For Good

I’ve heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true
But I know I’m who I am today
Because I knew you

- Glinda, For Good, from the musical “Wicked”

Thank you. Does it seem strange that, after all we’ve been through, I’m thanking you? Maybe it should – and I realize that maybe it’s something I should actually say aloud – but thank you for everything. For being my friend, for just being you, even for all the heartache. I realize that I don’t express it near so eloquently as Glinda does – but I do know I’m who I am today because I knew you. I do believe people come into our lives for a reason, and I recognize how important it was that you came into mine. You never did believe it when I told you that I was better because of you – that you made me better, made me want to be better than I was. It’s true though – I recognize it now more than ever. If not for you I would never have become the person I now am, so thank you. I can only hope that you learned as much from me as I did from you.

Yet, I wish you would trust me again. You don’t seem to anymore – not the way you used to – which really doesn’t make sense. If anything, I should be the one who doesn’t trust you. For some reason though, I do still trust you, and I want us to be how we were before. Not when we were together, I’m happy where I am in my life and with who I’m with, but I want our close friendship back. We used to have such an easy way of getting along and I miss that so much I don’t even know the words to describe it. I miss you! I miss the you that you stopped letting me see – the friend I love with all my heart. I have very few friends I feel that strongly about, and to have even one of them pull away hurts. That breaks my heart more than being broken-up with ever could.

What hurts more is the thought that maybe you never did care. The lingering doubt that causes me to lash out in anger even though I’m almost certain you really cared. That or you put on a bloody good act. I don’t want to be angry with you. I don’t want to be constantly frustrated because it doesn’t seem like I can get through to you. I want you to stop pushing me away like I carry the plague or something and refusing to see that not everything I do is an attempt to get you back. At the moment, I don’t even want you back. I’m happy – so happy – with where I am now. All I want is for you to open up to me again, to not work so hard to be such a bastard. I never closed off to you, I tried to be as open as I would with any of my close friends, but you wouldn’t have any of it. Yet, you said you wanted to be friends. You can’t push me away and be my friend. You have to choose because I’m not letting you have it both ways. I’m tired of being angry and frustrated.

You changed me, perhaps in ways only I notice, but you did. Changes, you might say, can be either good or bad; but as Glinda and Elphaba say in the musical – “I do believe I have been changed for the better.” So, thank you. For everything.

The Tangled Web

Right, so this is a new category of posts I’ve decided to add to the blog. Basically, I’ve noticed that a lot of my thoughts tend to take the form of me speaking – or perhaps monologuing is a more appropriate word  – to another person. Usually a specific person or persons. For the purposes of this blog, said persons shall go unnamed. These are my letters to the Void – addressees anonymous…

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We said we weren’t going to do this – that we wouldn’t let this happen. Didn’t we? We agreed that we recognized the trap and that we would avoid it. Right? Yet here we are, ensnared in the tangled web we ourselves wove. How did this happen? You were looking one way, I was looking another. How did we turn to each other? I have to wonder if it’s possible that what neither of us realized was that our mutual desire to help each other, to be a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on for the other, was really the first manifestation of our dormant desire to be together. It seems so obvious, when I look back on the last two months. We’ve been telling ourselves we were somehow going to avoid the inevitable. Well, the inevitable finally proved itself unavoidable. We didn’t fall into the trap though. How could we when we so clearly set it ourselves? We walked into it with our eyes wide open, both knowing what it meant to do so. We let ourselves be caught.

Why, I can now ask, were we so insistent upon resisting this? I know we both saw it coming long in advance – saw what could be, what could happen if we continued down the path we were on – and both thought we were strong enough to ignore it. Worse, we thought we should ignore it. Did we see then what we’re ignoring now? Did we see that simply because of the way this came to be that we would never work? Light, I hope not. The truth is, I like this. I liked the idea of it before the drama that has been the last five months too, but I think I’ve told you as much. I very well might have said yes, had you been the first to act back then. I recognized that you were the sort of guy I would date – I said as much to my mum – but I just wasn’t sure about you yet. I didn’t know you nearly so well as I do now. Yet, I clearly must have seen something there. I once said I believed we think a little alike, you and I. Your exact response to this was, “We think alike? That would be truly scary.” I think we’ve since learned we do indeed think quite a bit alike in many ways. Still scary, isn’t it?

Truthfully, I have to admit that I’m glad you didn’t act back then. Sure, we could have given it a shot, but I don’t think we would have worked for more than a couple weeks. I wasn’t ready. Everything happens for a reason; the events of the last few months are no different. I know that I am a very different person than I was – I can feel it, even if the world sees nothing different about me at all. In many ways, I’m freer and more confident than I’ve ever been. I learned so much about myself in so short a time, it amazes me. I’ve known who I am for years now, but every once-in-a-while I discover something new, something I’d never had reason to confront before. The last few months have been one of those times, and what I learned changed me in ways I needed to be changed to move forward with my life. No regrets – only lessons learned. That’s how I live; that’s what made me ready to take a chance – a leap of faith. I’ve been hurt before and don’t doubt that I’ll be hurt again, but the here and now is all that really matters. Can’t let fear of being hurt – or hurting another – stop me from seizing the opportunities before me. I think we both learned that.

So – where does that leave us? I’m not entirely sure, but it’s a better place than I think either of us was before.

Memories: Betrayer and Betrayed

This, my friends, is the first bit of writing I’m posting for all of you to read. Wheel of Time fanfiction/roleplay. It’s the continuation of a much longer storyline (there are six previous parts) but I think it works well enough on its own as well. I might possibly post the rest as pages like the character biographies are… eventually. Maybe. I also might be persuaded to do so much more quickly if anyone responds to this and lets me know they’d like to see the first six parts…

Anyway, without further ado, the story!

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Memories: Betrayer and Betrayed - Calia Selle

Of the people I most dreaded seeing upon my return to Tar Valon, the Mistress of Novices came in third. Second place went to the golden haired woman standing next to her that day, the agelessness of an Aes Sedai beginning to grace her features. I knew my punishment would be severe – I certainly deserved a severe punishment for what I’d done and these two women would see that it was – but to see the disappointment in their eyes was almost too much to bear. I stood before them, waiting on their judgment, a woman who two years before had been summoned to be tested for the shawl of an Aes Sedai and had forfeited that chance through a slip of the tongue. One year before, I had been a model Accepted, serving the Tower dutifully and patiently awaiting the day I would be summoned again. The day of my return, I stood before the pair of Greens I so admired and I was a der’sul’dam and a runaway Accepted, a shame to them and to myself. Yet, it wasn’t in my heart to be ashamed of what I had done and, in doing the things I had, what I had become. I was a der’sul’dam; that would always be a part of me and I would no longer allow myself to be shamed by it. I refused – and still refuse – to feel any shame over the life I chose to live.

It had been my choice to return to the White Tower and resume life as an Accepted – and thus my punishment began in being denied this. I spent another half a year away from the Tower, outside the city walls, at a farm close enough to the island city that I could still see the ivory spire that rose at it’s heart every time I looked to the east. I learned quickly to stop looking to the east. Every time I made that mistake it was like another twist of the dagger the Tower had already thrust in my gut. I could imagine the men and women, passing their days as I desired. I could imagine Terrian Sedai – I wasn’t bold enough to count her a friend any longer – going about her business in the Green Ajah halls, seeing to her duties; mentoring novices, Accepted, and young Aes Sedai; teaching lessons. Everything that I remembered her doing – and she would throw herself at them with wild abandon because that was what she did. Terrian had never let being Aes Sedai stop her from living her life the way she wanted. I admired that.

I would think of my sister – my twin, Jocelyn – passing her days in the Tower among those Accepted I so envied. I knew she hadn’t been raised to the shawl yet, and I also knew her lover, Kagita Aren, had been summoned and failed. She was lost in the final test we all must face in the year I was away. My heart ached for Jocelyn, knowing I could only imagine her pain. I would think of Sorin and Mizuki – Aes Sedai of the Brown and the Green Ajahs respectively – living their lives and wondering why I had made the choices I had, wondering if every word I had ever spoken was a lie. Perhaps worst was when I would think of Serianna. An Aes Sedai of the Grey Ajah with a decidedly dark streak, a woman whose sights were set on the love of my life, a woman who wouldn’t have hesitated to move in once I was gone. And then I would think of Will. Will Athnai – number one on the list of people I most dreaded seeing upon my return. I had left him. Without any warning I had cast off the life we had been dreaming of together. I didn’t expect that he would ever forgive me, and so I despaired.

Slowly, I learned to live with the pain. Or rather, I remembered how to live with it. As it had been before, so it would be again and I would be alone once more. By the time I returned to Tar Valon permanently, this pain too had become little more than a dull ache. An ache that flared to life the moment I set foot within the Tower.

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Slender hands tugged nervously at the cuffs of the dress, fingers absently tracing the seven bands of color that wrapped around the fabric. It was the first time in a year and a half that Calia had donned the banded hems of a Accepted, and it simply felt wrong. It wasn’t the dress – the garment itself fit perfectly – it was everything the dress and its bands of color represented. For the first time, the thought crossed her mind that perhaps she couldn’t do this. Maybe there really was no place for her in Tar Valon any longer; she certainly didn’t feel like an Accepted anymore. The bands at the hem and cuffs of her dress said she was, and the ring on her finger claimed her for the Tower, but was who she was capable of being what she was any longer? Calia didn’t know. What she did know was that, in passing through the Three Arches, she had irrevocably bound herself to the White Tower. She could break that bond for a time, but she would always be drawn back and bound stronger than before. That was the life she had chosen when she had accepted the Great Serpent ring. That was the life she chose now.

In the early morning silence, the sharp sound of a knock on the door of the small room the Accepted hand been granted seemed unnaturally loud. “Are you nearly ready, child?” The usual morning query was only slightly muffled by the wood of the door. “You wouldn’t want to keep the Aes Sedai waiting, not today.” Calia very nearly laughed. To begin with, she was endlessly amused by the fact that a woman who was at most five years her elder insisted upon referring to her as ‘child’. Calia could only suppose that it was because of the slowing. After all, how was her jailer – because that was what she was – to know that the woman she guarded was much older than she appeared? Then there was the fact that Calia never wanted to keep her visitors from the Tower waiting. Once a week an Aes Sedai came to give her a channeling lesson, if only to ensure that she did not fall further out of practice than she already had, and that was only time the shield that had been placed between the Accepted and the sweetness of saidar was lifted. This was a punishment, after all. Yet, it was true; today of all days she did not want to keep the Aes Sedai waiting, not when today was the day she would return to Tar Valon.

“I’ll be just a moment longer, Mistress Alys.” Calia finally called back, glancing at herself in the small mirror the room held this morning – a luxury she hadn’t been allowed previously. She looked different, even to her own eyes. The crystal blue eyes that stared back at her were older than she remembered them once being, wearier. She had been hardened in her time outside the Shinning Walls, a strange thought when one considered that she had never been a kind and gentle soul, and it showed in her face. It was a face with eyes and expression far too old for its apparent youth, all softness of countenance worn away by the harshness of the last two years. The strangeness was only magnified by the fact that the waves of raven hair she had once allowed to cascade around her shoulders were now pinned up in a loose knot. Just as she had after the first time she ran from the Tower, Calia Selle was returning to the fold a changed woman.

Turning from the mirror, she smoothed the white fabric of her skirts over her hips and faced the door. There she hesitated, staring blankly at the whorls and knots of the rough-hewn wood worn smooth over years of use. This was it. Beyond this door lay the life she had abandoned – or at least the shambles of that life. Calia wasn’t sure she was ready to even attempt picking up the pieces of that life again; to repair the threads of the Pattern her departure had frayed and snapped. Yet, she had to try. She owed that much, at least, to herself and to those she cared about. With a final deep breath to settle her unexpected nerves, Calia opened the door and faced her shame. She was most certainly still sei’mosiev – lowered eyes – or, as the Aiel would say, she had toh. The problem being that she didn’t know how to even begin to regain her honor, to once again be sei’taer, to erase her toh. In fact, she wasn’t even sure she could. Yet, just as she had to make the attempt to repair her broken relationships, she had to try.

“It certainly took you long enough, child.” Calia froze, morning well wishes for Mistress Alys dying on her lips at the sound of the familiar yet unfamiliar voice, a voice tinged with uncharacteristic irritation – anger even. It belonged to a woman from her past, a woman she felt as though she hadn’t spoken to in an Age.

“Terrian Sedai,” the Accepted spoke slowly, turning to face the Green Aes Sedai with a curtsey that was just as graceful as it had been before she had put off the banded hems and run. “My sincerest apologies. It won’t happen again.” The words were delivered with the smooth surety of a woman who had spent years acting as a superior to all those who surrounded her – the words of a woman whose apologies had long since become only a polite formality to placate those few who were superior to her. She didn’t doubt that Terrian Sedai could hear that in her voice, but she also knew that any effort she made to change it would only come off even less sincere. She had too much respect for the woman before her – and the abilities of that woman to read others as a player of Daes Dae’mar – to attempt to deceive her. However, regardless of Calia’s respect for her, Terrian Dy’ner Sedai was not a woman to be trifled with when she was displeased. The former der’sul’dam knew this from experience.

Turning slightly, Calia directed her next words toward Mistress Alys’s second visitor, a honey-haired, blue clad woman. “Katryn Sedai,” She murmured. She spoke nothing more than that, yet she could see the Aes Sedai shudder slightly at the sound of Calia’s voice speaking her name. The woman might have been deemed fit to resume normal life, but she certainly wasn’t in any shape to deal with a woman who had had an indirect hand in breaking her. That shudder betrayed her. Katryn Arieni was never going to be the woman she had once been, the Blue sister she had been before she had been a damane, but Light help Calia if she didn’t see her find some peace.

Crack! The open-handed strike hit squarely and unexpectedly across the Accepted’s left cheek with enough force to send her stumbling back. Pressing her lips together to prevent a string of creative curses from escaping them she turned back to face the Aes Sedai before her. It wasn’t like Terrian Sedai to resort to physical punishment, yet from that strike Calia had no doubt that it had been the Green who had lashed out. The woman had, through years of training, come to be the match of many a Gaidar and that strike could only have been delivered by such. Tasting the iron tang of blood in her mouth she nonetheless dropped a curtsey in response to the blow she had been dealt. “You would do well to remember the appropriate tone when addressing an Aes Sedai, child.” The Green’s words were cold, but as she spoke the warm glow of saidar sprung up around her and Calia could tell the shield that had lay over her almost constantly for the last seven months had been lifted. “Next time, I won’t offer Healing. If you would embrace the Source?”

The Seanchan shook her head, a few tendrils of raven hair falling loose to frame he face. “I would politely refuse Healing, Aes Sedai,” she answered, not quite meeting the slightly older woman’s hazel gaze. Something she knew was that to have any hope of regaining this woman’s trust she had to first regain her respect – and this particular Aes Sedai had a sense of honor like an Aiel. Terrian Sedai forgave easily, but she never forgot. “Punishment is meant to be endured; it is of little effect if immediately Healed.”

The Aes Sedai let go of the Source and nodded. When Calia looked up, it seemed as though something in her longtime mentor’s countenance had softened ever so slightly. “As you wish, Accepted.” A pause. “It seems you did learn something from me after all.”

“I learned a great deal from you, Aes Sedai.” She hesitated for a moment before continuing, “Please, never doubt that. I have such respect for you and have been privileged to call you a mentor, and once even be able to count you a friend. You taught me more than you know.”

“Calia,” The Aes Sedai spoke slowly but with absolute conviction, “You still may count me a friend. I’m displeased with you, but no more so than I am with myself. You should have known better! You should have come to me, or to Madeline, or to any Aes Sedai you trusted! Despite having long sine been ready for the shawl – I and every other Aes Sedai, including Madeline, knows it – you are still only an Accepted. You have to let us handle problems on this scale, you’re still not allowed to take such action by yourself.” She sighed. “Yet, as disappointed as I am, I know I too am somewhat to blame. I, of all people, should have seen this coming. I have the training and the skills that I should have been able to find you and return you to Tar Valon long before you reached Ebou Dar, but I let my own stake in the situation blind me to many truths. Perhaps too many years of having the shawl has made me complacent.”

Calia was somewhat stunned. “You are blameless in this,” she replied quickly. “And I may truly still count you a friend, Terrian Sedai?”

The golden haired woman’s face split into a wry grin. “Only if you stop calling me Terrian Sedai.”

The Accepted grinned in return. “Gladly, Terrian.”

“Touching as this has been,” Katryn Sedai finally spoke up in a voice laced with her customary cynicism, “I believe we were to return her to the Tower sometime today, Terrian.” Both Aes Sedai and Accepted turned to look at their companion, nearly identical expressions seeming to make it clear they had almost forgotten the Blue was there. Terrian’s gaze cooled considerably as she turned it on the younger woman, causing her fellow Aes Sedai to shrink back and quickly amend her statement. “Of course, I don’t doubt that you know well enough when we must return by.” Even Calia could see that it was clearly the Green who was in charge of the pair. She had to wonder why that was, why most Aes Sedai tended to do as Terrian said. It had to be something about Aes Sedai hierarchy, but usually it wasn’t so clear that one Aes Sedai deferred to another. Then again, maybe Katryn Sedai wasn’t as emotionally healed as Calia thought.

“No, you are correct, Katryn. We should be getting back to Tar Valon.” She turned to Mistress Alys, the woman having silently observed all this. “Mistress Alys, your aid in this matter has been – as always – greatly appreciated.”

“It is an honor and a pleasure to serve the White Tower, Aes Sedai.” The woman returned with a smile and a deep curtsey. With a few further words of thanks and farewell the trio of channelers left by way of Traveling, making the journey of single step back to the Tower traveling yards. For the first time, Calia was beginning to think that perhaps she could return to life as it once had been without terrible difficulty.

Hours later, after a visit to the Mistress of Novices’s office, found Calia in the halls of the Green Ajah. With a cursory knock on one of the doors, barely waiting long enough to hear a muffled response, she entered the rooms of Will Athnai Sedai to a sight she had never thought to see; another woman in his arms. She stopped dead, halfway into the room. “I – I’m sorry, Aes Sedai.” She stammered, genuinely flustered for the first time in many years, and dropped a curtsey to the pair as they parted. “I should have listened more closely to your response when I knocked.” A response she now realized had not actually been an invitation to enter.

“That’s quite alright, Accepted Calia.” Serianna returned smoothly, a triumphant and superior smile on her features. Will, for his part, seemed too stunned to speak as he took a slow step toward her. “Why don’t you join us for some tea?” The Grey continued, stopping Will’s motion by grabbing his hand and lacing her fingers through his.

“N – no, Serianna Sedai. Thank you for the kind offer, but I should be going.” She cast about for an excuse. “I have… lessons to catch up on now that I’ve returned. Not to mention chores to see to and novices to supervise. I really don’t have the time – just wanted to say hello.” She dropped a hasty curtsey, “If you’ll excuse me, Aes Sedai, I’ll be on my way.”

She didn’t wait for the response before she turned and fled the room.

Opposite Directions

It is an interesting phenomena, I’ve decided, the way our hearts are capable of being drawn in so many directions at once. A part of me, a large part of me, desperately wants to still be with my ex. I loved him when we were together, and I still love him now. I’ve long since recognized that some part of me is always going to love him. However, that doesn’t change a damn thing. Fact of the matter is, here I stand, almost two months later, and another part of me tells me that even if he changed his mind and wanted me back (and I still get the impression from him that he does) I’m not sure I’d take him. I finally realized, only because I heard the words come from his mouth, a certain truth. He didn’t break up with me because he “didn’t have time” for a relationship. That was only part of it. The other part was what I heard him say the other night – he loves fencing more. Rather, I believe the exact phrasing was closer to, “Fencing is more important than girls,” but the basic gist was there. I suppose I suspected that on my own, but to hear it come from his mouth was what made me take notice.

Truly, I don’t ask much in a relationship. I ask a lot in a guy, but not in the relationship itself. I don’t ask to be taken anywhere special or any extravagant displays of how much he cares – I’m happy just to spend time together talking and watching movies and what not. I don’t ask a lot of time – a couple hours of time set aside exclusively for each other every week or two is all. I don’t even ask to be the number one priority in his life because I accept that as being entirely unrealistic. I do, however, demand to be on the priority list somewhere near the top. In the case of the ex, I would have liked to be on equal footing with fencing. Clearly I wasn’t, and that’s not good enough for me. If I’m close enough to the bottom of the list to be the thing that gets bumped off it when life gets busy, that’s not good enough. I deserve better, and unless he could make me believe that I’d get it I wouldn’t take him back. He’s hurt me enough already – I won’t risk it again without certain assurances. To be at least equal to fencing in importance in his life is one of them.

At the same time I feel my heart being pulled in these two opposite directions – the one way wanting him back so badly it hurts and the other knowing that I couldn’t take him as things stand – I also find myself drawn in a third direction. The possibility of another guy entering my life (or rather, becoming a more significant part of my life) looms large – growing out of what was only the tiniest dot on the horizon five months ago, in the days before my most recent ex and I were together. This scares me in so many ways it’s nearly indescribable. My heart is so very fragile right now and I’m so afraid to be hurt again. And this guy, this possibility I see before me, is such a good friend that I’m afraid of losing him like I’ve now lost the ex. I couldn’t take that, I’d break. The only thing that has kept me together the last two months is having this other guy to talk to and rely on. I’m not strong enough to keep myself together yet and I’m not brave enough to make the leap and try to gain something more than what we have. Thus, I keep quiet. Besides, I know his story as well as he knows mine – and I want only to be here for him through it.

And yet… is it so wrong to want more?

Phone Calls and Random Shouting

Sometimes, you just have to stand back and laugh at how ridiculous your life has become…

Tuesday night – post-fencing. The ex is off with one of the other fencers and various other students from their economics class studying for a test and my usual offer of giving him a ride home stands so long as I’m still on campus when they finish. (Yes, this is typical. He lives on my way home. I have a car, he doesn’t, and I’m a good friend.) My brother is also being a diligent student and is studying in the library. I, on the other hand, should be studying and catching up on the massive list of readings I’m currently behind on. Should be. I’m not. Instead, I’m off with a couple of the other fencers at one of their dorms, hanging out and watching what seem to be futile attempts to make a printer work. One of these other fencers happens to be a guy I’ve leaned on quite heavily for emotional support for the last month or so – the only one of the other fencers who knows what’s going on. At this point, I really don’t know what I’d do without him, but at the same time I feel kind of bad because he’s firmly entrenched in the middle of the epic breakup-that-isn’t-but-is saga. There is a touch of tension between him and the ex, I think. All of this is relevant to the story, by the way, not some random tangent.

So, I’m hanging out with this guy and two other fencers, the ex is studying, so is the brother. I’m expecting my brother to call when he feels like going home for the night, and I’ve mentioned this to the others. So, when my phone rings they assume it’s him and I answer the phone. It wasn’t. It was definitely the ex looking for the offered ride home. Right… So, my friend and confidant of the last month – he and I are admittedly close now – shouts “Tiffanie, put your shirt back on!” in that wonderful sarcastic, joking way friends do when you’re talking on the phone, still thinking I’m talking to my brother. I respond by yelling at him, and making the somewhat foolish mistake of using his name. Giggling throughout the room abounds before I finally shout something along the lines of “shut up” and inform them that it’s the ex. This leads to more giggles. The ex, still on the phone, says something along the lines of “Why don’t you call me back when you’re more put together?” (I couldn’t quite hear him over the giggling emanating from my companions) and hangs up.

My immediate response? “Fuck!” Punches best-guy-buddy. Thanks! I still like my ex, quite a bit, and am still hoping that he’ll change his mind, as all the signals he’s given me seem to indicate he will eventually. I really needed that bit of awkward shouting! Not to mention the ex is quite jealous enough of the confidant as it is! Then I call back the ex and figure out where to meet him – my confidant comes with and more strange awkwardness ensues as we meet the ex and my brother.

In this brief time period, between calling the ex and meeting up with him, I’ve already stepped back and seen how absurd this situation is. I can’t help but laugh. I mean really? Could life hand me a stranger situation? One more out of a book or a movie or some crazy teen TV show perhaps? This cannot be my life. I’ve got the ex who clearly still wants to be with me as much as I want to be with him but neither of us will actually act on this. I’ve also got the close friend and confidant, the only one who’s seen inside the situation, knows both the ex and I, and I believe genuinely wants us both to stop being idiots and let ourselves be happy. Of course, the ex is clearly jealous of the confidant – the tension there is palpable sometimes. And me? I just want to stop everything and scream at the top of my lungs “What the hell is going on?!” How on Earth did I end up in the middle of a faux love triangle/breakup plot from a teen soap opera? It’s utterly ridiculous.

How can I not just stand back and laugh at life?

The Opposite of Fear

There often, I have found, comes a point in one’s life when they realize that something just isn’t working. They realize that they have to make a very difficult decision, and that, while there’s always a choice, none of the options arrayed before them seem particularly desirable. Right now, I’m there. Looking back at where I’ve been and looking ahead toward where I’m going I find myself faced with a decision I don’t particularly want to make. I know what should be done – but what it seems should be done is not always a path we want to walk. And yet, what is right is not always easy. I can see what lays down the ‘right’ path – and I don’t like it. I can also see what lays down the ‘wrong’ path. I’m not sure I like it any better.

This all began, for those who were wondering, with my moment of clarity a few days past. After two weeks (yes, that’s almost exactly how long it’s been since the boy broke up with me) I finally reached my emotional breaking point. I’m a tough girl, I’ve always recognized that about myself, but even I have my limits. I can only mask my hurt with half-felt happiness for so long. My mum says she admires my strength – she doesn’t think she’d be able to continue to be close with her ex like I’m managing to and she’s surprised at how well I’m holding myself together. Well, I’ve got very little choice. Never let them see you cry – the tough girl’s creed, if you will. Don’t let them know that you’re as emotionally insecure as any other girl around – that you have your fears too. I’ve lived life like that for so long, I don’t know how to be any other way. So, when I can feel the masks I wear cracking, and I know others are catching a glimpse of what lays beneath those masks without my intending them too, I know that I’ve hit the emotional brick wall. I hit it hard this time.

I can feel myself slowly rebuilding the walls that existed around my heart before I embarked on this crazy journey that is love – before someone cared enough to tear them down. I don’t want that. I’m so sick of being emotionally closed off, of holding myself separate from everyone else. I’m sick of being afraid to let anyone close enough to see me for who I am. My ex doesn’t believe me when I tell him he made me better than I was, but he did and this was how. He took away my fear of letting people close, of letting people see me. Love, it seems truly is capable of conquering fear. “The opposite of fear is love,” said Deinekes in Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield (a book I actually read because the boy loaned it to me). It is true in more situations than simply on the battlefield. The things that are made possible because we love, and are loved in return, are truly astonishing.

Thus, we arrive at the choice I realized I have to make. I can keep on like I have been – I can fight the walls, scrape and scrabble at the stones myself – or I can make a clean break and simply let the walls return, thicker and higher than before. The thing I recognize is that the proper choice, at least the healthier choice, might be to make the clean break. To let my emotional barriers recharge and repair themselves. Doing so would mean giving up another thing I love though – fencing – and I don’t know that I can bear to lose the boy I love and the martial art/hobby I love at the same time. Nor do I want to give up fencing now because it will seem like I’m quitting because of him, which I would be, and I have never done anything just because of a boy before. Nor, do I intend to begin now. It isn’t in me to do so.

On the other hand, letting things continue as they are now seems a poor choice too. I have to say – he confuses me. I think we all know what it’s like to get those signals from someone that practically scream “I fancy you” and those are the signals I’m getting from him. If we accidently touch, neither of us makes a move to break the contact. There are moments when I know I’ve caught him looking or when I turn and see this strangely serious look on his face as he looks back at me. The way we unconsciously position ourselves relative to each other and the others in the room. Some of it might just be habit after two-and-a-half months of being together, but you’d think he – being the one who ended things – would at least be inclined to make a conscious effort to stop these things. I’m not sure that it’s good for either of us that things keep on like this. Thus the choice I face.

I just don’t know. I think I know what’s right for me. But is what I want really what’s best? Do I just think that it’s good because it’s what I want? I wish I knew. I wish I wasn’t so confused. I wish he’d make up his mind because either he wants to be with me or he doesn’t, but he can’t have it both ways. Either make a move, tell me you were wrong and want me back, or make a conscious effort to stop giving off all the signals that say that’s what you want. I’d take him back in an instant and he knows it; it’s time to let me know or stop playing with my heart.

Alright, enough is enough. Promise, I’ll try to stop writing quite so much about the boy and this damn breakup. Unless, of course, the situation changes in some drastic way. Next time will hopefully be more interesting and less emo drama spouting.

Anyone out there – thanks for sticking with me.

Moments of Pure Clarity

Kira: Have you ever had a moment of pure clarity? A moment when the truth seemed to leap up and grab you by the throat?

Dax: I bet this has something to do with your visit with Shakaar.

Kira: This has nothing to do with Shakaar. Now tell me – have you ever had a moment like that?

Dax: One or two. Of course, that’s over a span of seven lifetimes.

Kira: You’ve only had two moments of clarity in seven lifetimes?

Dax: Nerys, total clarity is a very rare thing.

Kira: I guess so.

Dax: And when it comes, it’s important that you act on it. Because believe me, confusion and doubt will take over before you know it.

– Kira Nerys and Jadzia Dax, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, episode “His Way”

There was a point to this, aside from illustrating another aspect of my clear geekiness. Moments of clarity are, as Dax tells Kira, very rare things. So when they strike they hit hard and fast, leaving you reeling from the shock of sudden realization. I’ve had an astonishing number of such moments for so short a life as mine, and they strike with a regularity that is almost unbelievable.

Up until this morning, my most recent moment of total clarity came when I realized that somewhere along the way I had fallen in love. It hit like a ton of bricks, if I may use such a tired expression. Actually, no, one of my friends put it better the other day. It hit like a barrage of bricks. The first strike landed and knocked the wind out of me, and then it hit again and again until the knowledge that is love had me on my knees and I had stopped struggling to regain my feet. The very thought of it, that I loved someone in that way and that strongly, scared me. I admit that openly and freely. For the first time in my life, I knew – beyond any doubt – what love felt like. Love was being happy, but being happy for someone else. Love was having someone whose happiness you’d place before your own, even if that meant seeing them with someone else – letting them go free. Love was scary. Love was the first time I realized how easy it would be to lose myself in someone else. Love was realizing that there was someone I trusted with everything I am. Love scared me in ways I can barely describe. It was wonderful. It still is.

I digress. The point was that when I realized I loved him, and I still love him even though we’re not together anymore, the realization came from seemingly nowhere. It was sudden and shocking. It was a moment of clarity so strong that, for a girl like myself who has always been afraid of losing her independence by becoming too involved with anyone, my instant knee-jerk reaction was to deny it. The “confusion and doubt” that Dax speaks of in the above quote struck only moments later. How was I, who had never before experienced love in such a way, to know for sure that this was it? Was it simply lust that my young, innocent, naive mind was confusing for love? I certainly couldn’t be in love. Not me. Not the girl who had asserted her independence so young and resolutely declared that she never intended to tie herself to any other person – outside her family – with that kind of pure, strong, and unconditional love. And yet… I knew. Clear as crystal. Despite all my objections, my fear and my doubt, I knew that this was love. A moment of such clarity cannot be denied. It won’t let itself be ignored.

This morning, another moment of the purest clarity hit me and the barrage of bricks began anew. It occurred to me, as I was supposed to be preparing for my one and only class for the day, that a part of me would give anything – anything - to go back to how things were before I knew him. Life was simple then. I was content to fancy someone, only permitting myself to admire them from afar. I didn’t need, or even really want, the complication that would come from pursuing anything more. Not anymore. I want that something more, I want to go after it and try and make it work. This relationship changed me. He changed me. The person I was last September quite literally would not recognize the person I am today – and those two people are fighting now. A part of me wants to go back to being the girl who walked into that room and barely even noticed he existed. A part of me wants the innocence I lost back. Yet another part of me – the part that’s winning this battle – prefers me the way I am now, as the young woman who’s eyes search for him instinctively. Even if me, as I am now, has to live with the pain and the hurt and the lost innocence of love.

Yet, this wasn’t my moment of clarity. I’m just giving you the backstory. The filler you need to fully understand it. When the clarity hits, I’ll let you know.

I continued from this point to realize that the only thing keeping me together, keeping the battle raging inside me from preventing me functioning, is this thin veneer of happiness – the mask I’ve put on for the world. This desire to not let anyone see my moments of weakness has manifested itself as false happiness. I’m strong enough to put on a brave face, but I’m not really happy. I’m putting on such a good show that I even fool myself occasionally, but I remember what happiness feels like and this isn’t it. That was when it hit me – the moment of pure and total clarity. When he broke up with me, he asked me for only one thing. He asked me to make a promise. A promise that I wouldn’t be bitter. It seems like such a strange request – and hardly reasonable considering the circumstances – but I did it. I gave him my word. My clarity came in realizing that this was why he asked such a thing of me. He asked because he wanted better for me than bitterness. He wanted me to be happy. It made me realize that he still loves me that much. He still wants me to be happy, even though he isn’t. That single realization made it hurt all over again and for the first time in two weeks I find myself once again fighting back the tears because I realize what a good thing, and a good guy, I’m losing.

I’m tempted – so very tempted – to take Dax’s advice. To act on this clarity. I don’t really know how much longer things can continue as they are. I’m sick of the confusion and the hurt and the doubt. I’m sick of wearing a mask of smiles when inside I’m in the worst kind of pain. I’m sick of seeing him wear the same mask. I’m sick of being too afraid to do anything about it.

This has to end, things have to change. I just don’t know how to change them.

Welcome to My World

What inspires me to write? Heartache, more often than not. In my happiest moments I find I have no fodder for stories, nothing worth fictionalizing, no pent up emotions to work out through the unique magic that can be found in words. So why is it then, that now, when my heart has been so nicely shattered and continues to break further by the day, I can’t seem to find the motivation to write a thing? You’d think this hell would be enough to spur me to some kind of creative release, but instead I find myself wading through my memories of the last two-and-a-half months, wondering what happened. Wondering why the boy who broke my heart – and continues to break it – thinks this is a logical decision. Wondering why he seems to think logic can be so neatly applied to matters of the heart to begin with.

I’d say “let me start at the beginning,” or some equally clichéd thing, but that would be ridiculous because I’m not going to start at the beginning. You don’t really need to know the details of how I met this boy or how we ended up together. Such personal details are not for the the whole world to read on the world wide web. What you do need to know is that we broke up. Or, rather, he broke up with me. He had his reasons, reasons I don’t pretend make any sense to me. Basically, he felt that with everything else that’s going on in his life and that he wants to do he doesn’t have time to be in a relationship. I think this is ridiculous. The point of being in a relationship, of loving someone as he claims to love me, is that you’re willing to make time where you can. Not to the point of sacrificing other important things, but to put some effort into being together. The other thing you need to know is that we still see each other all the time because, not only are circumstances such that we have to, but we’re still friends. What makes this more confusing is that in the week since we stopped seeing each other, I’ve seen him more often than I did in any given week when we were seeing each other.

In many ways, I feel like our relationship hasn’t changed at all. We still talk, and laugh, and joke, and hang out. We still share our own private little moments, even in the middle of a crowd. We’re just not snogging anymore. Nothing else is really different at all. If anything, this results in a heightened sense of tension surrounding us – one I doubt people will fail to notice, and few enough people knew about us to begin with. You’ve heard of the sexual tension being so thick you could cut it with a knife? Yes, well, a knife would get stuck in this tension. You’d need something more like a machete. I feel like he’s holding me at arm’s length – but he’s still holding me. He doesn’t want to let go, and neither do I because he still fancies me and I still fancy him. More than that, he still loves me and I still love him. So I can’t pretend to understand what exactly is going on.

I’m still hoping that I’ll get a second chance; that he’ll realize that maybe, just maybe, we had something worth trying to keep. As far as I’m concerned, what we had was good, and good things don’t come along often. When you find something good – really good – you don’t let it go. You fight for it, and you keep fighting until such a time as it ceases to be good. If you’re lucky, really blessed, it will never stop being good. You’ll go through tough times, but they will always be outshone by the happy ones. You can’t know how things will work out unless you try. I want to try. I’m just waiting for him to realize he wants to too. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t see the sadness in his eyes when he looks at me. We certainly wouldn’t still be flirting the way we are. I wouldn’t feel his eyes on me from across a crowded room and look up, knowing exactly where he is, finding that I have indeed caught him looking. He wouldn’t grin back at me when he realized he’d caught me looking too. Or am I just imagining all that?

Anyway, enough about that. I suppose that in this first blog post of mine, it would be prudent for me to introduce myself and tell the world a little about who I am. My name is Tiffanie. I’m a student attending Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. My major is political science with a concentration in global politics and a minor in economics. At least it will be once I declare my major. Eventually, I plan on going to law school, fulfilling my lifelong dream because I love of the law – in my opinion there is no other reason to go to law school. It scares me sometimes, that I’m old enough to be in university – to be considering life after university and moving out of my parents house. It scares me because I don’t feel like I’m old enough for that. I feel like I’m still a kid. Then again, don’t we all?

Let’s see, what else? I’m a writer. I love to write and see a unique magic in words. They hold the power to take you just about anywhere you want to go and make anything possible. Words are limited only by your imagination. I’ve been writing roleplay and fanfiction for about five years now and started branching out and attempting to write some of my own stuff in the last year-and-a-half or so. Occasionally, I’ll put up some of my work here so you can all get a feel for what I do. Hand in hand with this love of writing comes a love of reading – again because of the magic of words. Thus, it should come as a surprise to no one that I work in a bookstore. I make coffee in said bookstore, but I do get to work with the books occasionally as well.

I’m also a great fan of anime and videogames. I watch too much anime and play too many games in general. I was basically raised as one of the guys, so this is to be expected. In fact, my male friends tell me the fact that I can relate to guys – having been raised among them – makes me very lucky. Apparently, there are very few girls who can relate to guys that way. I don’t get it. It never ceases to amaze me how highly people think of me because I’ve never thought I was anything special. Never wanted for self-confidence, mind you, just never believed I was particularly special either. In fact, I readily admit that I’m a little strange.

Recently, I took up fencing (like with swords, for those who are unaware) and have found myself growing more and more involved and mildly obsessed with it. This is one of the ways I know that I am, as I just stated, a little strange and more than a little bit of a geek.  I know I said you didn’t need to know this, but fencing is actually how I met the aforementioned boy who is breaking my heart and the circumstance that gives me no choice but to see him. Mind you, I don’t fence because of him. I started fencing before I knew him and will continue fencing now. In fact, it’s kind of nice to fence with the guy who broke up with you – you have a legitimate reason to stab him for making you hurt.

What we do is actually known as classical fencing, so if you’re thinking of the sport fencing you saw in the Olympics, think again. Classical fencing is about fencing as an art, as a martial tradition, trying to hit without being hit. Sport fencing is more about just hitting your opponent, completing the circuit that shows you scored, and doing it before you get it. You don’t get a sword in your hand for about a month, at least the way I’ve been taught classical fencing. You don’t get to actually start bouting against anyone until months after that. Yet, there is something strangely satisfying about learning (essentially) how to kill with a sword and look graceful doing it, about getting to stab your friends in practice. You learn to be proud of your bruises, and prouder still when you figure out how to do something right so you no longer get those bruises. Basically, ’tis awesome fun and everybody should get into fencing. But be warned, it can become addicting in the strangest way and people will either think that what you do is the coolest thing or that you’re a little bit off in the head.

Let’s see, what else? No, I think that fairly well sums things up for the moment. We’ll go on this journey together, faithful readers, and see where it takes us. Six months from now, it might even take us to England! That’s a story for another time though.

This is my world, my story. Welcome to it.