not my habit. I don't intend to make it one, but after six months, retrospection is in order. To look at what has changed.

First: I have a friend here.

Silly thing to write. Puerile and childish to see it on paper, but significant.

They are much younger (who isn't, in this game?), but they are bright and sharp and familiar -- like my daughter might have been, had she lived. Her name is very close to Serena's as well, which makes things both simpler and more complicated -- I'm sure my motivations are suspect, but I've allowed myself some leeway. A friend. Surrogate daughter, perhaps. It suits.

Second: the Other.

There's a kind of loss a person can suffer -- the destruction of loved ones --

I'm not inclined to mull over this for long, even here on this paper I'll no doubt destroy.

When one encounters loss that strong, pain that intense, it is a simple, obvious thing to say you may find yourself pulling back from any kind of connection in the future, to avoid similar pain.

The fact of the matter is that if the pain is bad enough, you'll actually wish that those you loved had never been, if only so that you don't have to... hurt, anymore.

You will hate yourself for wishing that.

Visiting Sabrina's new home showed me how poorly I'd dealt with the death of Candace and Serena -- made me reevaluate other parts of my life that I had unconsciously blocked off.

How I had avoided personal attachments -- out of fear, lying to myself and calling it security or caution.

I won't live in fear -- not of any man, including myself -- so I went to the thing I desired, but feared; like a hydrophobe standing on the edge of a lake.

I've since told Sabrina (why I discussed this with her of all people is a question for another day) that when you want to overcome a fear, you dive into the lake -- immersing -- swimming down as far you can in order to remind yourself why you once enjoyed the water, and that you won't die. This treatment will either cure you or kill you.

Either way, the fear is gone.

In response, she smirked and asked impertinent questions. Typical.

I am in the lake.

I am not dead yet.

((scribbled on a bit of notepaper))

Lose her to a tactics error, the way I did before, or drive her away with the rules that try to prevent that from happening.

There is no strategy for this.

< The Transfer | Strategist | Resigning >