Thank you everyone for the best birthday party of my life. Cherie, candle to my flame and star to my sky... I can't thank you enough for the time we spent; you are marvelous in every way. I loved the cake just as I loved the pool and sitting on the balcony in cheap plastic chairs... Sorry again about the water, by the way... ;). To everyone who pooled their funds (heh heh heh) for my present, thank you so much. It was an appropriate gift that I hope will be getting a lot of use in coming months.
Unrelated to the present entirely... I love you guys. The last real summer is drawing quickly to a close, and I will miss our times together deeply. I could recount memories for hours, but I've got work tomorrow morning--Yes, I've got a real job, a sure sign of the apocalypse--and I don't think I could do them or you the justice you deserve. You all have been my path and impetus; my life has been better for you, and is better now for understanding that nothing truly ends. We live in one another through the end, and weave new memories in the actions of those we have had an impact on. I'm babbling, a sign that some things will never change...
It's coming up on August 19th now. Happy 19th, Cherie ;) I just ran five miles, and I feel wonderful. Resident Evil failed. The band met with only very limited success. The movie failed. The list failed, since I can't remember the fourth item. The running worked, and a few of my own resolutions have begun to come true. Thank you, sweetheart, for driving me.
I had nightmares through all of last night. My dad has a phobia of drowning. It wasn't from birth, he developed it when he almost drowned as a teenager. I've consistently had the same phobia, somehow... perhaps the story warped me at an early age. Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of water, but I'm extraordinarily cautious of things that could be dangerous in water. I have to stay in control.
Edited warning: Skip this paragraph if you don't care about details.
Anyway, yesterday I went to Wekiwa with Cherie, Brad, Molly, Michelle, Jill, Sean, Chris, Bill, and a host of others. It was a blast. Cherie and Michelle and I took a canoe down the river, hit trees probably a dozen times, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Cherie and I were in equal parts depressed over certain things, my part her living situation, and her part our future. The rest of the night was fun... we played Mafia until I sold Cherie out and she and Michy went home. I was pretty messed up after that... I love Cherie to death if I haven't made that obvious until now, and her apartment is a fortress designed to keep me out, so naturally I was upset that she had to go home. I play stupid often enough that I sometimes lose myself in the act, and I so apparently I demanded of Michy that Cherie be able to join us at 7-11... the demand consisted of asking "Why not?" when she said no, though I admit I was worked up over the most ridiculously-run Mafia game ever so I probably sounded as pissed off as a less controlled version of myself would think he had every right to be. After a long debate, I cleared things up with Cherie online, though while we ended the night on an up note I still felt terrible for my behavior.
Edit: End of details.
The nightmares were on loop mode and consisted of myself drowning at Wekiwa. It was too damned real. I sometimes had the consolation of saving Cherie's life, but in the next nightmare I would always fail. My subconscious really knows how to punish me; it goes straight for the heart every time. It had to have happened a dozen times. I'm pulled under by seaweed. My throat is collapsed by a branch. I can't swim enough to keep Cherie and myself above the surface so I drop to the bottom and hold her up, but my feet stick to the ground... my life ended that time holding her hand. The prophetic dreams that I had almost constantly two years or so ago, my subconscious bid for importance, were nothing to the horrible texture and depth of these terrors. I couldn't stop. I woke up ten minutes before my alarm went off feeling not scared but drained, ashen, hollow...
*sigh*
Tonight will be better, because tonight was better. I love you, honey. I'm strong enough to miss you now.
