Thursday Next’s Reviews > A Conjuring of Light > Status Update

Something I was struck by:

“People spoke of love as if it were an arrow. A thing that flew quick, and always found its mark. They spoke of it as if it were a pleasant thing, but Maxim had taken an arrow once, and knew it for what it was: excruciating.

He had never wanted to fall in love, never wanted to welcome that pain, would have happily faked an arrow's bite.

And then he met Emira.

And for a long time, he thought the arrow had played its cruelest trick, had struck him and missed her. He thought she'd stepped around the point, the way she stepped around so many things she did not like.

He'd spent a year trying to free the barb from his own chest before he realized he didn't want to. Or maybe, he couldn't. Another year before he realized she was injured, too.

It had been a slow pursuit, like melting ice. A kinship of hot and cold, of strong forces equally opposed, of those who did not know how to soften, how to soothe, and found the answer in each other.”
(p. 498)

sigh

I wasn’t fair earlier, I overreacted to a couple of things that really got to me.

I’m sorry.

(I had a little nap, and my hormones are shifting, all of which doesn’t hurt.)

(It’s easier to be calm and clearer-headed now, in other words.)

The 🦇 and the 🐈‍⬛ are out in full force today. 🖤

I’m sorry I wasn’t a better (more finely tuned) listener today.

I saw Sixpence.

Someone once told me that kissing is always a good idea (now who would say a thing like that?).

Query:
If *I* were to say, “You wear those shoes and I will wear that dress”
which shoes would you want to wear?
(And what color dress would you hope to see?)

(I was thinking about how you actually haven’t seen me in many dresses, so it feels appropriate to leave that Q more open-ended…)

But it’s also one of my quirkily beloved pastimes to listen to you talk in great detail about clothes and shoes, so the question is partially just for me to get to do that during your answer.

Ughhh
On a completely unrelated note, I was being attacked by mosquitoes while I was waiting outside for my ride back (the place had closed shortly after I got my stuff taken care of).

Now I have two bites on my foot/ankle…
😭

So itchy.

I remember using calamine lotion as a kid, but I don’t know what would be the best thing for it now.

But that ish itches like a mf.
sigh

At least my face was spared (they kept trying to fly into it. Bleh).

My poor right lower appendage

Do you ever have any bug bite issues when y’all go camping?
Inquiring minds want to know what would help.

(I’ll be perfectly fine, just curious mostly.)

Also, February feels too early for worrying about mosquitoes, meh.

I don’t know exactly why Let Go* got to me so badly earlier today. :/

Just… certain lines in it strike as both wholly inaccurate and rudely unfair, I guess.

A lot of lines, actually.

I feel like there’s another song I was going to pull back up, but now I’m (temporarily) stumped about what it was…

But what I do know is this:
I hate that I’m so angry sometimes. I’m sorry for the times when you’re unfairly on the receiving end of it. I’m (still) working on processing and healing stuff.

sigh

I know this is me backtracking with topics
but I was pondering whether or not it would be enjoyable to go clothes shopping together.

I feel like you would have good insights for me when I’m on the fence about certain things.

And I’d like to believe that I would debate the merits of your selections with you, in a way that would be respectful to your hesitations while also encouraging you to (maybe) also go *slightly* outside your comfort zone whenever I thought something really worked for you.

This is a random thought.

But it could be great fun to go shopping with someone who is both your best friend and your lover/partner.

I have always dreamed of us being both.

I also still have my (not so) old sewing machine; it could be fun to teach you to use it for alterations (if you still don’t have access to one / never learned to utilize one).

Sometimes my little dreams and fantasies are somewhat mundane, I guess.

But couldn’t it be really nice?

Ah yes, and ghostin’ was the other thing that got under my skin earlier today.

(I knew there was something else.(

I feel like…
things suck for both people that the singer is talking to / talking about in that song.

And so thinking about what my place is in all of that hurts my heart.
Because my best guess about my position hurts.
And even if I’m mistaken, the other option still hurts just as much, in a different way.

And no matter what, I get into a whole mental spiral about there being someone else who is prominently vying for your attention.

It all just hurts.

Hearing repeatedly (in one way or another, either directly or indirectly) that I’m “not the only one”…
it just makes me want to pull away.

It makes me feel like I belong somewhere else.

Somewhere that won’t have me constantly questioning my place with you.

And maybe that’s how you felt with me for years.
If it is, I’m sorry.

But there was a difference, because neither of us were clearly or explicitly wanting more. It was always fuzzy and confusing and ambiguous in ways that were anxiety provoking and encouraged hesitation and withholding feelings.

I was confused.

To the best of my knowledge (from what I’ve gathered) you were confused too.

But I wasn’t confused about loving you, I was only confused about whether your feelings were the same, or if your affections were strictly platonic.

None of that is true now.

And that’s why you talking constantly about whomever else is in your life… it hurts me in a different way.

Because you’re clearly not fully/actively choosing me.
But there’s no question about my feelings for your, or my intentions toward you, or my desire to build a relationship with you.

So you’re just not choosing me.
Not out of doubt about whether or not I’m an option.
Solely because you don’t want to choose me outright.

I never did that with you. I never knew that you were an option & then declined to choose you anyway, and stayed with someone else.

And you like to flirt with me, and you like to profess your love and attachment and desires and devotion,
but you don’t want to act on it.

And you apparently *do* want to act on whatever you have with some other person.

That hurts, and it makes you feel cruel and dangerous sometimes.

If you could be clearer about what you want and what your situation is with whomever else you’re attached to, and more direct with me about where I stand, that would be kinder.

But you would lose your advantageous position of ongoing deliberate obfuscation, so I don’t expect you to be forthcoming in the way that would truly be respectful of me and my life energy.

I need a break.

I’ve talked myself out of feeling hopeful.

I’ll be back in an hour or two.
H

They Don’t Know About Us ?

Do you consider me yours?
(I am, at heart.
But I’m wondering if *you* feel that way, to the extent that you really would tell the world,
or if you’d instead be too embarrassed.)

I guess I’ll never quite know.
(Until someday I do (maybe).)

For the moment, my head is spinning with 15 different songs all saying differing things.

And I don’t know what to believe.

How am I supposed to know which things to believe?

Because if I just believe/weigh all of them equally, I probably should never speak to you again.

So how should I know what to focus on?
And how am I meant to ignore the shit that hurts (and has no explanations or caveats to soften the blow)?

Maybe it would be better for me to stay in my own little world, rather than being continually tormented with confusion.

Even when things could and should be simple with you, they never are.

They never have been, so why do I keep believing that they ever will be?

(11:11)