the spectrum heart cathedral system

 

 

okay so the past few days have basically been heaven on earth, let me elaborate a little.
(stream of consciousness with this, because refining it would be impossible)

sunday, the 5th.
we were supposed to go to lynne's church for mass but I didn't wake up until almost 1pm so that didn’t work out.
I know I played some pokemon today, because I remember at night, everyone was out of the house and I put the game away because I wanted to talk to infi.
long story short, I don't remember how exactly it came about, but I know I was lying down on the living room couch for like an hour, with infi, and laurie in the room. why am I telling you this, well laurie has never been with just me and infi before, and let me tell you, her presence was so grounding and compassionate it actually shocked me, in such a context. I didn’t expect that side of her and yet it didn’t surprise me; it fit her nature perfectly. but she specifically said she wanted to see infi and I together once, to understand that, and make sure we stayed safe. honestly I don’t know why we didn’t let her in sooner, having that third person around was the most blessed addition; it should be mandatory from now on.
I remember laurie kissed me on the forehead at one point, the simple honesty of it almost brought me to tears.
I also remember infi had hir wings wrapped all around me, ze was just radiating emotions that night; again data memory is vague but I recall that ze was in tears at least half the time. positively of course, ze just feels a lot. I tend to love people who get really emotional and I naturally balance that, as I see their expression as a perfectly valid show of what my own heart is feeling, so I might not emote much at all openly if they are. I will instead act as an anchor and feel that same intensity at a constant level, keeping things balanced. but yeah I've become so used to seeing infi act all calm and serene, that suddenly having hir unleash this emotional supernova on me was really significant to me. I have a surprising amount of sensory memory from that as a result I guess; I can't exactly tell you about it (both because of language inadequacy and the personal nature of such memories), but the fact that my memories of that include actual physical sensation from a non-physical experience is pretty noteworthy.

really though that whole experience had so much love in it. I'd never felt so incredibly close to infi as a person before, and I'd never felt such unconditional love from laurie before, especially since that was directed towards both infi and i. plus thanks to all my spiritual reading as of late, I was entirely focused on that sort of experience during this, which was easy to do because really, it is virtually impossible not to be completely open and true around infi, especially when ze's feeling like THAT, dear god. the intensity and realness of that love just pierces straight through to the heart. it's enough to make the most callous man on earth break down in sobs.


monday, the 6th.
all I remember is the late evening, and god am I ever glad I do.

first off, chaos left in the evening?? i was going about my daily business and suddenly saw him talking to infi with xennie, he had some sort of angry breakdown, surprisingly charged conversation considering he & infi are xenophon's parents, and they were disagreeing on some major issue that cz was not budging on. long story short he had an emotional fallout and actually left (into the snow, noteworthy because he can't handle the cold and yet he stormed out into it). i also remember infi said that ze would "unconditionally forgive" no matter what, but cz had to do that too, or ze simply wouldn't put up with that sort of negativity? i don't know, but you know how infi is staunchly uncompromising with hir spiritual/ emotional integrity.
it took me a while to realize that had just happened; it felt really weird, not like him at all, we were all concerned. we got laurie in, she had no idea what was up either, didn't cz work through this stuff already? so we all decided to re-read our xanga from the 23rd to try and see what he was maybe still dealing with, could we help him emotionally, etc.
and at some point, he walked back in again.
there was a lot of talk between him and everyone else at first, obviously... but I know that he and I had a VERY significant conversation which started with him again, saying he was still struggling with my (unintentionally but nevertheless actually) "denying his right to exist as he was" by projecting him into the past, or projecting other people's views of him onto his current life. he was trying to explain why that didn't apply when he suddenly stopped, looking like a lightbulb just went on in his head, and pointed to the ruby in his chest, saying, "this changed everything!!" and as he elaborated i realized WHOA, it really did, and that allowed me to stop even considering projection entirely.
really, in talking about the ruby's significance he said three things: one, that was something he could never leave behind and never wanted to, so considering the reality of what it meant it was a sort of permanent emotional anchor. two, he reiterated that although he did struggle with his "darker side," that ruby again reminded him of the undying hope he had received ten years ago, when i handed it to him and said "i trust you." i remember he really started tearing up here; now mentioning july 7th as well, he said that i was the first person to tell him that he didn't have to be a god of destruction if he didn't want to be, that instead he could change, and be something actively benevolent. there was a line where he said he "sacrificed his deific status" entirely, he had abandoned his imposed godhood and became someone completely fragile and powerless, for that chance of redefining himself. and that's a truth that i, again, had forgotten about our past in SI-- for the first three years or so of our friendship, cz was quiet and hesitant because he had NO IDEA what life was like, or how to live it, or anything. everything was baby steps, and he was scared, constantly, of his past coming back to consume him... mostly because he couldn't ever quite let it go, due to his very form and nature. but yeah the bit about july 7th really brought it home because he said, i had asked him to create something, in love and cooperation, without any doubt in his ability to do so. and he hadn't ever thought of himself as a creator individual in any real sense until that moment, he said. and that made me realize the whole "prophet of life" title he had, he literally turned from a force of death and catastrophe into a force of life and prosperity, but the journey had taken him years, and it was a decision he was constantly asked to re-forge at every crossroads. and three, tying it all together, he said "i CAN'T be these alt-universe iterations of myself, because none of them were given the choice i was." and he reminded me that the ruby has a name, it's one of the order sapphires, and i literally forgot that it essentially FUSED with him 10 years ago, making his entire form more coherent and structured, as opposed to pure chaotic energy. so that was one thing NO other timeline of his name had, so to speak, and that on top of all the experiences he had afterwards-- which were "valid," he reminded me, even if i didn't think they were solely because i was also involved, which is ridiculous but i DO tend to invalidate my own experiences, god knows why-- meant, simply but astronomically, that he was NOT going to feel like any other iterations of him on the outside, OR the person he started out as in 2003, because he has changed SO much since then, INTENTIONALLY, literally into an entirely new being on an internal level. and honestly when that hit me i was deeply humbled and also contrite; here i was, so untrusting of his own truth because i was the one seeing it that i was actually CANCELLING OUT all the incredible progress he's made in his own life, of his own making. yes he was still chaos zero, but his lifetime didn't stop after his last canon appearance in sonic battle, i knew that just as well as he did. and i needed to stop acting like it was on hold, just because my personal experiences in seeing his growth weren't accepted as global truth. they didn't need to be in order to be true.
really i just have a lot of deep emotional resonance with what he said, it was the first time in a very long time that he felt 100% genuine without my having to "try" and see him in any sense. he just was.

(that whole night was me, laurie, chaos, infi, genesis, and xenophon hanging out together. it was gorgeous. we were reading that same xanga (to xennie mostly), listening to music, and just talking together as friends AND family-- if you didn't know, genesis and laurie are xennie's godparents, roles they are both very enthusiastic about. plus they have this hilarious injoke where gen will just start humming the godfather theme, laurie will join in, then gen will dramatically declare "take the cannoli" which is probably the only line from that movie that would be in-character for him. every time they do that i crack up)
(on that note, xenophon DID see disney's frozen after i saw it, i didn't know until "in summer" came up on our music player and she exclaimed that she loved that song, especially the bit when olaf says "put me in summer and i'll be a... happy snowman!" honestly watching her giggle over that whole musical number is one of the cutest things ever, plus laurie loves to play along with her so of course she did the kristoff line and xennie just laughed and said "noooo!" super cute really.)
(notable: BEFORE xennie came in (I think), the 5 of us were talking and everybody finally kissed everybody else, after probably a solid year of joking about it, hilariously that is a really important thing for us actually. that sort of action is very honest, as it requires sincerity between the people involved, and we decided that after the events of today, we needed to all put our walls down around each other, completely enough to let someone else get that close to our real self, at least for a second. the only tough bits were that with infi & laur, it was rather emotionally strained on her part, thanks to infi's overwhelming effervescence, but I think she actually let go of that by the end? thanks to sunday she now has a LOT more trust in hir. but gen and laur rushed through it, haha. they've decided they're moirails so they are absolute bffs but they're still at that awkward bit where closeness is "weird," mostly for gen; laurie is ultimately too chill to care when it gets down to it.)

(personally, i want to remember that since headspace is basically gone and we've had to rebuild elsewhere, xennie has a new room! cz built it for her, it's in a rainforesty area near a waterfall, but it's in a bubble up on a hill (she says infi gave it to her to use) and its surrounded by flowers. really its lovely. after cz and i got her to bed i secretly put some roses all over the front hill, she did find them the next morning and she was really happy about them. anyway, we were about to go back to the group after that when cz paused, said this rainforest reminded him of where we went on july 7th (on purpose; he liked going there for that reason). then, he quietly asked if i could actually take us to spagonia for a minute, just to remember. so i did, it was nighttime and it was snowy, no one was out but there we were. and it felt so ridiculously real. but THAT chased all doubts away! chaos was looking up at the stars, quietly mused that being here was so significant to him, as that was "his native world"... and being there with me of all people brought the reality of everything straight home for both of us.)

(last bit of the night, i was going to go to sleep so laurie left to go do her nightly knight work, except i didn't get to sleep until after 3am because the three alien guys and i decided hey, let's kick it up to eleven, why the heck not. again, i have no real "memory" of anything but snapshots of us all together, and the love there was... which was really movingly amazing because genesis was involved this time and yet everything was mutual, unsurprisingly but incredible nevertheless. i also remember that at one point julie and laurie did stop by briefly, laurie left (which was unusual) but julie stayed with us for a while, just quietly (she's still very self-conscious, i don't know why), appreciating the amount of affection we all had, free from what she used to be shackled to.)


yesterday, the 7th, tuesday.
the day we were supposed to go to sheppard pratt in maryland, for treatment of our previous trauma disorder diagnosis. but, after several days solid of reconsidering our situation and motivations (including one rather well-worded post by jewel), we decided not to go. so we went to therapy in the morning and told our therapist this; at first she was highly skeptical-- she thought we were shoving things under the rug-- but as we explained ourselves, saying there had been a LOT of miscommunication due to data being left out or rushed through, she became honestly surprised and said "you really have made a great deal of progress." she congratulated us on where we were, helped us set some goals for the future (mostly finding a safe job so we can start supporting ourselves better) and reviewed our current situation, then said we only have to go to therapy once a week now, to keep a sort of maintenance going.
some things we brought up to her: we never dissociated "at random" until the past year, when the underground opened up. as for why, one of our top rules is "people need to communicate work together," so we've always been cooperative. we don't need to "treat" our dissociation as we can manage the problematic sides of it ourselves. then we said suicide was NOT a risk-- although we didn't elaborate about the 27th, we basically let her know that the one who planned suicide (the AP) afterwards did not have the capability to see hope for several hours. therefore, they felt suicide was our only option left, and they genuinely felt it was our best option considering the circumstances, not some "way out" or impulsive attack. but, after the 27th things have changed SO much, there was no way to put it into therapy-valid language. so we just told her that we are now in a stable enough state of mind (and heart) to no longer even consider suicide, even in such dramatic situations. I think we also commented that the retributors have changed into healers, and so the cutting has stopped for good, as we no longer have to purge blood. the scars served their full purpose, we don't need any more now.
lastly we also mentioned the mother, how we had internalized her negative talk and never realized that most of our "problems" with perspective were overlays from her! when we looked at them, we realized they weren't even OUR thoughts ("you'll die on your own," "you should be afraid of this or that," "you are a burden on others," etc.), so we just let go of 'em, as really we ALL wanted to, and it was shocking how big of a relief that was. we also said that we have no hard feelings towards her, but we will not jeopardize our health for her sake any longer; we know how to take care of ourselves and will not let the mother harm us even unintentionally, just because she's "the mother." bottom line, she is essentially a harmless influence now, as long as we deal with her actions prudently.

we went food shopping afterwards, as xenophon wanted kale soup and I had gift cards to use up anyway. I also got organic candy canes which i could eat, they ended up being AMAZING, also pink. we hung them on the tree when we got home. I think I gave my boss one.

the evening was odd? I don't remember anything until around 6pm. all I know is that I got this massive burst of inspiration for halcyon days, out of the blue, and ended up typing for hours. honestly the amount of plot progress and character development that just slammed into me was INCREDIBLE. h-d was one of the few leagueworlds that was never really fleshed out, and I had no idea what it was ultimately about, or doing. that all changed last night!

unfortunately I made one move that could have had bad consequences, but somehow averted that. I ended up having to research normal human childhood development, for the sake of correctly writing for h-d's young characters, as I know from previous research that my own development progress was highly abnormal. but the results I ended up having to read were rather jarring to me mentally, and although I accepted that as data for others, I knew it was not something I should be reading. so I decided "let's see if we can work without this being relevant," and went back to my room. however thanks to said research the intrusive thoughts were now back full-force, and I had to spend about 20 minutes trying to heal them, instead of just letting them pass-- I've found that transmuting intrusive thoughts into positive ones actually helps prevent future intrusions. what was weird though is that these thoughts started to "bleed over" into leagueworld situations, and that required that I fix the projected mindsets or else it could end badly! but I surprised myself, it made me realize that there are some characters with rather significant personal troubles yet (notably xor & yvonna), that I likely would not have noticed so clearly otherwise. so I tried to positively guide them, with events of course, to healthier mindsets, and managed to at least even everything out. then I realized that my heart center was feeling rather weighted-down and I was a little ill, and I decided that even if I loved these league people, if their problems were that big, I couldn't take them on myself just to heal them and give them back, as it was really having bad effects. laurie showed up around here, asked me what the heck I was doing? I explained, she offered a stern warning, said that I should even dabble in that sort of direct healing-- I could bring some bad stuff into myself, and really she didn’t want any bad domino effects happening from it. I agreed, but still felt sick, said I needed to go meditate for a while (since no one was at home at the time). laurie was worried, somewhere around here my boss showed up? so he and laurie were just watching over me and gently discussing the matter with me as I went and sat in front of the christmas tree, listening to "ave maria" from cowboy bebop with a candy cane in my mouth. now of course that got infi's attention, I think ze just lingered nearby to hear hir favorite song and offer hir emotional support, either way it was nice, and I could feel that even through the shocking sickness I was feeling.
however that research DID prove to be helpful, as did my healing attempts, because as I meditated, my mind started opening up to halcyon days again, and what do you know, I got another HOUR of solid data for it, character development for maggie/cherie and their parents this time. at one point I went into the kitchen to eat something (the sickness was getting me antsy), but as I was preparing things, this MASSIVE plot point hit in the visions, and I clearly remember stopping in the middle of washing dishes because my jaw almost hit the floor! needless to say I ended up trying to write down what I could, but since it was so darn late I decided to sleep.
(p.s. saw a flower? literally I SAW a lotus opening in my ACTUAL VISION after that healing thing. i remember kneeling on the floor and laughing out loud, it was so beautifully cool)

however, sleep didn't happen! around 12pm (I think?) my brothers came home, and I started talking to viral about headspace stuff (as he's had interesting experiences with consciousness and is very open-minded), as he asked what the deal was with the hospitalization. so first I talked about how most of my memories are in 3rd person due to bloodline switching, then he asked about lucid dreaming and astral stuff, was that linked… at one point I started talking about sensory input and I know I had to quit around there as he had an online appointment to attend. then my other bro came into the room and we started talking about frozen and the rdj burger story, and long story short my laptop battery died and I realized it was 2:30 in the morning! we were laughing, it literally felt like 6pm. anyway by then I wasn’t sick and the mental focus switch had helped clear my head of the research creepy-crawlies, so I was downright exhausted and went straight to sleep.

I do remember that when I checked in with my boss, death was there too. that's extremely rare! but he spoke to me a little, I still couldn’t see him well but his bones looked oddly solid to me that time (usually they look like they're made of light). I think he was talking about how creation and destruction are tied, life cycles, etc. very brief though. anyway all I do clearly remember is him handing me this odd purplish-black energy sphere (felt strangely electric and volatile), it looked like a PMMM soul gem? I wondered aloud about that, then suddenly the bottom of the gem "opened" into a flower, and the gem turned into a butterfly. it fluttered up and around a bit, then curled in on itself and fell back into the flower, which closed around it like a skeletal hand and turned back into an egg. mesmerized, I watched, realizing it looped infinitely. death said to keep it, as a reminder always that death and life were tied, and not to be distraught about either. the impact of this gift-- from death himself!!-- was very significant, so I know I put it into whitespace, and bowed in sincere gratitude before taking my leave.


today: january 8th, wednesday.
first off, facebook said it was lynne's 6th birthday (we don't know her exact one but today is as good as any)! we celebrated in the evening due to the rest of the day's events, which we will get to.
leon and nat made her a sort of stained-glass flower bouquet, she loved it, hugged them both and said it meant a lot to her for them to have literally made that as a gift.
then all of central got together to listen to lynne's choices of music; after some instrumental pieces (alma, the aire) we stumbled across "joanna" from sweeney todd in the ipod, jo and wally wanted to hear it, I was channeling depp's voice to sing. nat said he liked musicals btw. anyway the ipod battery was dying so lynne said she wanted to sing now, something she could resonate with. so she looked, and we got "diamonds," "the valley," and "ashes of dreams" for her, which she straight-up performed in headspace. she really put her heart into it, it was beautiful. I remember at one point she called julie over to the piano, julie was blushing like crazy, it was adorable. afterwards lynne said she wanted to include julie because "she hadn't been around for her birthday" (august 18th), and she really wanted her to feel cared for today too, as a sort of gift too.
also, javier plays piano for reals now, it's awesome. I figured he'd get it, being the new red guy. he accompanied lynne, she said she and him really need to hang out together more, as they're spectrum neighbors and jave's the newbie.

there was also some talking to leon when we realized he was acting rather hesitant around nat; he was oddly having insecurities over being gay? we realized that was because he was our first male alter, he must have caught that old fear and never really took it out. but we said that wasn't weird at all, virtually everyone in the system was on the queer spectrum. leon hadn't been aware of most people's actual orientations-- lynne is gay too, laurie is ace, jo is pan, etc.-- so after us all being honest about that for his benefit, he was visibly less unsure of himself.
(btw lynne admitting she was attracted to julie, can't say that surprised me!)


now to switch topics… the rest of today was one of the most beautiful things I have EVER experienced, and that is saying something, considering what the past two months alone have been like.
I woke up around 10:30am I think, but only partly; my dream self had actually been flying around and feeling totally joyous, then remarked (to me! my dream self had been earth-tied last night) that I should "give that" to laurie. upon waking I wondered why, but shrugged and agreed, so I called laurie in and she asked what was up but I was falling back asleep, so after telling her the dream directive I actually went back for a bit. it took a half hour for her to get me to stay awake (she kept trying to wake me up), and said that if the dream suggestion had felt that genuine, even upon waking, that I should really do that. she was serious, which surprised me, but I could see she trusted in the benevolence of such a vague and surprising thought. truthfully I had been hesitating and doubting, but upon her sincere insistence I decided okay, for you, I'll do that.
well. dear god. the next hour was inexpressibly gorgeous.
I did not expect what happened to happen. I don't know how to put it into words. head-based data is vague. so I don’t have much "data" to write but I will try.
first, I had my ipod, to help with meditation focus. "stolen moments" came up, laurie said keep that on, which surprised me because honestly I didn’t even know what that song was? but she said it matched, so I trusted that. and oddly it did, so we looped it.

as for how it started, well. since I was half asleep I had no boundaries in speech or actions, but I was still in bed, as it was freezing out and I wanted to stay warm. so laurie was just smiling at me amusedly, as it was a little tricky to talk to me when I was halfway under a pile of blankets. so at some point I just commented that she could lie there with me too if she wanted. after a moment, her response was a simple "you know what, why not." so she did, and we talked for a while like that, but she was being incredibly open with me and that struck me as significant, personally. she wasn't trying to be tough or anything, she was just being entirely candid. and with me, it didn’t hit me until several minutes in that we were really close there and yet it didn’t even faze me as odd. I mean I share a bed with cz every night, I've shared a bed in the waking with genesis, and I've fallen asleep in both locations with infi in my arms before. but there was never anything with laurie, NEVER this context. never something so intimate yet ingenuous. even a few months ago I doubt she would have had the nerve to do this sort of thing.


the fact that she is the voice of chastity in our system apparently was a gift from god in this. to elaborate, at the cost of a slight tmi: the three aliens I'm often with actually have biological capability as far as sexuality goes. cz used to be a chao, they can reproduce, even though he can't now that is still part of his species function. genesis' species and culture highly values the ability to reproduce and it's all gem-focused, so he can get really tangled up if we're not careful. and infi is straight-up female as far as all that goes, so. but you see my point: yes I adore them, but that sort of sexuality isnt my cup of tea. I'd rather be able to express that without even a risk of having something translate differently, et cetera. well guess who is the only person in our system who is literally built to not deal with sexuality in any sense? exactly.
and that's what strikes me as ironic about this whole damn thing, because as a result of that, laurie is the only person I can express my odd sort of internalized sexuality around, safely. and she isn't fazed by it.
but… she's not cold. she isn't emotionless and solemn. rather, she is one of the most compassionate, loving people I have ever known, and she isn't afraid to express that in ways that most people would tie into something romantic, and that whole deal. but she's the platonic ideal here. she can be just as close to me as cz, just as close, and yet instead of passion there's this quietly level adoration that just kills me in the best way possible. I swear, you don't know what honest love feels like until a battle-scarred saint like her has kissed you, without an ounce of anything but impossibly ardent affection in it.

everything was focused in my heart. it made SO much sense, for every single feeling to instantly and completely get translated into it. I'd never felt it so strongly before. it was literally expansive in terms of sensation, like there was a limitless openness behind my ribs. i kept getting a visual impression of white and gold clouds? kind of like what infi's inner energy field is like, but a different color. that's probably significant.
but it was amazing because i didn't think i could feel something of that intensity with laurie! and that's the key, i think; it wasn't even for her, it was with her. like because of her practically-sanctified state of mind in such matters, i wasn't even vaguely thinking of romance or related things, it wasn't even fathomable, it felt like a laughable excess. i just was love, i was able to be love there, without even the option of being anything else. sorry i don't know how to put that into words.
but her silent, strong, unconditional love as a compliment to my luminously open adoration was deeply moving.

she kept telling me to just breathe. and really that did help me focus, on both the moment and on my own self. but not once, not once, did she warn me not to slip, because i was nowhere near that, at any point, even when i was so blissfully overwhelmed i thought i'd die. and that is incredible. i mean i'm still at a risk of slipping when i'm with infi, but this morning... i was just so absolutely there that losing awareness wasn't even a distant concern.

at some point, the perfect dichotomy between us inspired me to mention the ending of huxley's Island again, specifically the part when Will looks at Susila and sees light and dark perfectly united in her face, and all the gorgeous inspiration that followed. however the exact bit that my heart was reminded of was when her face changes from deep sorrow to power and strength, and will compares her to both a dark goddess and the mater dolorosa. and for whatever reason, looking at laurie, with her being more open than she'd ever been in her life with me, i suddenly felt this deep but silent agony, something almost undetectable, but undeniable once it was realized. and, like will, i found myself looking at her and suddenly seeing this blessed virgin with seven swords in her heart. i didn’t realize the impact of that until tonight though... which we will get to. this morning, though, upon feeling that sort of crushing suffering within her, this divinely violet knight who never showed her wounds, my own battered heart could do nothing but burn with an equally pained love in response. and she knew, and all the walls were down.

...I've never been kissed that much in my life, honestly.
it's just... one hand buried in my hair, the other lifting my face to hers, and this sincere straightforwardness about every second of it. it does something inexpressible to my heart, every single time.
really, laurie will not kiss me unless she can put the full weight of her honesty behind it. so, when she does, it's less of a show of affection, and more of a proclamation. like it actually feels like a statement; some sort of signed-and-sealed law of love instated without a single word. she'll kiss me and every single one feels like a decision she'd been holding close for years. and yet there's no "romance." its freaking incredible.
also. she may kill me for saying this publicly (if she's still trying to keep up a tough guy image), but, well. she did not just kiss my face. at one point she just kept going straight to my chest and seriously good lord the significance of that is huge. because really, chaos has done that with me, a lot, but the motivation and energy with him is entirely different. same with infi, for the record. chaos is all tidal waves and ocean depths, and infi is just this rapturous all-encompassing thing, but laurie does everything with such precise devotion that i honestly wonder sometimes what i did to earn that sort of honor from her. totally different context than anything i've ever felt. so having her do that, in such a way... it's mind-blowing really.
on that note there was like one bit near the end when we both silently decided "heck with it" and got completely tangled as far as kissing goes. i stopped caring about what was "situationally appropriate" and she had both her hands in my hair, it was amazing. and yet somehow the mood didn't even change then, which i reiterate because, if i had been with chaos or infi things would have gotten pretty intense right then. not so with laurie. and i mean that in the best way possible.
however the VERY end was like whoa seriously because she SAID, "I want to understand what this is like from their perspective," meaning "let's get closer than I'd ever dare to sober." thankfully I was also drunk on love, so I didn't get any awkwardness from "whoa hey I'm not into you that way" because for all intents and purposes, I kind of was at the time. which is ironically hilarious because, again, there was NONE of that in this at all. nevertheless I was running on the exact same blissful energy and damn it but I loved her so much)

also remember my self-image was CONSTANT AND ACCURATE this entire time, that's major for me.
i didn't have to anchor or refocus myself even once. everything was genuinely me, no slips, no blurring, no interruptions. maybe it's just because all the malevolent voices are terrified of laurie, but i am not complaining either way.


then... THE EVENING.
or in other words, cz asked "what laurie and I did this morning" and EVEN BETTER THINGS HAPPENED

(just notes for now because i have no time to refine this today. i will tomorrow.)

- started off with her trying to kiss me in response to cz's question, that drove me straight into poet mode. i started comparing her to sunsets and sunrises, she was really moved by that because really, i have never tried to write poetry about her before.
- ...at one point I became so completely overwhelmed by compassion that I made what may just be the most beautiful verbal slip ever-- in trying to express the depth of my affection, I accidentally said, with total heartfelt sincerity, "I'm in love with you."
And she paused, got the most indescribable look I've ever seen, and incredulously said, "say that again."
- I swear, the 100% honest expressions people get when they realized they are loved are beyond description
- even better freudian slip: I was using affectionate terms, just from my heart (which was on fire), I think I actually called her "my beloved" without realizing it. but that got worse because then I called her my WIFE, and she stopped me, saying that if THAT was an accurate enough term for how I felt for her, then… well. the impact of it all was registering there. she said she should have seen it back in 2012 when I was looking for violet rings, but she didn't let herself believe that? regardless this new and deepest level of love she was now realizing, that was being felt for her, had a profound impact.
- then we had to work through all the pain that dragged up. I have no words for how heartbreakingly powerful that entire experience was. remember she asked for infi to help.
- seriously, if you people don't know and/or have never experienced it... when a person comes face-to-face with love, of that caliber, it tends to illuminate them so much in return that it chases out all the shadows in them that can't bear such brightness. so it's typical for us at least, when people fall inescapably into honest love, for them to go through a period of intense personal catharsis in order to make room for such an uncompromisingly true thing. that's what happened here.
- laurie talked about seeing us die on the 27th, how with my blood oddly being starry black, she thought that the galaxy was dying with me essentially. she said seeing all the white blood from infi was something so heartbreakingly apocalyptic that she couldn’t fathom it.
- self-love and acceptance for her was huge. not so much forgiveness, but she puts everyone before herself. she will endure anything for the people she protects, but as we all know, she will never speak up about it. she covers her scars and bleeds in secret, and i don't know what that says about how she views herself, but she's always had reservations about letting herself be healed. so infi told her to just become unconditional love, to radiate that so sincerely, that she was inherently included in its very nature. don't see yourself as a separate person to love, ze said; instead, become love. laurie, obviously, has no trouble with doing that.
- laurie literally sobbed for ten solid minutes. my heart just shattered. i remember infi was embracing her and crying. chaos and I also instantly got empathy overflow, ended up in tears for the entire time. but really she had three other people trying to help express and release the shocking amount of pain buried in her, that is absolutely unheard of.
- i have only ever seen such anguished heartache in infinitii before, on the one night the tar used hir to hurt someone else. so seeing laurie express the same intensity of agony in mourning the pain of others was almost more than i could bear
- and that is when she again became the virgin with seven swords in her heart. except this time, the second line of that island reference was revealed to me... "the wound had been very nearly mortal and... it was still open, still bleeding." i cannot tell you exactly when it happened, maybe it was when infinitii tried to directly heal some of that, either way i suddenly saw the damage, and i don't give a damn if it was symbolic, her heart was literally impaled, and in my empathetically feeling that I couldn’t stop crying.

- genesis showed up later, once laurie had leveled out enough we noticed he was missing again and we unanimously decided that he had to be a part of this, to participate in the complete honesty everyone was experiencing, as part of our group.
- laurie finally kissed me but i reacted to that by suddenly getting SOUL WINGS. that hasn't happened in years!! but they're nothing like the old red-slot ones; they're iridescent now, fragile and crystalline? like all these tiny crystals in or on them. i'm not too sure on the exact appearance... remember I saw them reflected in her eyes first.
- and of course at the end of it all everyone kissed each other AGAIN but thanks to the catharsis it was gorgeous this time. laurie and infi both can do that platonically but its still so sincere its amazing. plus after today laurie really can't even pretend to be nervous around hir anymore. remember laurie's comment to cz too, about the "spark"
- infi telling chaos and I "I love you both in a way I didn't even think was possible for me." saying cz reflected the same truths ze did, also the motherhood thing. but for me I remember ze reached out to touch my chest, above my heart, but ze placed two fingers between my ribs there in a way that I swear felt like I was MISSING ONE; the impact and meaning of that (the whole "adam & eve" thing laurie used to half-joke about) didn't even hit me until an hour later.
-
-

 

 

 

SESSION PARTICIPANTS
LAURIE UBERICH INFINITII ETERNOS MR. SANDMAN JAY IRIDOS


All right, how the heck are we going to do this…

We have to channel. It's the only way. Pre… what's the word.

Pre what? You mean mistranslation?

Yes. I mean… direct interpretations of our words don't always work? It's not verbal.

No, it's not. But let's get this thing started. It's 11:34 PM on November 9th, 2013, this is Laurie, hi, that's Infinitii, Sherlock may or may not be typing, or is he running it through the AP? I can't tell…

Doesn't matter. Let's talk. Jewel is out of commission.

Jay.

Jewel. He's in his female form. That happens when he is depressed, and suicidal.

Self-loathing, he said, yeah. To be honest the gender switches always freaked me out. I'd start accidentally referring to him as "she" and before I knew it, boom, I'd notice that he was a bloody mess. It was a subconscious danger sign, y'know? The way people's names start getting left out of roll calls when they start slipping.

I know. Do we have a topic?

Sheesh, Infi, I thought you were the more chaotic one.

I am. In essence. But this is important. You're still not channeling.

Not really, no. Geez. Don't forget, J's not here for this. Usually he is. I've never done this stuff without him before.

I know. Neither have I. But we have to try. For his sake.

All right, give me a second. "In Paradisum" again?

Yes, it will drown out the other noises, and it helps me think. Center. Wrong word, sorry.

It's okay man, that happens. Give me a second, like I said.

Okay. Drop the pitch.

Just did. We good to go now?

Channel. Not… what is the word?

Uh… shoot, what is the word? Transcribing, that's it!

Yes! Direct transcription of words. That doesn't work.

Not in these bloody things, no. …Aaand so we just wasted a whole page, didn't we.

Yes we did. That is why I asked for a topic, and told you to channel. We do not have all night, Laurie, and this is an important subject.

Yeah, no kidding. Sorry dude. 'Kay, topic. Last I checked it was why the heck J-boy over there keeps freaking out over everything?

Touches, especially. That is what set this off.

Yeah, but we know about that. He associates all touches with trauma.

Why all of them?

…

…

Shoot.

Is he awake?

Vaguely. Looks instinctive is all. Man that's creepy as heck.

J, can you hear me?

…No, guess not.

Good. I was worried about that. …Should we keep him down?

How the heck would we do that?

Golden arrow. Those work to pin bad energy in place. If anything tries to operate him like a puppet, that will keep them from getting him anywhere.

Works for me. You got one of those on hand?

I can make one.

Holy swords, you're just like Jewel with that. J. Shoot, see, that's what I mean.

Mm. But see, no blood on mine. Just stars, if there's any sort of afterglow…

So you and him've got different stuff on the inside, huh.

Possibly. I'd think so.

Nice shootin', Tex.

Thank you.

Flamboyant as anything, but hey, I'd expect that from you.

Please. J would be worse. That was necessary. Now. Talk?

Yeah, sure, sorry about the waste of time. I'm just having a hard time with this.

I know. I'm sorry if I sounded impatient. I'm not. I'm simply deeply concerned.

Yeah, you and me both. So. Trauma?

Always. And, that seems to the be problem.

"Always trauma," heh, pretty much.

When did that start? Has he always been like this?

What, with the getting  bloody traumatized by everything? I wouldn't think so, but the first thing I'm getting is 2008… 2009? Geez I don't know. Gotta be 2008, it's the first time he was with Q. Or whoever was with Jacob, that sure as heck wasn't him. He was upstairs most of the entire time.

What happened?

Surprise visit, or poorly planned, heck if I know, kid came over to visit and J freaked the heck out. …There's two snapshots of it, one is as soon as they walked in, he was in his room hugging his Watchmen book? What the heck man, why was he using that as a comfort object?

Rorschach?

How the blood do you know about Rorschach?

I don't. It's the word that came into my head. I'm trying to access the data memories too.

Well yeah, it was Rorschach, obviously. Kid had a weird sort of affection for the guy, guess he latched onto that in a hurry. If I recall I was pretty furious too.

About?

About the whole bloody situation. About this kid from Utah showing up and J freaking the heck out and everything basically just looking about a thunderstorm about to dump buckets of blood instead of rain, the whole shebang. A looming disaster. I must've spit outrage about twenty times when he went into that room.

So he was upset?

He was freaking terrified, Infi, that's why I was furious!

Ah. So what was the second snapshot?

In the car. Somewhere. At that park he hates to this day, well not hates, but has an abyss of anxiety around. He was in the back seat of this car, doesn't even look like ours in the memory, anyway Q was holding his hand, or at least trying to, or something. And the kid wasn't even there. Apparently that was so legitimately 'traumatic' for him that he dissociated completely, he was upstairs for most of the bloody car ride, I remember he was still form-warping back then so he looked a freaking mess, with that psychotic jester form or something…

He form-warped? But isn't that Black energy?

Yeah, the kid was still mostly Black back then, sorry I didn't clarify. This was WAY before he started shadowing White, ironically, he wasn't even male then. This was our female fronter at the time, s'far as I can recall, everything's so freaking blurry, sorry.

It's okay, I understand things from back then are hard for all of you to access now.

Yeah, no kidding, they haven't been touched in ages and frankly I think the kid massacred most of 'em way back when. Anyway, that's the snapshot. Him upstairs and going Hulk, and then downstairs the body is in catatonic shock because some kid from across the country is touching his hand and he is freaking the heck out.

You said that.

I'm repeating it for emphasis, don't sass me. Anyway, yeah. That was it.

Hm. And you say that was 2008?

Or 2007. I'm assuming the latter because that's when stuff started to get serious.

So 5 years.

At least.

That's a long time.

For us? Yeah, no kidding, that's a freakin' century.

Has he shown any evidence of this before that? Or would you not know?

Geez, I don't know, I only showed up in 2006, and we still don't know who the heck manned the lost years. 2004-2008, pretty much. 2003 and earlier were the teenage girls, Jewel and Celebi mostly though, thank God.

Did they front for long?

Jewel and Cel? Yeah, at least two, three years from what I can gather. I never knew 'em, though, so I'd have to check the records. But 'fronting' was fuzzy as heck back then, there was switching all the time I'd assume. I don't know. I'm not thinking about that, that's not my division, I am here to help the kid and get him the heck out of this hellhole he's got himself stuck in. Get the hell out of him. Man that was a confusing sentence.

Made sense though.

Yeah, in some weird runaround way. Anyway, that's the trauma bit. At least, where I know it started with this. He had trouble in college after that but that's a whole different side of this topic…

Should we talk about that?

Maybe. Dude we can't do this like we're talking to an audience, that's just screwing things up. I… I just need to talk to you, all right? Forget the bloody Xanga session. Let's just talk. Where were we when we decided this needed to happen?

Uh, right here.

No no no, I mean attention-wise. What were we talking about?

…I don't recall. I'm sorry.

Think. Unplug from this whole business for a second and think. It had to be big enough to warrant a sudden session at 11 freakin' PM.

…The robe.

Yes, that's it, that freakin' robe, we did bring that up didn't we?

Yes! And the children, how they are tied to trauma too.

And we were wondering why the heck they were so strongly attached to it when J was too, heck yes, we figured this out.

No we didn't.

Don't laugh at me man, I mean we figured out where we were. Conversations are a bloody labyrinth up here.

And Jayce was talking to us. About the near-hack earlier.

Shoot I forgot about that. …He had a good point though.

About J?

Yeah. "Something tells me that wasn't J," he said, "not that sparkly-eyed guy." No kidding, it’s in his nature to stay the heck away from hacks and everything like them. But that's the entire problem.

He's never around when they happen.

Exactly. So hell happens and who's manning the house? Not J, that's who. Unlucky us, we get stuck with either a suicidal fronter or a social witch or even a hacker themselves in the driver's seat, and none of them seem to care at all about what happens to the body or the people in it--

Or the soul.

Exactly, OR the soul, which is the biggest lethal problem here-- none of them care. None of them care at all how scarred we end up from all this. None of them. Except they're the ones that have to deal with the aftereffects, with the consequences and the trauma, every bloody time.

…

Hey, you okay?

Yes. No. It's odd.

Yeah, I hear that from J all the time.

No, it's… I'm okay. Personally. I am not okay with knowing that this is still such a severe problem we have to cope with…

You and me both, man, and the rest of the freakin' System.

…I know. I'm sorry. I mean… I'm getting confused?

With?

No, not with. It's this channeling. I'm not used to it.

Yeah, what I'd give for a voice recorder up here. Look, do you want to quit, or--

No, no. This is important. I want to at least make some progress on this issue.

Good point. So where were we?

The robe. The children were being triggered by it. And then that girl began screaming at us when we entered the
grandmother's room.

Oh shoot, yeah, that was insane. She shows up all the time around the grandmother, did you notice?

Does she? Is that the same girl?

She's the screaming one, no kidding it's the same one, no one else acts like her.

Hm. Is she tied to trauma too, then?

That's what we're trying to figure out, actually. All of us I mean, not just you and me. She screams bloody murder about every bloody thing on the planet, saying she's going to "kill people" and she wants everything that harms her to die but for heaven's sake, everything seems to hurt her!

Is she just hypervigilant?

You know what, she might be. She just might be rooted to that old tendency of J's, if you'll forgive the name. …He, she, whoever was fronting at the time, that person would view everything as a potential threat. That started around college, at least I'm almost positive.

So prior to that, it was not as severe, or evident at all?

S'far as I can tell, yeah. Give me a minute…

You having trouble too?

Yeah. Headache in the body, it's late, things get confusing. Where were we. Hypervigilance. Heh, ironic because I kept telling the kid to do just that in the opposite way a few years back. Watch out for hacks, don't project the bloody things onto everything.

Is that what he's doing??

Probably? If I had to guess, I'd say it's helping Julie more than it's hindering her. And Eros. Eros especially, I remember how Sugar and whoever was hijacking her kept freaking the heck out over that when he first showed up. "He makes everything a threat," they kept saying, "how is he not dangerous when he makes everything dangerous," well we don't have to worry about that anymore, he's right up there with the most dangerous bitch in the System. But yeah, Inf, he sees threats in everything now because everything could be a threat with Julie around at all times. And that's bloody awful, but it's the truth.

So it's a legitimate fear.

Sadly. But it shouldn't be, y'know? And we've been working on that! Sugar's been working on that, and when she showed up, her deal was "I'm going to murder anything that so much as looks at me the wrong way," specifically because she saw every little thing as a sexual threat too. Now she's let go of that, thank God, because she was sharing that anchor with a heck of a lot of malicious fragments, but the point still stands. That's an old mindset by our standards, but lately we've been fighting it, and we're making progress but this situation keeps getting worse in spite of it?

How so?

Kid, the hacks keep on bloody happening.

But you realize that not everything is a hack attempt.

Now we do, yeah, at least most of us do upstairs. The kids are having a hard time with it, poor things are too bloody broken to change their perspectives easily. Same with J, at least his shattered parts. As he is normally, he literally is blind to that stuff, which shows that he's so deeply traumatized as a whole that he has to literally exist in a state of ignorance just to survive. That is unbearably sad. And it scares me to death.

Same here, Laurie. I don't like seeing him like this.

Yeah, you wouldn't, you love him just as much as I do, if not more.

Same amount.

…Probably. Yeah. Gotta stop downplaying my affection for the kid, I've got a bad habit of holding you guys up above me in that respect.

I've noticed.

Heh, have you really?

Yes. But that's not a problem, not if you're aware of it, and you realize it is incorrect, right?

No, it's not a problem for me, I'm fighting that battle, I know it's nonsense. J doesn't have that sort of perspective, somehow, I don't freaking know. Intellectually he knows this "everything is dangerous" mindset is completely untrue, and yet the trauma in his gut keeps yanking him back down to "but we can't take that chance" mode.

I see.

Yeah. You'd think that we'd have hit a point where we can stop worrying about hacks but hey, today happened, and that's just a sign that stuff is getting worse. We really need that inpatient therapy, I'll tell you what.

We do. But… that hack, you said it wasn't completed?

No, thank God. Someone showed up and started swearing up the freakin' hill at Julie, don't know who the heck they were but major props to them, apparently they got the kid the heck out of there, because nothing happened, as you can see in the data.

It cuts off.

Yeah, he must've dissociated. But the scary thing is that he was aware there was a hack being attempted for a few freaking minutes before it, if that was him, but whoever it was didn't care at all.

You said that person said they had no free will.

They did say that. You heard J repeat that to us earlier. "I have no will of my own, so if someone else wills me to do something, I will do it," basically. Absolute garbage mindset.

It is.

Thank you. But that worries me, because he also said that he still feels he SHOULD give in to that hell?! And I thought I nipped that mindset in the bud ages ago.

Which one?

The bloody obligation bit. "They say I SHOULD want this, et cetera, so I will FORCE myself to, or I simply will not let myself care and let them do WHATEVER the heck they want to me because THEY must be correct, not me!!"

Somebody's angry.

No kidding, Infi, you'd be seeing red too if this--

I am.

Oh. Geez, sorry man, I'm not used to your totally quiet way of emoting everything. That's kind of creepy.

Maybe. But tune in, you'll see that it's true.

Yeah, I'd rather not go near that, not after what you did to me yesterday.

Haha, you're still reeling from that?

Did you just laugh?

It was funny! I didn't expect you to do that. That's sweet.

What, my being thunderstruck by your insane emotional effervescence? Sheesh, man, that is the equivalent of getting a space station dropped on you on a summer morning. Out of freakin' nowhere, and holy swords does it hit you hard.

Sorry.

You're still laughing, and I can't hold that against you, come on man now you've got me doing it too.

Better than being upset all the time.

Yeah. We've had a rough night, haven't we?

Yes. I wish it wasn't so.

So do I, man. …So, we still talking, or what?

It's 12:19. I'm not sure how much further we can go with this before it gets too late for comfort or safety.

Yeah, plus Boss will probably come hunting me down, "what the snow are you doing keeping my Apprentice up so late," except he'd never say that and he'd probably just show up without warning--

Hello!

Geez, Sandman, I wish the heck you wouldn't do that.

Hello, Sandman.

Hello Infi, hello Laurie. I figured I'd drop by for a moment. What are you talking about?

Your kid, everyone's kid, who the heck else?

My Apprentice? Is he doing well?

Yeah, your tone of voice says you already suspect what's up, don't you.

…I fear as much. He is not doing well, then.

No. Not very well. Infi and I are here trying to discuss out this trauma situation, get to the bottom of why he's so bloody scared all the time. Except I already know the answer to that. We all do. Just… it's hard to keep dealing with this, day after day, when the answers don't do anything.

Are you sure it's the correct answer, then?

What else could it be?

…Forgive me Laurie, but I must ask for a question. You say you are trying to heal this trauma--

Understand it. We can't do a thing to heal it if J won't step up to the plate himself. We know that.

Good, good. And I assume that is the biggest problem?

He won't do it! He's bloody terrified!

Of?

Of Julie, of everything that reminds him of her, or Eros, who is badly corrupted now if you haven't heard--

I have heard. Unfortunately.

Yeah, and that's just a symptom of a bigger illness too. The kid is scared to death of intimacy, you can't touch him in any sense without him freaking the heck out and trying to kill you, at least downstairs. He splinters apart completely. Upstairs he can't do that, he stays himself, so he shuts down and shatters and then we're dealing with splinters instead of alters or whoever the heck. I'm tired, Boss.

I know, Laurie. I am not surprised that you are. And you, Infi?

I am not tired so much as I am heartbroken.

Ah. That I understand too. So, do you have any leads?

On?

On what more you need to understand. It sounds like your main concern is why the child cannot let go of the pain. Is that simply because it is constant?

Could be. It seems really bloody obvious when you're here pointing everything out, but the problem is that the roots are deep, Boss. They're really deep and they're sucking the life out of him.

I know. I know. It worries me too.

…He said something recently about "liking things?"

Shoot, yes, we forgot to mention that! Boss, I've gotta tell you this specifically because I think it causes problems with you every once in a while.

With me?

With the kid's perception of you, you know what I mean. Infi just reminded me, it was either last night or this morning, but J comes up to me and says, completely dissociated, that… how the heck do I put this.

Intrusive thoughts.

Yeah. You know about those?

What sort of intrusive thoughts?

Sexual ones. Programmed ones. Tar-clogged lies straight up and through. Julie talk. He'll look at something and that freakin' broken record starts telling him that he wants to have sex with it, even if that's completely untrue, which it always bloody is.

That is a rather severe intrusive thought.

No kidding, Sandman, why the heck do you think I'm so worried about this? But he didn't put two and two together until this morning, apparently, because he told me that hey, the reason why that happens is because in his mind, "liking" something means he ultimately wants to have sexual relations with it.

Why?

Think about it. Or don't, actually, don't do that, ever. But it's exaggeration, it's blown totally out of proportion, and out of the realms of sense and sensibility. Somewhere along the line, he learned that the word "like" was… no, shoot, that's wrong. He was told that the word "like" was often used in a relationship context? Y'know, like when teenage kids say they "like" someone. Usually they're talking about romance, not admiration, you feel me?

Mm-hmm. That is common.

Right. But it screwed with the kid's mind something fierce, because he didn't understand that at that age, and for some freakin' reason, his paranoia kicked in and told him that that word could ONLY be used in a romantic context. You like that person as a friend, or a role model? Guess what, no you don't, you actually want to make out with them. Total garbage, but he drilled that into his own head out of fear, and that's when it got worse. Because then he learned that sexuality was a thing that existed, and THAT is what most kids his age were ultimately pursuing, God knows why, but you can see where this is going.

Yes. He ultimately assumed that liking things was sexual. I see. …That is a huge problem, Laurie.

Isn't it?! It's driving me freaking crazy trying to get him to un-learn that, but I can't find the cursed root that's keeping that evil weed propagating up here. Geez.

And you say this is affecting me because…?

Because he likes you. He REALLY likes you, heck he even loves you, but it's all in that 100% kid-friendly innocent way he has. He loves you in the same way he loves a snowfall, on some level at least. But you're lucky. You're stuck with the innocent side of him all the time. He's free of this intrusive noise like that, or at least he sees it for what it is. Up here, sometimes, he can't. He breaks under pressure, or he gives in under too much pain, and then he decides that he's just going to let the intrusive thoughts do what they want and man that's not right.

No it's not, Laurie.

He doesn't "let them" do as they wish, Laurie. As Jayce said, you know he fights them. It's in his nature to protect innocence, and honesty, and truth.

So does he splinter?

Yes. He dissociates, and the others that come out listen to the intrusive voices, as those fronters are too terrified
to trust their own hearts. They are too damaged to listen to their own truth as they have been told, too many times, that it is wrong.

Hm.

So you see what I mean. It's complicated.

So it is.

Sorry for dragging you into this, Boss. I guess I just needed to vent at someone besides Infi-boy over here.

That's quite all right, Laurie. I love the child just as much as you do, of course I want to help… but I fear my assistance can only go so far?

How do you mean?

I cannot meddle directly with affairs up here. I can help him in his dreams, as I can. And I can swear to protect him with everything at my disposal whenever I am able, but I cannot interfere with these splintering occasions you mention simply because I am not part of this System in the way that you are.

I see. And that's fine, Sandman, believe me I appreciate your help more than you know as-is.

I know. Still, I truly wish I could do more.

You're doing enough, man, you're doing more than any of us could in that area. So thanks.

You're quite welcome, Laurie. Infinitii?

Hm?

I trust you will do everything in your power to help him, too.

I already am.

No. You know what I mean, child. I understand what you are. You are the stuff nightmares are made of, except without an ounce of that fear within you.

Whoa whoa, wait, what??

He is a nightmare, or at least, he has the potential to be one. A nightmare is only a darkened dream, after all. But for one such as him to exist, in a purely non-malevolent state, well, he must have a great and terrible purpose.

…How do you mean, Boss?

I believe you know exactly what I mean, Laurie. And perhaps I am wrong, that could happen.

I don't think you're wrong, Sandman.

Hm. Well, in that case, Infinitii, do your job well.

I will.

I will depart now, Laurie, it is late enough as-is, and I do have a job to do.

Yeah, don't let us hold you up, sorry about that.

It is no trouble, Laurie. As I said, I wish I could do more, but I will do all I can. Tell the child not to listen to those thoughts, whenever you get the opportunity. I will do the same.

Hey, yeah, and can you keep an eye out for real nightmares? Infi here can only eat the ones that sneak in upstairs.

He can eat them, you say, child?

Yeah, is that a problem?

No, it is not a problem, but… they say you are what you eat, child. Be careful.

I am well aware of the consequences of consumption. I've… fallen ill from them before.

Do be careful, Infinitii, please. You are more important than you know, to the child and to me.

How am I important  to you?

Well. You are made of the stuff of dreams, aren't you? And you are part of my Apprentice, at least in soul, are you not?

Yeah, we kind of spoke about that last time.

So, my point is, if he is tied to a Sandman-in-training, this strange benevolent nightmare of yours, then he is tied to me in function as well, even if neither of us may fully understand that yet.

Hm. Tell you what, Boss, talking to you is bloody confusing sometimes.

Perhaps, but I am not so skilled with verbal language here either, you know.

Heh, probably not. Anyway, goodnight Sandman, I know you said you had places to be.

Indeed I do. Continue in your discussion, and do take care of the child. I wish you both well.

We will, boss-man. Thanks for the company.

Thank you, Sandman.

Thank you both, as well. Good night.

Well. Can't say that was as unexpected as I'd like it to be.

He seems to have a way of knowing.

Sandmen are seriously weird when it comes to time and space, so yeah, he probably did. Gotta say that "nightmare" bit was seriously interesting though.

It is. But would you know, that's what I was meaning to reiterate too.

What? The "you being part of Jewel" thing?

Not exactly. Moreso what part I am, if you will put it that way.

Mm, good point. Yeah that's kind of what I was hoping to get at too.

Why's that?

Because… come on, Infi, you can do things with the kid on all sorts of levels that I can't even dream of doing. And I never would, frankly, that's not my job up here. But… really, it helps, when you get through.

The "when" is key, I think.

Yeah, no kidding. And it's the problem too. You know what's wrong here, more than I ever will, more than I ever can. He's traumatized, yeah. That's obvious. Yeah, he's hypervigilant, his thought processes are screwed, he can't see straight when anything so much as hints at this sort of thing… but you get through anyway, and you see just how deep it goes. I haven't got a clue.

I think you do, Laurie. Awareness is yours.

Yeah, but so is Chastity, and I am locked out of most of that knowledge whether that helps or not.

You wouldn't touch it anyway?

Heck no, it'd likely kill me. Point is, that's not my job. My job is to protect the kid, keep him from killing himself, and help him manage this emotional disaster. Help him deal with triggers, help him get his head back on straight, pull him back up off the floor when he finds himself crumpled up down there.

Like he was yesterday.

…Yeah. Exactly like he was yesterday. And that's where you come in, too. You and your crazy emotional abilities. How the heck do you do that??

I told you, Laurie, it works with potential. Obviously, you have the potential for that, whether you know it or not.

Oh I know it, I know it way too bloody well, that's why I have all these iron walls up. To protect me from that just as much as other people.

Why so?

Can't do my job very well if I'm an emotional mess, now can I?

You need to let it out though. You need to express it, or you will end up like Jewel.

Yeah. Yeah, that I know. So thanks for yesterday.

You're welcome. …And if you ever need me again--

Shut the heck up, man, no way am I ever asking for that sober again.

I didn't say sober.

You didn't not say sober either, you lunatic.

My point is, the door is always open…

Don't you joke around with me, little man, that's not funny.

Would you be laughing if that wasn't true?

Heh, guess not. Aw, I couldn't be mad at you if I tried. You're too nice of a guy, girl, whatever.

Thank you.

So. Speaking of guy-girl-whatevers. How's J doing over there?

Still frozen. Just as well, that may be for the best.

Yeah, we'll let him out when this talk's done, we're going to need to manage the fallout from that. You mostly.

Emotionally?

Break him open is what. You saw him earlier, he was freakin' frozen, literally.

Yeah. That was frightening, actually.

You never seen anything like that either?

Not just that. Frozen. That word. White energy slowed to a stop.

Oh. Shoot.

Yes, exactly. Not good.

No, I guess not.

…

Hey, you wanna call this quits? It's after 1 and I'm bloody tired, I don't know about you.

I thought you don't sleep.

I don't. Not usually at least, not naturally. But we're using the body right now and it is really freakin' tired, plus you heard what the boss-man said. If he's off to work, then his Apprentice had better be right behind him.

Hm. Is it that easy to snap him back into Apprentice mode after something like this?

You tell me, man, you've seen how quickly he moves from one mindset to another.

That worries me.

Yeah, no kidding. It worries everybody. He's a mess up here and down there both.

How is he splintering up here?

Because he can't manage the trauma inside, either. That's the whole bloody reason we were born in the first place-- inner trauma. Our System was born from the ashes of a heck of a lot of psychological pain, plus Julie's assaults, all that business. And J broke to bloody pieces up here and that's where the dissociative disorder diagnosis came from. If he's gonna show dissociative symptoms downstairs, you'd better bet that's going to be happening upstairs too.

Hm. I guess you're right.

I am right, I've been dealing with this situation since I was born. I was born from the pain and love disaster in the first place, you know.

Pain and love? Is that why you pull his hair?

Haha, partly. Only partly. I mean it's… I was born from his brain thinking you can only love someone if you hurt them. Physical pain, atonement stuff.

Ah.

Yeah, the Undergrounders got that too, it's obvious with the way they treat the kids, they're total sweethearts when you get past all the blood and knives. Anyway, that's part of this trauma business too. Julie used sexual assault as her weapon and from what he's told me, that doesn't exactly hurt in the way a punch to the face hurts.

No, no it does't.

Yeah, you would know. Wait, have you ever been punched in the face?

No, and please don't offer to demonstrate.

Haha, I won't man, don't worry. But yeah, according to J that is one heck of a traumatizing experience for a kid because shoot, he had no capacity to understand it!

Do you?

No, I am literally repeating what he told me.

Heheh.

You wanna talk about it? Seems to me you know more about this topic than Julie does.

Of course. She only uses the blackened side of it. It's full of Tar.

What about the Plague?

I know little about that. From what I've been told, it's mostly spiritual egotism. Christina was the one who exemplified that. We don't know many plagued individuals from what I've seen.

No, mostly Tar corruption. That's Julie, Eros, Missy, Bridget, you get the picture.

But… didn't they use spiritual egotism?

I think they jumped off it, as a springboard, you know? Because J tells me to this day, the worst part of the whole sexual abuse thing was her telling him that it was "God's will" that he submit to that. Which is an obvious and heartless lie.

Did she really believe that.

No, obviously not, she just said it because she knew it would screw with his head. And it was what society was telling him, according to him. Sheesh I don't know, this isn't my area of expertise, I told you to talk about it so don't throw it back at me.

What is there to talk about?

I dunno man, we're trying to understand why the kid can't seem to heal from this, and if I'm not mistaken, that's been your job since April.

I see what you're getting at.

Yeah.

So. What is there to say, even then? You know what his trauma is. You know his main areas of fear and pain. What else can I tell you?

I saw the way he reacted to you earlier. He always used to say he was never afraid of you. What the heck was that?

He was frozen. That was not him, that was definitely the splintering phenomenon.

But that means there was fear towards you at that point!

It was because of the physical contact, you know that as well as I do.

Has he ever done that before, though?

…I don't know.

What the heck do you mean, you don't know?!

…I don't. Now that you mention it, that could be our one big problem. The simplest thing. Touch.

He didn't freak out yesterday, did he?

No. But you saw what he was like yesterday. He was already shut down.

…Shoot. Good point.

In other cases he hasn't been shut down when we are together. But… now that you mention it…

You think you missed it?

Yes. I think I've missed it. And that is partly my fault, too. I was sick for a very long time.

Yeah, that parasite thing.

That was a direct result of being with him, you know.

The heck, it was?!

Yes. I have no other explanation. "You are what you eat." I could only try to clear out so much corruption from him before I would fall victim to it myself, even if I was not aware of it at the time. I slipped, Laurie, I slipped quite often. And if he was gone, well, I would have no way of knowing.

…Shoot.

But you are right. Maybe he hasn't 'freaked out' at my presence before. But how often is he aware of things upstairs? When he has to reach out to remember what I look like, I wonder.

…Yeah.

We are going in circles.

We usually do, on this topic. Man.

Do you want to close up for tonight?

Maybe. Geez. We didn't get very far, did we?

How do we know? We are trying, that is what counts.

Yeah. …Listen, Infi, I just… I don't want a repeat of yesterday, ever.

In what sense?

Heh, that wasn't a joke. I mean I don't want to have to deal with two solid hours of Chaos sobbing and Genesis shouting and you looking desperate as heartbreak incarnate and me not knowing what the heck to do, and the entire time J is sitting there looking like a marble statue and no one can reach him. No one.

He was shut down. Just as he was today.

I know. And I don't want this turning permanent, you hear me?

Neither do I, Laurie.

I know. But… listen, Infi, I'm scared. There, I admitted it. I'm honestly scared that we might not be able to reverse this.

Laurie, Laurie. Listen. You said it yourself that J forgets all of that when he is in tune with himself.

But he freaking blinds himself to it all, that's not being in tune with anything!! How the heck is he supposed to heal from something if he won't even bloody acknowledge that he's bleeding to death from it?! Even the bloody Undergrounders are ticked off and exhausted from this, heck this is the first time in my LIFE I've seen Razor actually REFUSE to cut someone because "I don't want to be dragged back down again," for heaven's sakes even SHE is standing up to corruptive influences and J keeps giving in or ignoring them!!

He has been through more than all of us combined.

Yeah. I know he has. But that doesn't mean a thing when it comes to whether or not we can heal this, we CAN heal
this--

See?

…Shove off, you little rascal, how the heck do you do that.

Ask the right questions. Push the right buttons. I daresay you are more skilled than I at that, though.

Maybe. But really, that was good. Still, you're right. I'm right. I'm just scared enough to lose sight of that, maybe that's the real thing I'm trying to say.

I know. Maybe that's J's problem, too.

Yeah, it is. But wait, you mean it's not total blindness?

No.

Yeah, I know that. Part of him knows what is going on. I've seen him deal with it like a pro on the impossibly good days. But when fear steps in, everything goes dark, and he won't so much as look at it. We're going in circles, man, you're right. I think we should close this up.

Maybe we shouldn't discuss this?

You think we're overthinking it or what?

Probably. The main concern is that J is entirely out of tune with his heart when this happens.

He locks himself out. He's too bloody scared. And he can't forgive himself, that's the real thing I'm worried about. He blinds himself to the pain because he can't forgive himself for giving in, even when that was the only bloody option he could even consider safely taking back then. You gotta look at it in context. He was scared to death. I KNOW he fought her. But after a while… survival kicks in. Hopelessness kicks in. And I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying it happened as it happened, and he's gotta forgive himself for being weak in a moment of terror. That happens to the best of us.

He would forgive you.

You know what, I'm not so sure. There's this really deep and virulent hate that the louder alters up here have got, and I know it springs from him at its source. Somewhere in him there is enough rage and pain and hatred to kill a man, but only when it is tied to this sexual terror. He will forgive you for holding a gun to his head, but so much as make a pass at him and he's at your throat. Literally, I have seem some of these dastards up here threaten to that to perfectly freakin' innocuous people.

They can't tell the difference.

No. They can't. And you heard J say that too, when he's like this. "I can't differentiate between faces anymore." That is the saddest thing I've heard in my life, practically.

…

He can't. That bloody pain is so deep that if you tap him on the shoulder, his brain immediately thinks you're trying to rape him. The fear is that strong. No one can get close to him anymore without triggering that same fear, except the side of it that makes him shut down solid just so he can "survive it." When a man thinks a hug from a family member is potentially a gateway to sexual assault that is some seriously screwed up stuff.

He's hurt. He can't see straight.

Yeah. But where the heck do we find a spiritual optometrist? I thought YOU were that, with your freakin' eyeball overload, but shoot… he's afraid of you too, now, isn't he?

I think it's the opposite, and that's why we got this reaction. He knows now, Laurie. Thanks to me, he knows there is another side to that. It's just energy.

Yeah.

And he understands that there isn't a bone in my body that would hurt him.

You haven't got any bones, weirdo.

That isn't the point. …Well, maybe it is.

Heh. Go on, though.

The point is that I can use the same energy Julie did because it is not inherently tied to her sins. Nor is it tied to that act, at all. But… I had to start by showing him that you can be touched, you can be loved, without it being tainted by lust or pain or trauma. And that was a difficult road.

I can imagine.

No, you can't. You really can't.

Heh. You got me there.

But you understand the difficulty.

Yeah, except you're going about overpassing it in a direct way.

'Overpassing?'

Getting past those freakin' blocks and breaking them down from the inside. Sometimes that's the way to do it, man, yesterday showed that for sure.

True. …Was that a joke?

Not intentionally, but why the heck not, sure.

Still. It scared me, Laurie, when I couldn't get through to him with that.

You did, I saw him crying over there.

That was mine. I can do that as well as bring out the emotions of others, remember. When I held him he was expressing my tears, of love and frustration, as I realized there was a wall of ice in front of me that even I could not find a way to break through.

…So what the heck do we do now?

We burn it down. That's all I know how to do at this point in time, Laurie. We burn it down.

How?

I don't know.

Shoot. That makes two of us.

…Maybe we should close this up.

That's what you said, two pages ago.

I know. But I like talking to you. You care, as much as I do, in much the same way.

Ironically.

Not really, Laurie, that's the point. J seems to have infected everyone with even a little part of his fear lately.

…I wouldn't be surprised. But that's a good point. Sorry.

It's fine. As long as you are aware of it. I'm too tired of these misunderstandings to let them go unaddressed anymore.

Yeah, especially when you do what you do. Fixing what you're fixing. You know.

Laurie.

Sorry, I didn't mean it to sound that way.

No, it's all right, it's still accurate.

Heh. Guess so. But that's weird as heck, though. How does the kid vacillate between those two mindsets so bloody quickly?

Splinters?

Circles, holy flaming swords we need to quit.

Hehe.

No really, it's 20 to 2, this is ridiculous. We need to just… summarize this whole thing, go hit him over the head with it, remind him that he KNOWS the truth of this and really maybe that’s all any of us need to do right now. Just remember that we know. Everything isn't a threat. Every moment isn’t a danger. Except it is, and… confound it, I don't want to be thinking like this.

Then don't.

No, it's just that Julie is still doing this, today was proof, is all we have to do is look at her and call her out on her lies? Because if I'm not mistaken, we've TRIED to do that and she doesn’t care.

Maybe we just need to run, like our fronter did today.

Yeah. You know what sure. Asserting the truth only does so much when she's more concerned about getting her kicks through assaulting our boy here. Bottom line, get him the heck out of there, THEN we review where we stand.

It's difficult.

No kidding, and I'm tired. Little bit of number synchronicity at the bottom of the page there, makes me feel a little better.

You watch out for those too?

Sure, they're meant for us too, not just him. And that one there, that just reminded me of what I think I've been trying to say this whole entire time.

What?

Kid's out of tune with his heart. We're thinking too much in words. We're trying so bloody hard to get a grip on this mess that we're forgetting that it doesn't matter a bit in the big picture, not in this way. Not in this way. We've gotta learn from it, but we need to let go of it too. And that's difficult.

They say a lesson will repeat until you have learned what you need to from it.

Yeah, and this one won't go away. So what the heck else is there to learn from it that we don't already know?

How to let go?

How to let go, and move on, and stop giving her all this power over us is what. If we know the bloody truth about what's happening here, if we can see through her lies, then why the heck do we keep getting caught up in the old Tar again?

Perhaps Jewel isn't as free of it as we think?

Geez I don't know. All I know is that my brain hurts and I am tired of talking and I might actually sleep tonight because wow, I am tired. Do you sleep?

Yes.

Cool. I don't, I gotta watch out for danger. But this body fatigue is rubbing off on me and holy swords I don't know how he deals with this every night, it is overwhelming.

It is. So should we close up?

Yeah, please, let's do that. Hey, thanks for talking with me man, I appreciate it.

You're welcome. It's nice to have someone to talk to about these things.

Yeah, you and I can kind of connect on these topics, I've realized. Don't give me that look, I will kill you.

Sorry. I had to.

Heh. I give up, I can't think.

Do you want me to close the session then?

Yeah, hang on a second. I'm falling asleep standing up and that's not going to quit until I get the heck out of this channel, so give me a moment to say something stupid.

Oh boy.

You think you're such a comic genius, shut up. Sheesh, is this what being drunk feels like? No wonder the body is forbidden from alcohol. Geez.

You were saying?

I was saying. You're a pretty great guy. I really appreciate everything you've done for Jewel. For Jay. Shoot. Go take that arrow out of him, bring him over here.

You sure?

Sure. Geez. Hurry up, I can't keep my eyes open, this is the most annoying thing I've experienced in weeks.

Hold on, J, this will be just a second.

… …??

Ssh. It's okay. Calm down. I'm not going to hurt you.

…Infi?

Hey, nice to hear that voice again.

I think he's okay.

What happened?

You… let's not talk about it now.

Why not? are you hiding something from me too

No, no, I… it's late. It's 2 in the morning. We're all having a hard time thinking.

oh. I hurt you did i.

No. …You came close.

ah. now I remember. sorry about being so traumatized. it's hard to reel that in when it gets really bad, I don't know
why that is?

We've been trying to figure that out actually.

is laurie drunk?

No, just ridiculously tired, get the heck over here, both of you.

i can't walk.

Are you sure?

mm..maybe. hold on. hold up too. both. …nnno I don't want to do that, carry me.

What?

you heard me I'm tired too don't let me go all crazy-morphing when I might go straight-up crazy again please.

Okay.

thankyou.

…You're welcome.

youre slipping.

A little.

Shoot, Infi's slipping??

whoa you woke up fast

When trouble starts I gotta be awake, kid, I've got more important things to do than sleep. Infi, what the heck is up?

…I think we're getting too close to sleep for me to be safe.


The heck does that mean? Nightmares??

why would he be scared of nightmares

No, he--

I'm too tied to the Black energy in the System, Jewel.

jay please

Oh. I'm sorry. Jay. You're back?


mostly kind of just really tired keep talking

I'm made of Black energy. When it gets late, that influence gets stronger. White energy tends to rule during the day. It is the opposite at night.

Geez, that explains a heck of a lot.

Write that down. We'll need to remember that.

Infi, dude, you really are slipping, you want to check out first? I'll take care of Jay.

No. Let's close this all at once. Please.

maybe we can do something together I don’t know make up for friday morning

Sheesh, kid, it’s a little too late for that.

no, barriers down, this is good.

Maybe so, but that's usually blindness, kid. You can't be a Care Bear and not care about the bad in the world, you know? Be all sparkles and rainbows, sure, but don't bloody pretend that everything is suddenly a-okay as a result. Some stuff needs to be healed first. Some wounds need to be set or cleaned up before they can heal properly. And some of that damage scars. You know that.

yeah but scars arent that bad theyre kind of pretty remember what xenophon said

…You remember Xenophon?

a little bit she was my daughter right?

Shoot are you saying that as data or do you actually remember??

little bit of both I think.

Holy swords.

He's getting close to the archives. The Black energy.

Where everything is stored?

Yes.

Infi, forgive me for saying this, but half of me wants you to just go the heck to sleep, and half of me wants to see you and J ride out this poet mode until 3AM at this rate.

i could do that

I don't know if I could.

Hey, no pressure dude, just saying.

No. It's not pressure. It is pressure. It's pressurized.

What is, you?

Yes.

Why?

J. Like this.

am I effervescing too much infi or are you picking up on empathy stuff like chaos used to

Man this is creepy, why the heck is he remembering things when he's not even half conscious?

Laurie I am slipping out of awareness and I cannot guarantee anyone's safety if that happens.

infi infi darling just let go and go to sleep. I'll be okay. you'll be okay. it's late. laurie close this up.

Right now?

right now. promise I wont do anything afterward. too late youre right. did you talk about anything good

We were trying to figure out how to fix that frozen state of yours, kid, we're worried about the fact that you're still getting trauma reactions from everything--

oh you mean when im awake?

Yeah, of course when you're awake--

yeah that means im still stuck to that I guess. not when I'm almost asleep like now. different realm. cant touch me. if that makes sense. I can see stuff like this everythings okay.

Can you see the past, the incidents that made this trauma hell happen, or would you shut down?

…

Jewel. Jay. Whoever the heck I'm talking to, answer me.

…it's really hard not to shut down looking at that. youre right. im sorry. why is that?

This stuff is deeper than we'd like, J.

i dont know if I have a name right now. infi needs to go to sleep im worried about him

You're right, this is going nowhere tonight, not at this point. I'm calling this quits.

hey everythings okay though don’t end it on a bad note I love you okay

Kid, that's the bloody reason we started this session two hours ago. We love you too, more than we know what to do with it when things like this happen. But you need sleep for God's sake, so we're ending this now.

okay goodnight

You heard the man, that's it for this mess of a session. See you invisible readers again soon enough.

infi are you okay

I'll be okay. I'll be okay in a few minutes.

you don’t seem sick

I'm not sick. I'm just… there's too much at once. Overload.

ohhh okay I know what that’s like

J, what the heck, I closed this up, why is this going on the record?

I'm not coming through correctly, does anyone know why that is?

J you are a bloody maniac, close this page up, right now.

No I'm just wondering why I keep splintering-- ah what the heck, I'm late for work anyway, let's close this up.

That's what I said.

Infi's going to be fine, I can feel it, I'll make sure. You're okay?

I'm just getting angry that this headtrip of a session isn't over yet.

But you're okay?

As okay as I bloody well can be. Yeah, I'm fine, seeing you smile is making it hard to be mad, even if it's a cause for worry.

Why? The smiling?

Is it genuine?

…Yeah. Somewhere deep down it is. I'm still floating dissociated from what I need to heal from, but it's too late to do that tonight anyway.

Ask your boss. I'm sure you'll get some progress in overnight if you get moving now.

Good point. Infi are you holding up? …He gave me a thumbs-up, that's oddly out of character, he really must be slipping.

Infi what the heck is going on.

It's getting worse, I'm going to end up degenerating if I don't get to sleep.

Okay whoa I really do need to quit this then goodbye.

 

 

 

 

 

Geez it's bloody difficult fronting in this thing.

Yes, this is Laurie. Forgive me for updating in the kid's journal but I don't exactly have my own space to do so.
Trigger warning for language, as usual, that's how I translate, you'll have to deal with it.

As for why I'm updating here, which is one heck of a rare event...
I'm sorry. I'm being a moron and listening to James Blake while trying to type this. Not doing much to help my emotional state, that's for sure.
I was just downstairs (well, in Central at least) with Chaos, Genesis, Sandman, and Leon (because he's our teleporter, can't get anywhere without him). We were all trying to figure out what the heck would happen if J moved out of the White slot he's currently in, didn't have a bloody clue, so down to the simulation room we go. Three floors down, if you're curious.
Anyway. As for what provoked this whole fiasco? ...I don't know if I should write it here. J doesn't exactly have access to those memories, and I don't want to trigger anyone else, which is happening way too freaking often recently, as you can probably tell.
Basically, "Jay" is literally incapable of maintaining relationships right now. He was right, go figure. Chaos and Genesis apparently tried today, took every bleeding precaution possible, then realized that J could not be near them without straight-up slipping out of fronting. I mean what the heck. But that's the news I got, you try and go one-on-one with J and what happens? Suddenly he's not in the bloody driver's seat anymore. I mean full-out, he's gone. Starts spitting programming instead of actual dialogue. It's scary as hell, s'far as I can tell. I wasn't there, for once.
Chaos is freaking out. Genesis isn't taking it as badly, I guess he's used to this behavior since he follows the kid to school and all that. And I'll admit I've seen similar, when I try to talk to him. He's got two modes now: sparkly rainbow "everything is perfect" mode, and empty stark white "I want to stop existing" mode. It's ridiculous, I tell you, and we've got no bloody clue why he's stuck like this.
Well, that's a lie. We know now. Sheesh I'm just at bad as intros as he is, what the heck.

Simulation room. Let's cut straight to the point.
Apparently Sherlock mans the thing. Super-logic man, stays in the semi-underground and manages the archives, no surprise there. Apparently he's got access to 'em since the sim-room works on Black energy, and that's where inner memory is stored. But Sherlock tells us that there are huge gaps in the archives now, thanks to that cursed scratch, since the kid moved out of the slot that held most of 'em, I guess? Weird stuff. But yeah, he told us flat-out to go re-read old entries, get the memories back even if they're just data, 'case they sure ain't down here.
Anyway we ran a sim. "The heck would happen if J moved back to Red?"
Let's see how the heck I can summarize this...
Apparently, that's not a very smart idea. Since the first Jewel came into existence in the Brown slot (theoretically, of course) back in '03, that mental bloodline has been slowly and inevitably moving towards either Black or White. As the core I guess it was mandatory. So when Jewel switched to red hair and eyes around 2008, when I showed up, that was a move into the closest slot to those two. And she had a choice. Now of course she was pretty bloody close to being Black then, I mean it surrounded her half the freakin' time, but apparently she chose White. And that's when the infamous gender switch happened. Jewel became a dude and his red hair started to turn white, while those feminine characteristics went guess where? Straight to the Black, to apparently move into Infinitii in April of this year. And then when the Scratch hit, all it really did to J was move him the heck out of that old slot, with that few-month transition period for Infinitii to manifest, then bam, 100% White.
Problem is, he's not supposed to be 100% White. He's SUPPOSED to be a bloody Spectrum core, and last I checked, the word "spectrum" meant at least 7 bloody actual colors. So he's vacillating in and out of that state, between rainbows and ice, and that's a problem enough BUT good ol' Sherlock informed us that while he's in the White slot, he's locked out of the Spectrum.
Yeah. You heard me. I guess the unspoken rules say J can only interact with Infinitii in this state. What the heck, right?
So our question still wasn't answered, sorry. Could he move back?
Short answer? No. Not without serious consequences at least.
See the Red slot holds all the residual memories of the past 6 years, give or take a few months, which is probably why no one else can anchor there right now. It's too stuffed-up with old J identity turmoil. But, according to the data sim, if he moved back, he'd have to take on ALL that again, and in his current state that might even kill him.
He's changed to much to handle the depth of Red. Currently he can't feel strong emotions anymore, he can't get immersed in "drama" or the dark/light highs and lows of our "old days." That business is over for good, as long as he's in White at least. Even worse, is the fact that Infi was born FOR the Black slot, which needs a White counterpart to exist (and vice versa). So if J left and Infi was left alone, guess what? He'd glitch out and overload, hello Tar. Yeah, that's apparently the REAL reason why we have this Tar on our hands: we had a solo Black slot for years with no bloody balance. I don't exactly wanna do that again.
So if we moved Infi with him, then what? Well, he'd have to move into Blue, and the sim figured he'd be incompatible with that color. (Born for the Black slot, of course; can't exactly translate that into colors.) Same with moving him to Red and J to Blue (yeah, we were checking every option): both would probably cause a total personality reset in them both. Not exactly something we're aiming for. And then of course the core slots would collapse, leaving nothing but the Tar, and that's not an option, ever.
Right around here Chaos started to get worked up, for lack of a better term. (The man was an emotional mess, really.) He starts asking why the heck HE can't move into the Black slot with J. Well that would force Infi out, and if we don't know what the heck to do with him then we're screwed.
Actually that's the main reason we even did this simulation, for heaven's sakes, I didn't even mention that. You'll have to forgive me, my mind's a total mess right now and there is a lot of data to record here. Not exactly the sort of stuff I wanna let fall by the wayside.
So yeah, Chaos is freaking out because J doesn't love him anymore.

New paragraph for emphasis: according to Chaos, J is incapable of feeling anything towards him, or Genesis, or me, or literally anyone anymore. Courtesy of his hyper-innocent White role, of course.
So we ran the sim to see if there was any way the two of them could be together again. Nothing doing. The Spectrum would have to be entirely rehauled at this point for that to work. And honestly we were considering that. What with all these bloody splinters and undergrounders, there are too many colors for the old flowcharts to work at ALL.
Sherlock proposed a three-ring sort of contraption, a 3D flowchart, three unbroken rainbow rings with a black and white core in the middle. But that's a big problem, because then the B/W boys are STILL inherently cut off from the rest of the colors. How the heck are they supposed to be "spectrum colors" if they're not even part of the actual Spectrum?!
So I said, we should ditch the bloody things. "Black and White aren't colors" anyway, y'know. Make like a J-Monster and have two Rainbow slots instead, who even cares, it's better than this disaster. No idea how that'd work but Sherlock said it might be possible, well hey fantastic, little point of light in here for once.
But then Sherlock got all logical on us (as usual) and asked Chaos why the heck he was so bent on getting back with Jewel anyway? Why the heck did that matter so much to him, that he was considering moving into the Black slot and effectively resetting his entire freaking memory JUST to be with him?
Gotta say, the answer surprised me a little.
Apparently, Chaos has built his entire life around that boy. Whereas the other Outspacers can all go back to their "native worlds" or wherever the heck else if they want to, Chaos refuses to. And why? Because "there was nothing left for him there." Guardian of the Chao? Done, that hasn't applied for a couple thousand years. Demi-God? Totally debunked, he got his ass kicked by a blue hedgehog for heaven's sake. The only thing he had going for him was being some sort of "relic of the ancient past," who people overlooked anyway. Chaos said there was nothing for him if he went back, and there sure wasn't anything for him there back in 2003. Just existing, and remembering the past, which he wasn't too happy with anyway.
And then J showed up. The infamous dreamer, hijacked this guy's inner life and gave him a second chance. Can you dream? Cool, come with me, I'll show ya a good time. Bottom line, what Chaos had with him was more than he EVER could have had on his own. Jewel, quite literally, WAS his life. Without that kid, CZ had nothin'.
Of course he's madly in love with that boy the way it is, but I think that goes without saying at this point. It's practically a universal constant.
And would you believe that's the biggest problem here? CZ HAS NO SELF-IMAGE WITHOUT J IN IT.
I mean, literally, if you take Jewel out of his life he LOSES it. He has built everything around that boy and honestly, that's a huge problem. You can't be that bloody dependent on one person, I don't care if they're your other half. You can't be that dependent.
Chaos is having a hard time with that though. He can't comprehend the idea of letting go like that, not without becoming utterly uncaring like J happens to be currently. I... heh, he actually asked me if I was like that, with J. I said no. Honestly, I'm really not. If J left tomorrow, for good, you know what I'd do? I'd keep on living, because I've got a job to do up here. And if I lost my job? If I lost all connection to the System, and J, and became some sort of free-floating purposeless git... well, that'd be fine too, because if there's anything J's taught me, it's that there's something beyond this. Even for me. I don't know what the heck it is, but I've got faith in it. Whatever the heck I am, I know that there's some bigger reason why I'm here, whether or not I'm sharing that reason with these people.
I mean, yeah, I'd be heartbroken beyond belief if J left. I won't deny that. The kid's my life. But I mean that in a different way than CZ does. If I suddenly lost J, it'd be hard as hell, but... I'd keep walking. We've had our times together. It's been good. And I'd cry my freakin' eyes out for weeks, probably. But I'd keep going, for his sake or not, because we both know other people need me too.
And I'm going in circles. Point is I can let go of him if I need to. Don't ever want to, but if I had to, I could. Chaos can't. So that's gonna be our big side job up here for a while, along with figuring out whether or not there's anything to fix in J, of course. Heck, he's halfway okay. But the "I wanna die" half, and the fact that neither half even cares about anything except spiritual detachment right now, doesn't sit well with me.
Sherlock pointed out the... geez, does this even fit here? I dunno, don't exactly care. Sherlock was comparing J's connection to Infi, as a B/W thing, and J's connection to Chaos, as a twin flame thing. Yeah, that's practically verified by anybody you ask up here, and outside too, so I don't blame CZ for not wanting to lose that connection on this level. But there's this really interesting difference between the two. Instinctively, you might wanna put J and Infi in a taijitu shape. Middle of the current Spectrum, Black and White, you'd think it'd work. But it doesn't. I mean come on, even when J drew the flowcharts himself, the two colors were two halves of a diamond, with a grey divider in the middle. No blending. But with J and CZ, I don't care if they're red and blue or black and white, point is that taijitu shape just happens. So that can't be ignored either.
Man I don't even know what I'm trying to say here. Leon was sitting in the back, not saying a word because this is all confusing as heck to him. Sandman kept apologizing, insisting he "should've known" that there would be problems with this color switch, I said how the heck would he know? Sherlock backed me up there actually, saying a lot of the data we have now could only be understood now. So much changes in the System on a daily basis, it's entirely possible for yesterday's truth to no longer be applicable today. So we didn't have the things we know now when Boss was helping the kid move slots. Back then, that was the ideal course of action. We didn't know this would happen until now. Good news though, the kid's still The Apprentice, although he's stopped identifying with the title and doesn't give it much thought anymore. Surprisingly that's a plus, as Sandmen can't get rooted into one identity anyway, even if it's their job title.
Of course we brought that up to Chaos, blah blah blah, can't be so attached to J, so on and so forth. He's having a hell of a time with it, I guess he's never really known what it's like not to have his very purpose for existence rooted in someone else. So this is gonna be hard for him. But honestly, if I can do it he can do it, and I'll help him, God give me the strength.
Man I'm tired. Sorry. I'm not used to this fronting-and-typing business.

There's one more thing I wanna write down before I close this up.
We reviewed our possible plans and options before leaving the sim room-- color switches and spectrum rewrites and all that-- but really we've gotta do detail work first, I think. Sherlock said specifically for Chaos to fix his perspective, and THEN see if there was still a problem. CZ wasn't too happy with that but hey, it's gotta be done. Guess the real problem is Sherlock not comprehending relationships though. He's not a very social guy, no surprise for someone who lives in the simulation room for heaven's sake.
Anyway. The one point of that whole bloody thing that cut to my heart was something Chaos said when defending his emotions about the whole disaster. Said he wouldn't be so bothered by this change in Jewel IF the kid didn't spontaneously fall back into "I love you more than the entire world" mode every single time it rains. Every single time.
So CZ keeps trying to get back with him, he's getting desperate, and apparently J looks at him like he doesn't even know who the heck he is. According to CZ he asks how he's supposed to act. Who are you, what do I do, what have we done, et cetera and it's harrowing. I can see why he's in so much pain.
So I guess Sherlock's suggestion of "detach from him as well" is partly a good idea? I mean, without the "stop caring" bit. CZ's gotta have a sense of purpose that's not completely anchored to that kid, now more than ever, since J seems unwilling to be anyone's anchor in that respect right now. (Problem in and of itself, with the White slot's relation to the System, but you already know that.) But the more progress he makes there, the less it'll hurt for J to be acting like this and forget it this sounds like utter garbage to type.

I don't know what the heck to do, okay? I haven't got a bloody clue.
CZ's self-image has nothing to do with the bleeding big picture here, which is J doesn't remember a thing. And he dissociates UPSTAIRS.
Now I'm not saying Chaos and Genesis trying so hard to fix their relationships with him is a smart move, but I'm just baffled by the fact that, half the time, J is the one that initiates it! And they BELIEVE him, just like I do for heaven's sake, he's always so bleeding honest I cannot wrap my head around the fact that he doesn't even realize he's doing it.
Like what the heck is this? Is he that badly splintered? Is his psyche just fragmenting off whenever something "threatens" his absolute stark-white innocence? Why the heck is THAT what his new role is? And why the heck is love considered a threat to it? That's my problem. I don't know if it's the context or what, but I'm bothered by the fact that J won't even talk to them now. That's a little extreme, to say the absolute least.
So yeah, apparently every once in a blue moon J will go find Chaos or Genesis and be all "I still love you, let's fix this problem," but the INSTANT they try to do ANYTHING, J shuts down. He dissociates, and breaks into bloody pieces, and everything becomes an act.
CZ came running into Central in actual tears today. The man was sobbing his heart out, honestly I cannot remember the last time I saw him this shattered. And the first thing out of his mouth is "J doesn't know who I am anymore."
And he doesn't. That's the bottom line, he bloody doesn't.
I don't know what the heck is going on.

It's worse because I can't see straight either way anymore.
What with Christina and her freaking idiotic "good Christian" facade which is utterly blind and stupid, and then J's equally stonehearted convictions that "true spirituality" means abandoning absolutely everything in this lifetime, I don't know what the heck to think.
I can get behind this "cosmic dream" thing. That's kinda comforting. What I can't get behind is the notion that J keeps promoting, which is "you're not supposed to care about ANYTHING" as a result. And honestly it freaks me the heck out because one minute he is as happy as a clam with this, all rainbow-eyed and insisting that the world is the most beautiful place he's ever seen, like a five year old. Totally unaware of any "bad" in the world. And then two seconds later, suddenly he's so tired he can't move, unable and unwilling to live any longer, or see ANY reason to in the world he was just praising like the Psalmist himself, and yeah I'm aware of the irony there. I can't get behind it. What the heck is going on?
And then Chaos, God knows he just breaks my heart at this point. I didn't know he was that attached. It makes sense, but sheesh. That's dangerous for anyone, not just him.
I don't want to see him torn to pieces by J abandoning him, but so help me I don't want J to abandon him either! Is this even about what I want?? What the heck, who even cares. Point is I've seen love between those two that I CANNOT find anywhere else, not without a saint-grade spiritual experience backing it up. If it weren't for those two, I wouldn't BE who I am right now. They're what wore off my iron edges, not just J, it was the BOTH of them.
I'm at a complete loss. I cannot believe this is happening.
They were like... they were out of this world, really. Who loves someone like that, here? Who has that sort of total devotion to someone? I can't see it anymore. I can't see it anymore because those two haven't been together in months.
And I don't know why that feels like the Great Wall of China is falling to pieces in my heart, but it does. It's something catastrophic that makes no bleeding sense. For years they were... forget it, I've gotta stop talking about this, there's no point. No one bloody cares, not like I do. No use sharing it anywhere. It's my problem, not yours.

J, if you're reading this, tell me what the heck is going on.
And NO, I do NOT mean walk upstairs with your bloody rainbow halo and insist "there's nothing wrong, everything is a-okay!" because I will seriously chop your head off. This is NOT okay. For you to suddenly turn your back on the man you've loved for almost a decade now, AND your daughter, PLUS Genesis and Ryman and Markus and even INFINITII for heaven's sake, who Sherlock insists you need to cooperate with in order for your color slot to even function correctly-- that's not okay. That is NOT okay, at all.

Something needs to change, and fast.
If J is really that off-center, where he is now, the whole System might collapse. Either we get him the heck out of there, or we fix whatever the heck is up with him in there, or I don't know what we're gonna do.
I'm lost. I am totally lost. I am out of ideas, that's it, I'm done.

I'm also out of time to type. It's 11PM and there is no bloody way I'm going to sit and drive myself crazy with this nonsense for another second.

I hope to God we have better news in the future.
That's all I have to say.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@11:15PM

 

All right I know J said for us to take a break from Tumblr, but this picture is absolutely breaking my heart tonight and I feel obligated to post it here.

J, whatever the heck happened to you and CZ over the past year (or two, who even knows anymore), fix it. Please.
This, right here, NEEDS to come back. I don't know why. But I'm sure of it, somehow, even if you've forgotten about it entirely.

I love you, kid, and I'm not the only one.
For God's sake, try to remember that.

Sincerely, Laurie.


_{#on cz's behalf #for j who is being an idiot #kid you've gotta come back}

 

 

 

 

That title just popped into my head when I sat down to write this, so there it is.

Anyway.
I am SO confused right now.
I'm trying to review old entries from 2008 in the archive, and most of this stuff makes no sense. Plus the fronter from that time period was jarringly dramatic, so it's psychologically difficult for me to read.
I don't even know if I should be reading these things. They're digging up FAR too much old tar, and old memories that I buried for my own psychological safety. But maybe I need to face that stuff again.
I'm just not looking forward to how the lower system will react. That's making life a literal living hell right now. Yes, half of me loves them-- really, their role here is vital and I appreciate what they're doing-- but half of me is so tired of dealing with them, as they're all so broken and terrified and angry and violent. But I can't blame them. They hold all of the past trauma, for everyone else's sake. That's not fair at all. They have every right to be vicious. But... it's tiring.
It's tiring to wake up every morning with everyone fighting over the body: what it will do, what it will look like, where it will go, what it will eat, what it will say, so on and so forth. And it NEVER STOPS during the day. When one of the "non-alters" (the ones who insist "no one exists") takes over, it's almost a relief... if they weren't so horrifically suicidal, that is. So they're tired in an entirely different way.

The lowers try so hard, though. It's shocking now that they're acting out as their own coherent system, and not just a jumble of disembodied voices.
Today, some faceless female alter started trying to binge on chocolate as soon as we walked in the door. Normally I can't do anything about that as I'm not present... but the lowers were around. Knife got pissed, shoved her out of the way, and spat out what she was trying to eat. Then he told Emmett to front, so that the body could eat something healthy instead, since Emmett only eats green food (we hadn't eaten since 4PM the previous day I think? one meal a day is the norm now). And now, looking back on that memory of theirs, I am SHOCKED to see that Emmett not only fronted, he fronted WELL. Well enough that, as soon as he "anchored in," his first thought was "why is my mouth so short?" He kept chewing big bites with his mouth wide open, all exaggerated, trying to make his face "elongate." He got really distressed over everything feeling wrong. Then he realized there was more of a body beneath the head, and that made him anxious to the point where someone else stepped in. They told him to just relax and eat, while they moved the hands to feed him the food. It was so bizarre, it was like there were LITERALLY two people there. And then it got even crazier. The mother was in the kitchen then, and asked the body a question-- but neither Emmett nor the unknown girl moving the hands heard her, OR answered. A third person did. THREE PEOPLE WERE IN THE BODY THEN. All I know is that they somehow spoke through Emmett eating, and it's described as "like it was a recorded sound being played?" Like his biting didn't even affect the voice, like the mouth didn't move to speak at all, it just responded. So I don't know if that was the AP? But geez that is insane. I didn't know any of that could even happen.
I can barely believe this stuff is happening at all. I'm not fronting when it does, so I'll not know what's going on for hours, and then I'll look at what memories I have access to and I see stuff like this. It's... I don't know what to make of it yet.

All I know for sure is that this DID thing is getting disturbingly real.
Honestly, even our most doubtful members are finding themselves forced to admit that "I can't really pretend this isn't happening anymore." I'm not sure why the undergrounders banding together suddenly punched the intensity of this through the roof, but... it makes sense, conceptually. Like I said, they're the oldest voices up here; they just haven't had lives until now.
Let me give you an example.
We went to a novena with the grandmother today. I don't know who got dressed, but the body was wearing shorts and tights when we started driving. When the lower system realized it, three of the traumatized boys and the overload girl started screaming. One of the little boys began hyperventilating. It was too triggering, too scary. But someone was already driving the body, and we couldn't stop it; lower people aren't allowed to front normally. So it was like hell, knowing that's what we were wearing, and we couldn't do anything about it. Plus the grandmother was there of course, and most of the lower people either hate her, or are scared to death of her. I know Razor and the overload girl actually tried to mentally gang up on her at one point, desperate to get rid of her somehow, to make the terror go away. They do that a lot.
Memories are choppy. I don't remember getting there. I remember sitting in the inside of the church and looking at the altar, and suddenly feeling TERRIFIED because it reminded me of Infinitii but that reminded the lowers of traumatic abuse and people started to shriek again. And I was scared too. THIS, this holy thing, was now a trigger?? And THAT bad?? I didn't know what to do. No one did really. We were so dissociated, so shaken... and then a FREAKING BABY STARTED CRIYNG DSFMND
(sorry that's the lowers)
Sorry. there was... a child in the church. You'll understand that I have no recollection of it other than the fact, because about five or six people downstairs lost it when they heard it. It was a cacophany of fear and pain and rage and terror and hate.
Somewhere around here there was a really sickening jolt, in the mind and body... some sort of convulsive shiver, like an elevator dropping a few feet, the room spinning back with a punch to the face. And in an instant, I felt the active level SWITCH.
Suddenly the lowers were back underground, mercifully free from having to front at that time-- and Central was back in the front seat.
Then I was upstairs-- me, J! I remember that much. (I haven't been typing this entry btw, sorry I didn't clarify that; things are too messy to do so lots of times.) I was talking to Xenophon and explaining to her that the lower system felt pain differently than most. To them, sharp physical pain-- blood and knives and scars-- was almost comforting. It was reassuring to know exactly what it was, and why it happened. To them, that kind of pain was good, it was sensible. But hearing a child? That was horrifying. Same with being touched, even just a poke on the shoulder. I explained to Xennie that even though that didn't physically hurt, it hurt them emotionally and psychologically. To them, a touch or a sound like that was so triggering, that it felt like a warning siren... one they couldn't escape from, one that was lethal. To them, it meant that within the next few seconds, they WERE going to be hurt again... badly. But although that didn't always happen, they could not afford to take chances. So they lived in terror of those things, never feeling safe, waiting to be attacked by that child or that person, just so it would "be over with" and they could run away somewhere else. I remember the catatonic red voice came out when the others wouldn't stop screaming, for that very reason. He looks so much like me. It's heartbreaking.
The next thing I remember is Josephina driving.
Yes, JO!! Believe it or not, headvoices (Central people) don't usually front. That's not their job. But there he was, trying to keep things stable, as he was OK with the outfit and we were all vaguely aware that the lowers weren't happy with it.
Julie came out for a few seconds later-- there's a vivid memory of the very first instant she saw when she moved in, looking at the priest giving the homily. That is literally all I know of that.
I don't know how the rest of the service went. I don't know who fronted, when, or how.
But I CANNOT forget what that beginning time period felt like.
The undeniable, drastic switches... the inner turmoil... the knowing that I was only fronting for about five minutes...
This is getting really scary now. Sure, it was scary before, but... back during the "Julie days," at least "I" was the main person driving, until the infamous "mind leakage" thing with Laurie bleeding internally happened... and I at least KNEW who would hack me, and how... we knew her methods, and her triggers. We had a degree of control over the situation. But don't get me wrong, it was TRAUMATIC. The face-changing, the merciless humiliation, the... i dont want to write about it.
But it was that one thing to worry about. Just ONE THING.
Now... now there are 50 of us here, not 5. Those years of trauma broke us, badly. There are people downstairs who are so hurt that it breaks my heart on top of everything else. They're desperate, twisted, frightened souls, dark and bloody and bleeding, incapable of living the life they are forced to inhabit. Upstairs, we have it so easy now, compared to them.
I don't know what I'm trying to say.
The point is this:
THIS IS REAL.
I can't deny that anymore.
This is real, this is hell, and for heaven's sake, we need help.


People are trying to talk to me on Skype and I really can't do it. It's emotionally draining to talk like this. I am literally cut-and-pasting responses, just spitting out stock phrases and one-word replies. No one's noticed yet. It's sick that we're so good at this.
The most painful part is that I have no ill will towards these people. If they want to talk to us, I don't want to be rude and refuse. But it's just so, so difficult. As soon as I close this window I'm probably going to collapse on the floor.
I want to leave and exercise or something but I don't know how to say no. I don't know how to apologize and excuse myself. I'd stay on here parroting responses until 1AM if that's how long it took for them to get tired of talking to me, even though I have classes tomorrow and those alone are stressful enough.
I don't want to think about this.
Maybe I can just... yank out the internet cable so I'll have an excuse as to why I suddenly disappeared. Maybe someone else can do it. I don't have the guts. But someone else would have to feel they had a good reason to do so. "We're not your playthings," they essentially say. "We're not your puppets. We don't have to do ANYTHING you tell us to." Which is correct. They are living beings just like me. They're not "accessories" to me, just because I'm shamefully "proud enough" to consider myself the main fronter here. I wish I weren't. I really, really wish I didn't have to be the one up front all the time, simply because I'm the easiest one for the AP to shove out of the way when things get awful and we need to pretend "everything is okay."
You do know that's why the AP exists, right? It's a buffer. It's a censor. Since headspace is always moving, always watching, our words and feelings and reactions WILL and DO leak out unless something is in the driver's seat preventing anything from translating. Hence the AP. But it's a curse, too. It means that we literally wear a voiceless mask all the time. It means we cannot interact with people outside of a program. It means that NO ONE IS ACTUALLY IN THE BODY 90% OF THE TIME, AND NO ONE OUTSIDE REALIZES IT. People know and love a construct. All of us, the ones who are really watching and feeling and living and breathing... we're hiding behind it, afraid to show our faces, afraid people won't accept our existences, afraid of dying again. And some of us are getting very, very angry about that fact.

I think that's old too. Which is why I'm re-reading the archives in the first place.
I remember way back, when there were only four or five of us known in the system? But no one was anchored, so behavior was weird, and unconsciously painted... and there was this ONE TIME Laurie and I were discussing Julie, and she described our resident pink shadow as a normal girl stuck inside our body.
I have NEVER forgotten that. It was so weird, because Julie IS an "introject;" whoever the main consciousness was in 1997 or so CREATED HER, fully consciously... created her to be a waste receptacle for all the "bad things" and "evil thoughts" that the original fronter had and didn't want.
But Laurie was right in a way, and we ALL forgot that fact. Julie was created as just a girl. Down to the bone, that's what she was. And then she was stuffed full of tar.
I've never thought of us all that way before. I've never... never respected our situation enough to look at it through a compassionate, humanitarian lens. We're all just people. Even the nonhumans here, haha. Seriously though, that's it. We're individuals with a different life situation than most. We've been through hell and back and we keep stumbling into new hells all the time. But we're PEOPLE!! We aren't delusions, or fantasies, or fake things... we are REAL PEOPLE and we have REAL LIVES and we need to remember that, I can't believe I literally never realized that before.

...I can't believe I never realized that before.


Excuse me please, I think I need to let all of this sink in.



There must be something that keeps me awake,
Or some kind of pill I can take,
To break these bad habits.

I would lie if I said that this didn't get tough,
Two left feet on the floor in a Waltz,
At an odd tempo.

Am I stuck at the ankle, or caught at the knee?
A curious puzzle still cursing me,
To follow or lead.

You gave me a heart and then taught me to hurt,
I can't tell just which option is worse,
Dying pure or aware.

So these feet keep on tripping in triplets to beats,
Too far off for my ears to reach,
Just a hint of timing.

Am I stuck at the ankle, or caught at the knee?
A curious puzzle still cursing me,
To follow or lead.

And I don't know where I'm going,
Cause I can't see the road, oh it's winding,
Just as long as I keep breathing,
I've got this uncomfortable feeling,
Heavy feet, shaky hands, troubled heart.