December 15
J,
I think about it often. Of course it wasn't quite as clean as that, a sudden transition moment, because it happened over the whole time I was in South America and I don't think I realized exactly how big the change was until I returned. I'm a very different person than I was before, and I don't know that those two people — me then and me now — even have much in common.
I don't usually tell people this but there was a woman I knew before, who I'd promised to marry — which you might have already deduced if you've read those blasted memoirs — and sometimes people ask me about her, whether she died while I was away or married someone else. She didn't. She's still here, perfectly available if I were to follow through on that promise, but — well, it's like it was made by a different person. She didn't die while I was away, but in a way I suppose I did.
I would push back against your characterization of my time abroad as "unfortunate," however. Certainly I thought so at the time, and certainly some parts were... if there were any way to undo the deaths of my shipmates of course I would seize on it in a moment. But the experience overall I would not say was unfortunate. It is so much a part of me that I could not be myself without it. It's a foundation on which the whole rest of my life has been built.
As for a career, I'm not sure my advice would be terribly helpful. When I thought I'd never sail again, I learned to spear-hunt wild boar and perform minor healing magic by chanting, which is probably not the sort of answer you're looking for.
But in seriousness, I suppose I clung so long to what I could — the idea that we could walk out of the wilderness and back to our normal lives — that eventually I just had to let go of it and seize on what I had instead. And though a part of me will always long for the open seas and navigating by starlight, a part of me was happy, there, too. So don't abandon hope.
What's happened in Egypt?
Alfred
P.S.: Thank you for the congratulations; courting is rather complicated but I suppose they're warranted all the same.
I think about it often. Of course it wasn't quite as clean as that, a sudden transition moment, because it happened over the whole time I was in South America and I don't think I realized exactly how big the change was until I returned. I'm a very different person than I was before, and I don't know that those two people — me then and me now — even have much in common.
I don't usually tell people this but there was a woman I knew before, who I'd promised to marry — which you might have already deduced if you've read those blasted memoirs — and sometimes people ask me about her, whether she died while I was away or married someone else. She didn't. She's still here, perfectly available if I were to follow through on that promise, but — well, it's like it was made by a different person. She didn't die while I was away, but in a way I suppose I did.
I would push back against your characterization of my time abroad as "unfortunate," however. Certainly I thought so at the time, and certainly some parts were... if there were any way to undo the deaths of my shipmates of course I would seize on it in a moment. But the experience overall I would not say was unfortunate. It is so much a part of me that I could not be myself without it. It's a foundation on which the whole rest of my life has been built.
As for a career, I'm not sure my advice would be terribly helpful. When I thought I'd never sail again, I learned to spear-hunt wild boar and perform minor healing magic by chanting, which is probably not the sort of answer you're looking for.
But in seriousness, I suppose I clung so long to what I could — the idea that we could walk out of the wilderness and back to our normal lives — that eventually I just had to let go of it and seize on what I had instead. And though a part of me will always long for the open seas and navigating by starlight, a part of me was happy, there, too. So don't abandon hope.
What's happened in Egypt?
P.S.: Thank you for the congratulations; courting is rather complicated but I suppose they're warranted all the same.
MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER