-=> Quoting Damon A. Getsman to Nancy Backus on 08-02-14  23:33 <=-

 NB>> I went back into my saved messages, and saw that the last of a real
 NB>> discussion was a message from me dated 31 January, subject Support. 
 NB>> Then you popped in briefly in early April with a tease about crazy
 NB>> stories to be told... and then disappeared from sight again...  :)

 DAG> Oh, jeez.  I was madly in love.  Fifteen years, if you count the
 DAG> time between our first few years together, when we were talking, and
 DAG> lovers, when we were both single and in the same city.  I was in a land
 DAG> that I haven't felt for a very long, long time.  I've been working on
 DAG> getting it out how I normally do, by writing, but something is
 DAG> different this time... I don't want to make the mistake of writing
 DAG> about it before I'm focused more on the compassion that she deserves,
 DAG> for the past that has made her into the person that she is today. 

I think you'd done a pretty good job of that in our previous
discussion...  :) 

 DAG> I don't want to go out and convict her before a jury of _my_ peers, as a
 DAG> damn good friend put it. I try to write, when I decide to pop the
 DAG> wound, and get some of the infection out, in a balanced manner.  I try
 DAG> to weigh what she did, and what I did, in a manner that doesn't favor
 DAG> one or the other.  I had a family; a stand-in father, whose only other
 DAG> living friend died while I was growing tight with him.  I had another
 DAG> son, for awhile.  Trying to help him is what hastened the end. I only
 DAG> hope, in the meantime, that I am a better judge of character than my
 DAG> past shows me to be, now that I've seen such a long term set of
 DAG> characteristics sit in my blindspot for so long.

Lots of history there, to make you what you are now...  no doubt also on
her side...  What one makes out of it is the question... :)

 DAG> Right now I can't even get myself to open up to new people.  Maybe
 DAG> that's for the best.  It scares the hell out of me now.  I will do
 DAG> anything to avoid another relationship where there is active deception,
 DAG> or deliberate withholding of important, honest, communication.

Sometimes it's pretty hard to ascertain that there is that active
deception, of course...  One to some extent has to accept people as they
present themselves... but there is also certainly the need for
discernment and not being too gullible...  :)  A balancing act, to be
sure...  :)

 NB>> If need be, I probably could extract out old messages from me and
 NB>> re-send...

 DAG> Oh, I know the context now.  What I will do, when I wake up and I'm
 DAG> not close to collapsing from complete exhaustion as I am right now, is
 DAG> make sure that I fill you in on the crazy events that took out my
 DAG> ability to communicate for so long there.  Egad talk about some crazy
 DAG> indoor lightning storms. 

Yeah... I think that's where we left off...  ;)   Seems that craziness
in one form or another seems to follow you around...  

 DAG> Not a problem.  Right now it's people like you that are keeping me
 DAG> from going totally out of my skull with cabin fever and isolation right
 DAG> now.  I've been in this new city for just about a month now.  Still
 DAG> don't have a job, and there's no regular income where I'm at, yet.  My
 DAG> vehicle isn't insured...  Social services has thrown up an amount of
 DAG> red tape that I can't surmount without travelling 2800 miles (round
 DAG> trip) to get what they need, and I have to scrabble to make sure my son
 DAG> has food to eat every day. 

So you're in a new place yet again... and going through the same stuff
you had to deal with before... sigh...

 DAG> Still, I consider myself lucky.  The
 DAG> person that I am staying with is up front, and honest, and has been a
 DAG> tight friend for over 20 years.  If I didn't have him I'm sure I'd be
 DAG> handling this much less gracefully.  My confidence, charisma,
 DAG> self-esteem, whatever you want to call it, has been a little bit
 DAG> crushed since June.  It's inhibiting my ability to make new friends,
 DAG> too.  

Good friends of long standing are a definite blessing..  :)  I take it
the stay with family didn't work out well either, then...?

 DAG> So the people on the other end of this ASCII are very much
 DAG> appreciated, especially the thoughtful and decent ones like yourself.

Thank you.  I've found the decent sorts here in Fido to be a
better-than-family sort of family... caring support and all that... :)
 
 NB>> The landmine etc places I don't even look at, with the one exception of
 NB>> one that I merely lurk in, mostly for reasons of my own (some of which I
 NB>> question when things get too nasty even for lurking...[g])  I much
 NB>> prefer the civil areas... those, to me, characterize FidoNet much better
 NB>> than the others... 

 DAG> Yeah, I just decided to finally just quit scanning a few of those
 DAG> echoes.  I'm done with drama and that pointless conflict.  I've had
 DAG> enough of that to last a lifetime in every facet of my life; I don't
 DAG> need to choose to read through it here, too.  :)

Quite.  :)

 DAG> I'll write more tomorrow...  Unless I get too busy and get
 DAG> distracted, at which point I'll write you soon as a message from you
 DAG> reminds me that there is decent conversation to be had here.  :)

I'm a little slow in responding lately... but it appears that your life
is pretty hectic too...  here's your reminder...  

ttyl          neb

... Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.

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