Parallax
I really miss my diary. I started it on Tuesday 12th September, 2000. It wasn't the first time I'd tried keeping one. I have paper diaries going back to about 1995, but most of them failed miserably. I'd been given them for Christmas, and the first week or two would have an entry for every day... but that would soon fall into weekly and then cease completely, until next year came around and I was given a new one and felt a fresh drive to keep it regularly, only to fail again. The problem was the fixed nature of them - one page for every day of the year, and all the same length - but some days just aren't worth writing about, and when those that are usually should not be confined to a page. It took until 2000, when I got a computer (an old IBM PS/2) in my room that I decided to keep one that could be more flexible - I would write only when I had something to say, and as much or as little as I wanted. My first few entries were barely more than a paragraph each, and frequent. Then the usual pattern set in, and updates became less frequent... but it didn't die. They got longer, and there was a distinct shift from documenting events to recording thoughts and feelings. They grew and grew, until each entry was easily a 25,000 word essay.
It died in 2005, when Shanna came. After she left, I tried to document her two-week stay, and I failed. There was more to say than I'd ever said before, and indeed things to describe I'd never felt before... and it was a busy time. I didn't have the time for it, and it got left for later. Later never came. That last entry was Monday 28th of August, 2005, was the longest I'd ever attempted and was never finished. It lays abandoned at 30,000 words and is not even a quarter of the way completed. Now, it probably never will be; even if I found the time, with the right mood to write in, too much has been forgotten for it to be continued. Oh I remember what happened, and even if I didn't, I took notes at the time to help me when I came to write, but although they tells me everything we did and everywhere we went, the notes I made on my emotions no longer make sense to me. I could write a full account of that visit, but it would be meaningless because all the parts that matter, my thoughts at the time, are lost.
Since that unfinished entry, my life has changed beyond all recognition. I moved out of my parent's house, Shanna moved in with me, we were married, she left me, I dated Adele, she became pregnant, we moved to Poole together, I got a taste of 'family life', I gave it up and took Shanna back, and then left her again. I suffered two severe depressions, and had my entire view of myself and my life changed. I've made new friends, my siblings have 'grown up', my relationship with old friends and my family has changed, XVII has ceased and Vecsoft founded, my goals and desires are more clearly defined. So much has occurred, but none of it recorded. That upsets me.
What I feel now is a desire for control, to sort everything out and get into a regular routine. It doesn't seem possible, it feels rather hopeless, but that's what I want. Then I want to write once again. The unfinished entry is lost, and I will have to leave it, but I want to start again, from now, the present day.
I'm still in love with ghosts. I miss you, my dæmon.
It died in 2005, when Shanna came. After she left, I tried to document her two-week stay, and I failed. There was more to say than I'd ever said before, and indeed things to describe I'd never felt before... and it was a busy time. I didn't have the time for it, and it got left for later. Later never came. That last entry was Monday 28th of August, 2005, was the longest I'd ever attempted and was never finished. It lays abandoned at 30,000 words and is not even a quarter of the way completed. Now, it probably never will be; even if I found the time, with the right mood to write in, too much has been forgotten for it to be continued. Oh I remember what happened, and even if I didn't, I took notes at the time to help me when I came to write, but although they tells me everything we did and everywhere we went, the notes I made on my emotions no longer make sense to me. I could write a full account of that visit, but it would be meaningless because all the parts that matter, my thoughts at the time, are lost.
Since that unfinished entry, my life has changed beyond all recognition. I moved out of my parent's house, Shanna moved in with me, we were married, she left me, I dated Adele, she became pregnant, we moved to Poole together, I got a taste of 'family life', I gave it up and took Shanna back, and then left her again. I suffered two severe depressions, and had my entire view of myself and my life changed. I've made new friends, my siblings have 'grown up', my relationship with old friends and my family has changed, XVII has ceased and Vecsoft founded, my goals and desires are more clearly defined. So much has occurred, but none of it recorded. That upsets me.
What I feel now is a desire for control, to sort everything out and get into a regular routine. It doesn't seem possible, it feels rather hopeless, but that's what I want. Then I want to write once again. The unfinished entry is lost, and I will have to leave it, but I want to start again, from now, the present day.
I'm still in love with ghosts. I miss you, my dæmon.