These and more than these

Trigger warning: Frequent mentions of depression and suicide

I've been worried about what will happen if Hannibal is cancelled and Season 3 doesn't happen. Because it's something of a realistic possibility.

I mean I know the episodes that have already been made aren't going anywhere (nor are the episodes from Season 2 that have yet to show) and neither is the fandom (I hope. Dear god, I HOPE.)

But I'm scared because while I'll still have those things,

all I can think of is how badly i was doing before i started watching hannibal

all i can think of is how i was sad because i felt disconnected from all my other interests and how i wanted a new fandom but i didn't know what that fandom would be

all i can think of is how i told my friend that i couldn't play a joke for april fools' because all my other jokes had been tumblr and facebook posts in which i basically loudly and exaggeratedly denounced whatever my interest or "thing" was at the time (one year it was doctor who, another it was writing) only to point out it was april fools' and how nothing i did this year would be funny because i didn't have any particular interest or "thing" at the time and the only "thing" i had was being suicidal and depressed, and "guess what guys I'm not suicidal or depressed anymore and life is beautiful and i enjoy living! jk april fools" just isn't funny and then sometime after april fools was over and i was into hannibal, i pointed out that if i had to make that post again, it would have been about hannibal

i'm nervous and i am getting ridiculously worked up over something so small and who knows, maybe if the show ends i won't end up going back where i was before it and maybe i'm worried over nothing and hannibal won't be cancelled after all but all i know is that i don't KNOW what's going to happen and if hannibal ends up being cancelled after all then i genuinely don't know what's going to happen to me

*

I had to walk around the room wearing my shock blanket and clutching my stuffed dog whilst Dr. L (oh, the irony) and I had to go through a plan as to what to do if Hannibal does end up being cancelled.

"If Hannibal ISN'T cancelled," he began, "what will you do?"

"Be happy," I said. "Everything will go on as normal."

"And if it IS cancelled, what will you do?"

"I'll be really upset."

"What will you do about that?"

"Try to stay in the fandom if it still exists. Re-watch the old episodes, read fanfiction. Maybe get into another fandom."

"What fandom will you get into?"

I don't remember the exact exchange that took place right after that but I somehow settled upon Attack on Titan as my next fandom. (I don't even know how I came to that but whatever.)

"So if Hannibal does not get past Season 2," said Dr. L, "you will be upset, but then you will re-watch episodes of the show, you will read fanfiction for it, and you will watch Attack on Titan."

"Yeah, what else can I do?"

"And you believe that, if the show is cancelled, you'll be depressed like you were earlier?"

"I don't know but it's likely."

"In which case, your plan seems about as good as any plan could be in the face of this situation."

I was gone for a bit and a series of events happened.

Among other things, my facets returned (well, some of them did - two new ones appeared, too). They stayed for a while and while they're apparently/probably all here, the most-recently appearing facet (and the only one who was not in my system in any way until now) seems to have become the main facet now.

He calls himself Dr. L and he's a psychologist. He identifies himself as a part of my mind (specifically my capacity for reason and solving my own problems and helping myself) that has been given (by me, or so was the implication) the ability to talk to me as though it were another person.

We've been having "sessions" after a fashion in a room in what I call my Mind Palace (that is, I imagine I'm in a particular place, and he's there too, and we talk in it whenever I need to go over something and it can't be done when he's just a voice in my head). We're currently in the process of exploring my Mind Palace. If/when I make more posts, I'll post about that.

Also, I'm writing another novel and I might post about that as well. And I've gotten into the TV show Hannibal, which I would say is giving me a crisis (much like OFF did) but it's not causing me any sort of distress, so I can't properly call it a crisis. It's interesting though. (And for those who are wondering - yes, Dr. L has modeled himself after Dr. Lecter. But he claims he isn't actually Hannibal Lecter but has merely taken on "the accidents of Dr. Lecter" - he's using "accidents" in the sense of "the physical aspects of that don't inherently make the thing what it is".)

So yeah. That's happening. That's what I might talk about if I continue to talk about things.

The other day, I found out an interesting and helpful fact about my Sherlock facet.

He is extremely good with organizing things and staying focused while doing so.

I'd spent about a full week away from home, and when I returned, I found all my presents from Christmas, still in my room in the relative disarray in which I left them. I had to put them all somewhere, and I didn't want to do it.

Then, bam, Sherlock facet comes out and takes over. He analyzed the situation, determined where to put certain things, and he put them there. He was so keen on organizing things that he straightened up and put away some objects that weren't even part of the Christmas aftermath. (For example, he cleaned up and got rid of a lot of stuff in the bathroom drawer in which I keep my toothbrush. He threw away the things in there that I didn't need and reorganized the things that I did. Likewise, he cleaned up much of what's on my desk.)

Sherlock hasn't been out for a while, but when he does come out, he's really helpful and I get a lot done.

Let me tell you about yesterday, because yesterday was awesome and there's a bit of negativity going on right now and I'd like to relive the good stuff.

Yesterday started with me going to school and having to unexpectedly say goodbye to my English class and everyone in it. I made a journal entry about that earlier. That wasn't so good, but I left about as well as I possibly could, by which I mean I said what I needed to say to whom I needed to say it, and that was pretty good. It was better than I would have done in years past. Also, I found out my grade. I got 103%. My teacher told me he "[didn't] know how that's mathematically possible", but I got it. No matter what I bugger up in the future (because I've been feeling like a general failure lately), I got a 103% in my English class, and no one can take that away from me.

Well, things got even better immediately after I left class, because I remembered there was going to be a stress relief event at school in which some people who keep therapy animals would come and bring their animals for the students to pet. It was called "Paws For Stress Relief", and it was so benefit all those stressed-out students who are taking their finals. I had originally been under the impression that there were just going to be dogs there, but when I got there, I found out there were also rabbits. This is huge for me. I love rabbits. A lot. There was one particular little black bunny who I really liked and who really liked me. (Her handler jokingly accused me of "hogging the bunny", which was accurate.) There was also a piano in the room, and after I pet all the dogs and rabbits, I was allowed and even encouraged to play the piano. I played two original songs and one They Might Be Giants song, and everyone liked it.

( Trigger warning for discussion of sexual harassment. )

Then I had my math class, which turned out way better than I'd expected. I think I did really well on the test (we had a take-home, and my math-loving cousin and I did it together, and we apparently got everything right). We then studied with problems the teacher wrote on the board for us to work out together. I understood most of the material, and I was even able to explain much of it to my fellow classmates. I was able to explain math to other people. This is huge. I'm rubbish at math. But I did the math and I explained it to other people, and I think that as long as I do some studying and remember what formulas to do with what sort of problem, I'll do well on the test.

After school, I took the bus to my grandparents', as I usually do on Tuesdays. I ended up having a conversation with someone on the bus, which was interesting. Conversations with people on the bus are something that happens sort of a lot in my life, and I like that. I nearly missed my stop, but when I got there, my grandpa was waiting for me. He took me to my aunt's school. I had a psychologists' appointment to get to, and it was more convenient for my aunt to take me there than anything else. A bit of a stressful conversation took place in the car on the way there, and I talked to my psychologist a bit about it.

Mostly my psychologist and I talked about viewpoint and the way people/I view things. I was telling her about what was going on with me, and we both understood a lot of it was a matter of perspective, but I couldn't help having my perspective. I couldn't help feeling like I was losing something that had been good in my life when I left my English class today, because I don't understand how the permanent end of something good isn't a loss. I couldn't anticipate my future classes as another "adventure" (the term she used) because I don't know enough to be able to imagine those upcoming scenarios, and until I experience them, I won't have enough information to do that, and you can obviously imagine why I'm not going to be able to do anything in-between now and those classes to help me imagine and look forward to those classes. I basically can't help viewing things in a somewhat negative light because I actually think and I consider things and I see things for what they are, and I know that I can't see things as something they're not and I know that I can't properly imagine things if I have no experience with them.

The most interesting thing, at least to me, was that I told her about my facets. We were talking about how I have some disordered behaviors that might be really actually disordered in other people but that I can somewhat control, but I told her that one of these things was something that was sort of like "controlled multiple personality disorder". I then explained how my facets are like parts of my personality personified or fictional characters I'd absorbed into my personality, the fact that I call them "facets" and why, and how they help me. Not only did she think it was okay, she thought they were good. She asked me if there was a facet that could have helped me during the stressful conversation from earlier. I realized there was (Martin), and when I realized there was, I told her I'd bring him up next time the situation came up. The conversation with my aunt was resumed after the meeting, and I was able to get Martin to help me. Also, while Martin was out, we/he made a decision that I wouldn't have ordinarily made but that I recognized as a good one. Maybe I should get my facets to help me make decisions more often.

When we got to my grandparents' house to have me spend the night there, my grandpa was asleep, but he woke up after we rang the doorbell enough times, and he let me in. I studied there, using Powerpoints I downloaded from my history teacher. I knew almost all the questions on my history review off the top of my head, which was pretty heartening. Also, I discovered that listening to glam rock music makes me feel really good about myself, so I listened to a bunch of it that night. (Also I may or may not have consumed too much ice cream, something my grandparents usually have in abundance, and I am not ashamed.)

When my grandma came home from her Bible study, she gave me a porceline figurine of a Scottie dog for no real reason. It was supposed to go with the porceline figurine of a corgi, which I have in my room at their house. (I spend the night there often enough so that I have my own room.) I was really happy about this - it made my already pretty good day even better - and I related to her at length the things I did that made my day so good. She was happy about them, and she then showed me something that made my day profoundly better.

I should first explain what the Ashland Shakespeare Festival is. It's a theater festival that takes place in a town called Ashland, in the state of Oregon (I live in California, for reference). It's mostly centered around productions of Shakespeare, but there are other plays there sometimes. My grandparents have taken me there on summer road trips in the past. Well, my grandparents subscribe to a newsletter sort of thing that is sent out by the folks that put this event on. It has information about upcoming plays and stuff. It lets them know what's going to be performed there and stuff.

Well. Apparently there's going to be a production of A Wrinkle in Time. The world premiere of a stage adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time.

You probably don't know how big a deal this is for me. A Wrinkle in Time is my Actual Favorite Book and it's meant a lot to me for a very long time and I saw the film, but the film was infinitely disappointing. If I see the play next summer (which is possible), I will get to see a visual adaptation of it that quite likely doesn't suck.

After a bit of verbal keymashing and screaming over seeing A Wrinkle in Time listed on the list of plays they're putting on next summer, I showed my grandma and explained it to her. She was excited for me, because she knows what a big deal that book is for me. I told her that, if she and my grandpa got me literally nothing else for Christmas but tickets to see that, I would consider that a really really huge present. I think they're going to consider that and probably do it.

My grandma went to bed soon after this conversation, and I went back to my activity of studying, wasting time on the internet, and listening to glam rock. Oh, and drawing. I ended up drawing this. It's OFF-related.

( It's under a cut because it's a sort of longish comic. )

So that was my day yesterday. Today, nothing's really happened other than the completion of some last-minute history homework. Oh! And I'm going to go to a party tonight. It's a church party. A Christmas party, actually. Even though I'm a college student, I hang out with the high school group at my church on Sundays (it's because I have some high school-age friends who I understand very well - these are Ashley and Rebecca, the twins - and it's beneficial for me to help them translate their ideas in the small group that meets after the sermon). The high schoolers have a tradition where each small group will make a funny music video, and we'll watch them at the Christmas party, where the leaders will judge them. The winners will get a prize. It's a fun thing and we all like it. My group did a video for "I'll Make a Man out of You" from Mulan, because that's the sort of thing we appreciate and that everyone else will likely appreciate. I've got an outfit picked out for the event, too (because I like dressing up for events) - burgundy cardigan, brown leather jacket, white shirt, blue bow tie. And jeans and shoes and stuff.

So my life went very well yesterday, it's going well today, and it'll probably go well tomorrow, too. Brilliant.

Last night was a good night for facets.

I was Skyping my friend Sofya and we were talking about things, and somehow the subject of my facets came up, and she soon thereafter mentioned (for totally unrelated reasons) that she was going to practice drawing stuff and she would draw me pretty much anything I liked. I requested that she draw three of my facets (Eames, Timothy, and Amaliel, who tend to be the main originals, where "main" means "the ones who are out the most frequently"). She drew the three of them. When she was doing the outlines, it looked like this:



and when it was finished, it looked like this:



She now refers to these three as "the Babes" because this drawing turned out well. (That is her sort of logic.) Eames saw it, because he was out at the time, and he said, "Ahhhhyes that is hgood i like that." (He's got like a horrible sort of typing quirk.) He finds the nickname "the Babes" very amusing. (I later informed Tim and Mal; the former thought it was amusing too, and the latter didn't get it but he was okay with it.)

While Sofya was drawing, I talked to my grandma (because I was at my grandparents' house) and, somewhere in the conversation, facets came up. I was explaining to her that I have a "personality" in my head called Eames, and she wanted to hear more, so I told her about the rest of the individuals. Or rather, I told her about Eames, Mal, Timothy, and Betelgeuse. She really likes Amaliel, probably because she's a rather devout Christian and Amaliel is an angel. (He was originally a character from a story I was writing, but he became one of my facets. in the story, he's on a seven-year-mission on Earth to help people, spread God's word, and generally be a Very Nice Person. As a facet, he often comes out to help me explain my spiritual beliefs, mostly in small group with my church friends on Sundays.) She also really liked Betelgeuse (although she couldn't pronounce his name - fair enough, it's sort of strange - so she's calling him Bert, which is his "human name").

She told me a story about my childhood that Betelgeuse reminded her of. Apparently, when I was a very young child, we were at a library, and a woman there was reading stories to children. I wasn't really paying attention to that, because I'd already read that story many many times (I was reading at a very young age), and what I found interesting was the bottom of a particular girl's shoe. It was one of those shoes that have pictures on the bottom (sometimes kids' shoes have that), and I just found that incredibly fascinating. She compared it to how Bert finds small details and small things very interesting. Perhaps Betelgeuse is an expression of traits I have had since a very young age, compressed into an individual and given life because of how my brain works. Fascinating!

So yeah, that was yesterday and facets.

P.S. I am sitting in my room, in my dressing gown, with a cup of tea, with the heater on because it's sort of cold over here, with the satisfaction of having done absolutely all my homework as well as having registered and paid for next semester's classes and having absolutely nothing "responsible" that I should be doing instead. It's beautiful.

P.P.S. Sofya also drew me some OFF fanart. It looks like this: (trigger warning for blood)

( Read more... )

(Also since crediting people is good I'm going to credit it her art here. She's my friend Sofya and I mentioned that and I should probably like give a link to her Tumblr or something here's such a link right then.)

This is a list of my facets. Most of them are fictives (i.e. they are/identify as fictional characters), though some of them are original (i.e. they originated in my mind). I'll list them accordingly, in alphabetical order. Note that some of them feel "more real" than others, and some of them have gone through stages of feeling more "real" than others (e.g. some of them are just fragments, some of them are sort-of people, some of them may well be real people, etc.) I'm not even going to specify which are which because it changes so often.

For the fictives, I'm also giving links to Wikis where one can read more about the character in question. (These would be links to Wikis specifically about the work of fiction these people are from.) Note that my facets may not be entirely like the characters they're modeled on, usually for good reasons (most of which involve having had experiences with me that caused them to undergo "character development", for lack of a better way of saying it).

This list is naturally subject to change as facets enter my head or leave it.



Originals:
Amaliel - Originally a character I made up for a story. A very philosophical angel supposedly working on Earth to help the people on it. Continually convinced of the superiority of his interpretation of morality and God's will, but only because he’s thought it out so well; sometimes, it is proven wrong. He mostly comes out in my small group at church, when we discuss the sermon after it's given. He helps me explain my ideas. Sometimes goes by "Mal".

Betelgeuse - A personification of the star Betelgeuse. I made him up for a story, and it turned out that he was really, really good to have as a facet, because he has almost zero capacity for anxiety or nervousness, and he is really interested in his physical surroundings, no matter what they are, so you can literally put him anywhere where there’s physical stimuli and he won't get bored, tired, or anxious after being in the same place for like five hours.

Charlie - One of those early-teenage boys who's really enthusiastic about everything and friendly and likes reading whilst sitting in a pile of stuffed animals and stuff. Tends to experience my emotions for me, which is really helpful.

Eames - The main facet, kind of, not sure how much of what I do and say is me anymore and how much of it is Eames. A witty snarker who's low on empathy but high on nonsense, a "functional slacker", very fond of tea. He's caught in a state of perpetual nightblogging.

Jake the Serial Killer - I don't like to talk about Jake.

The Sargent - Doesn't mind seeing children cry. Helpful when I have to deal with them and they're not behaving. (Fun fact: she - the Sargent is apparently female - got her name from how my grandpa described my way of dealing with my three little cousins. She basically exists for scenarios like that.)

Timothy Whitman - A bit of a dandy and an actual nice guy. If I told you his personality was more or less a cross between Tom Hiddleston's and Oscar Wilde's, that might explain a lot about him. Very social, extraverted, kind to other people, fond of laughing.



Fictives:

Arthur Dent - I'm hesitant to add him because I'm not sure if he's a facet anymore or if hes just a part of my regular personality now. Mostly he comes out when I'm nervous or to discuss matters of tea or something like that. (Normally, he corrects people on their misperceptions of tea and when people are "doing in wrong" in regards to tea, etc.)

Arthur Shappey - Passenger with a hat. Likes helping people, seldom gets the chance to. Does so anyway. (Fun fact: he used to come out almost exclusively around my grandma, and he's still most likely to come around her. It possibly has something to do with the fact that she has his mother's name but she's much nicer.)

Cecil - The Voice of Night Vale. Likes making surrealistic, existential points of pretty much everything and reading things out loud. Also sometimes helps me make fashion choices.

Fourth Doctor - Not actually sure what he's doing here but he's here.

Eleventh Doctor - Never likes to see children cry. Helpful when I have to deal with them and they're being alright. Also very good at helping people and being kind to them and stuff. Good stuff.

Douglas Richardson - First officer with MJN Air. Marvelous at putting words together and having them sound nice, not so marvelous at making them polite. He came about as a way to handle social situations I didn't want to be in, ended up helping me put words together when I want to say something and have it sound nice (with the unfortunate result that some of what I said was laced with Douglas's typical sass and thus not keeping with the general politeness that the people around me like).

Ford Prefect - A roving researcher for that wonderful book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Came about as a means for me to enjoy life and random events more than I already did, ended up being a surprisingly prevalent and not entirely helpful force in my partaking of social events.

Loki - The god of mischief and family issues. Fortunately, given that this incarnation of Loki is part of me and thus part of my family, he's really pleased with the family he's in and thus he actually helps me enjoy my family and see how great they are when I think and feel the opposite. This is the Marvel version of the character.

Martin Crieff - "I am the supreme commander of this vessel!" Semi-obsessed with responsibility. Used to be prone to breakdowns when unexpected stuff happened, but he's gotten better. Also, he used to say "I have control!" all the time until we realized that control was not what was always needed, so his catchphrase is now, "I've got this!"

Sherlock Holmes - High-functioning sociopath. Very focused, very objective, very likely to accidentally offend people. This is the BBC version of the character.

Hi, folks. This is my first entry. I'm relocating here from LiveJournal (where my username was noodledoctor). The reason I'm doing so is because 1. I was advised that, while LiveJournal isn't such a great site anymore, Dreamwidth is pretty good if one likes the format of LiveJournal, and 2. a bunch of things happened to me between the last time I was really active on LiveJournal and now. I feel like starting anew, with a new blog, a new site, a new name.

Before explaining what happened, I suppose I ought to give a little bit of explanation as to myself. Hello. I have a lot of names but I like the moniker of "Smithy", especially on the internet. I'm nineteen, I'm a student at a community college. I do writing (fiction and poetry; most of the fiction is speculative and most of the poetry is experimental). I'm a Christian and I guess you could say I'm "devout" (without being...well, extreme, I think is the word one might be looking for that describes what I'm not?) I'm in a lot of fandoms. I play ukulele rather badly and sing rather badly as well and write songs not quite as badly. I'm obsessed with helping people and doing things that benefit others. I have a bunch of mental illnesses/instances of not being neurotypical, but the main things that give me the most trouble are bipolar disorder and general anxiety disorder. I am really good at academics, to the point where it's the only thing I think I'm good at that matters. My mind is really messed up.

Alright. Now onto what happened.

This whole nonsense started in March of 2013, when my mother suffered a sudden brain aneurysm and died. No one expected this. It just happened. I was rather close to my mother (I live at home, with my immediate family, and I regularly see my extended family). I've heard other members of my family describe the event as "traumatic", and maybe I was traumatized, too, but I'm not really sure, because I experience emotions really really differently than a lot of people and things that ought to affect most people hugely don't really affect me.

My family structure changed radically after that, to the point where it feels like I practically have a different family. This isn't a bad thing, but it's really hard to get used to, even now in December, and there are a number of challenges involved here, not to mention some thoughts I've been having about my mother and some things I've been re-examining in regards to our interactions - things that are easier now that she's not in my life anymore.

Another thing that happened was the addition - or perhaps the discovery? - of a feature of my psychological landscape. For almost all my life, I've claimed to have "people in my head" - not in a "crazy person" way or even a "dissociative identity disorder" way. It's just that I've always had the feeling that there were other presences in my mind, like having your own fictional characters come to life or internalizing an idea in the form of a person, something like that.

However, this phenomenon (after a period of about a year where it wasn't really the case for me) resurfaced during the summer following my mother's death. I started wondering whether or not this was a case of multiplicity (that is, the phenomenon of having numerous people in one body or having numerous people in one's mind, where said people are actual people and not just ideas or presences or fragments of a person). I did a fair deal of research, and I decided that my situation wasn't that of actual multiplicity (because I didn't think the "people in my head" were actual people). Rather, they were more like personas and fictional characters I'd absorbed into my own personality. I called them "facets" because they had latched onto facets of my own thinking or behavior.

Most of them were fictional characters (I refer to them as "fictives", which is the term for one who identifies as a fictional character - maybe this isn't a good term, as it suggests a degree of personhood that I'm not sure they have, but it makes sense for me to use). Some of them were original. Some of them came about because I wanted behavior to emulate until it became my own (and it did become my own, when one of these facets were out); some of them came about because the character in question had had some experience that I identified with and I wanted to deal with the situation by becoming a character who had dealt with it themself; some of them came about because it was easier to express certain thoughts and behaviors in terms of someone else; some of them came about for no identifiable reason.

I went along, calling them my facets, and observing a limited degree of agency and autonomy in their actions and thoughts. (I can have mental conversations with them, although sometimes I have to direct their words and thoughts - because it is my mind they're using, and if I'm having a bit of difficulty with putting words together in my head, they'll have the same difficulty. My thoughts and words are a resource, and they use that resource.) A few of them have even shown up in conversation with other people (although I seldom pointed out that it was them, and most people didn't realize that anything about my conversation was different).

Lately, though, I've begun to wonder whether or not my facets are real people after all. My psychologist told me that I lack empathy (I agree) and that I see people as objects (I also agree), albeit objects with needs and desires that I can help fulfill (I again agree). The reason I accept people outside me as "real people" is because, well, I'm told so, and they appear to be so, so I accept it. They do things with autonomy, they think and feel, they have experiences comparable to my own, etc. I don't have any reason to question their reality.

But the reality of people inside one's head...well, that's harder to deal with, and while I accept members of other multiples' systems as real people, that's because they tell me they're real people, and I have no reason to think I'm a better judge of their situations than they are. But it occurred to me that my empathy problems would very easily keep me from effectively telling if my facets are real people or not. None of the reasons I accept the people physically around me as "real people" apply with no uncertainty to my facets. And no one is telling me that they're real people. It's also frustrating because some of them display more autonomy or more "real person-ness" than others. So I don't know what's going on there, and I want to chronicle that.

The most recent thing to happen was...well, a bit of a worldview breakdown that was caused by a rather unusual thing. The thing in question was my playing a computer game called OFF, and I will later write a whole entry about it and how it affected me. Maybe if you've played that game, you'll understand how this could happen. But anyway, playing that game made me realize a very bad thing about the way I think, and that made me realize more bad things about the way I think, and as I tried to correct those things, it made me realize even more bad things about the way I think. I want to fix this. I want to change myself. But it takes work, and it works the best for me if I can express it externally in some way, like talking about it or writing about it.

And now I've come to the reason I'm keeping this journal. I need to express things. I'm one of those people who's best at "thinking out loud" and who works well when they can express things through visuals and rephrasing. For some reason or another, expressing things makes them more real to me. You know how they say, "Pictures or it didn't happen?" For me, it's "Verbal expression or it isn't fully real". And storing them in a format like an online journal makes it easy for me to look at what happened and what I talked about and look back on it when I have to or want to.

Why am I posting it online instead of writing it in a journal, then? Well...I'm not sure why, other than that maybe people will find it, and maybe people will have interesting things to say about it, and maybe I can open up a dialogue about this stuff. And even if that doesn't happen, even if communication doesn't happen, even if no one looks at this journal during the time I need to keep it, maybe someone will find it later and read it and find some sort of value in it. Maybe that'll happen.

That's my hope, anyway.