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Wow.

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I wrote way more than I'd intended yesterday. It was a day for introspection and no small amount of freaking out. I'm a lot calmer now though.

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Going to work in about half an hour, yeah, it's sunday, so what? I don't have anything better to do at the moment, and there's work I can do today which will make tomorrow easier.

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I also picked up my book again last night. By my book I mean the one I'm writing. I started it 2 years ago, and then my life kind of fell apart, so it got put on long term hold. I did a little more on it last night, and rediscovered how very difficult it is to write.

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Mind you, I also read part of the book again (it's about 50 pages so far), and went wow, I wrote that? I can see parts that are awkward, but over all it's not too bad.

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I might be the only person who'll ever read this, or I might not, but I'm putting the first chapter in just below this comment.

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If nothing else it'll serve as a marker point, a grand leap backwards into the mind of the person I used to be.

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———- QSD CHAPTER 1 —————

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Chapter One

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It was in retrospect, as is often the case; it occurred to him that this might not have been the best idea after all.

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The sun was nearing the horizon, and from the other direction he could see what looked like angry storm clouds on the move. The wind had picked up within the last hour, stirring the dust with reckless abandon.

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Thomas looked down at his shovel, and the hole he'd been digging. The soil here was mostly gravel, with just enough muck holding it together to make it slow work. With every shovelful more debris fell into the hole, forcing him to make it larger than originally planned.

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The mountainside was beautiful.

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He could see it in his mind's eye from the pictures he'd taken over the last couple of months. A single mountain, set in the middle of plains and rolling hills that stretched as far as the eye could see. Beaten, weathered, with two fractured and snow covered peaks rising above the land. Tall trees took root almost to the snow line. The mountain commanded an impressive view of the landscape. It was quite possible to see the entire county from it on a clear day.

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Hikers, climbers and naturalists considered this place a home away from home. It was one of the few places you could walk all day in the height of summer, and not get eaten alive by bugs. Indeed, there did not seem to be any insects at all, anywhere near or on the mountain.

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The southern face was not the same; a large piece was missing. In its place a depression- seemingly carved out of the rock, only thirty feet at its deepest, but stretching a half a mile in diameter, and nearly 300 yards back in to the mountain, it seemed very much out of place.

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It too was beautiful, in its own way, but no trees grew here, just moss and tiny flowers, yellows and whites, which blanketed this place from early spring to late fall. Even that seemed a stretch; the soil seemed to lack the ingredients necessary to grow anything.

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At times the villagers climbed this mountain to the lowest part of the hole, named Caverna Quasso “The Shattered Cave”, and brought flowers back from it. Despite the efforts of some very good gardeners, the flowers always died with a few days. These flowers were seen nowhere else in the county, thin and fragile looking they still managed to grow and thrive in the worst weather a mountain can deliver.

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Too he could see his dig site, smack dab in the middle of this space, a low hill whose base he had visited only in pictures before. Low and rounded, it somehow seemed the right place to start this foolish endeavor. A trail of holes like giant footprints seemed to follow his path around the base of the hill to his current position on top of it.

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“But no amount of remembering will get this damn hole dug,” he muttered to himself, as he slung yet another spade full out of the hole. “I've been at this for nearly 3 hours now, it's getting late. I'm sore, tired, and starting to get cranky. I don't even know why I came up here, or what I expect to find. I swear, if I don't find something soon-“

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CLINK!

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Just then his shovel hit something that did not make the same noises he'd been hearing for hours. It sounded… metallic? Surely no one would bury treasure halfway up a mountainside.

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“Now what do we have here hmmm?” Moving faster now to force the dirt from the hole- to see what he'd discovered, he found that while he still couldn't make out what it was through the muck and gravel, he could see it was large.

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20 minutes later he had a space almost two feet square and three deep hitting the object. He leaned the shovel against the side of the hole, and started digging with spade and brush. The storm was closing fast and the wind had risen. Dust and dirt were starting to swirl around him as the light faded.

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I could just weep.

 

I guess it’s too much to hope that life could stay peaceful.

Work has accelerated again, and that’s ok. I’m falling behind, but everyone is so patient. I was going to go into work today, but passed on that to catch up on little life things like laundry and groceries, which I was falling behind on. I’ll probably go in to work tomorrow for a few hours, so that’s all ok.

C is about to be homeless, and in a moment of weakness I offered her a place in my space to crash. I call it a moment of weakness, and before you start feeling cold about that, let me explain why.

She’s got a boyfriend, he’s got an apartment. She’s got half a dozen friends who would keep her, and they have more space. Someone offered her a place to stay for a few weeks today even.

She decided she’d stay here. I haven’t made the offer again recently, because I was hoping she’d work everything out without me, but it looks like even though there are other options, she’s going to choose this one, and I’m afraid I’m lacking the harshness to tell her no. We’re really not compatible people, like flame and gasoline, we’re better in small doses.

I’m not comfortable sharing my space with anyone right now, it’s a small place, and it’s mine, and when I close the door and turn off the ringer on the phone it’s all mine, all safe. I don’t know if I want to give that up for just anyone right now. I made the offer though, so I’ll live with my choices, and I won’t let them bother me much further.

My biggest stress right now is concern for my cousin, A. She’s going through a hard time at the moment. It’s not every day that you hear the sound of someone’s mind shattering into a thousand little pieces, all hurting.

This will be the third time I’ve heard it clearly though. The first time was all mine, and for about 4 years I lived in a hell I’m unable to define better than a soul filled with crushed glass and salt. I nearly didn’t make it out, and even though it’s been years, I’m always watchful – and fearful.

The second time was with my cousin, J. He’s been broken for about 5 or 6 years now, and it’s looking very much like he’ll never recover from this. It hit him younger than it did me, and I guess he just wasn’t strong enough to pull him self out of it. I tried to help for a while, but I was not able to do anything permanent to help him recover. It all just slid off, nothing stuck, and he’s in the same broken place to this day.

Last night I called A. I knew right away something was wrong. In place of the cheerful, ever energetic person I’ve come to love, was a fractured stream of words, with pauses in strange places. That scared me – hell, it’s still scaring me.

This collapse has come suddenly, no more than 2 weeks I’d guess. It’s terrifying how quickly it can all come apart. I talked to my uncle, A, (yes yes, there are a lot of people in my family with the first letter A, get over it) and he’s been watching her fall apart, which is another kind of hell I can’t even imagine.

It was bad enough his son went through this, but now his daughter too. He’s suspecting it’s some kind of genetic weakness that helps to make this all possible, which brings me back around to the final point.

How much longer do I have to remain watchful, reigning in emotions and locking down actions, to keep the tides at bay? Is this something I’m going to have to fight again? Is it a failing I could pass on to my children?

I broke at 18. J broke at 15, and A broke now, at 28. It’s all the same thing again, a mind running in overdrive, like a runaway train without any brakes. It’s horrible.

I could just weep.

I’m going now, I’m going to phone her, and try and help her do battle with this, if I can.

I don’t know if it’ll help

but i have to try.

UPDATE:

Trying to help someone deal with a breakdown is like trying to glue teflon together. I’m not getting through, and I think her boyfriend isn’t trying to help her.

Every now and then in the conversation she’d say “It’s alright”, but it didn’t seem to mean anything, and it wasn’t connected to any other thought. Like a sneeze, a reflex action without any conscious thought behind it.

I’m worried for her, because I know how serious this can get. If she was well, she’d laugh it off, dismiss it as nothing, and even now I think she’s trying, but I’m not fooled.

I know what it sounds like.

I’m going to keep my eyes open, and be ready to help. I’ve been planning to visit in May anyway, I might just have to make an earlier trip.

I will if I need to. She’s my cousin, but she’s also my friend, and I’ll go the distance for the people I love.

Stay tuned.