I spent yesterday by the phone, waiting for instructions on what to do next re: my possible job opportunity. No one called, but I used the time wisely. I spent it reading Outlander (Book I) and watching the training videos available on the LinuxJobber web site. Since I ordered their book, I have access to a wealth of information. It is not lost on me that whether I get the job with them or not, I have upped my education level considerably just in the time I’ve been watching. I now know how to put together a LAMP server (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and either Perl or Python). I also know how to create a server Kickstarter file… basically, the best analogy for that is a Cascading Style Sheet. If you’re familiar with creating web sites, a CSS is where you put all the information regarding formatting. For instance, if you just code each page individually, you’ll have to update them individually every time you want to change a paragraph margin or a font family. With a CSS, you can change those things on every page at once.
You can extrapolate (EXTRAPOLATE! EXTRAPOLATE!) that into a Kickstarter file. You put everything you need into it in terms of server settings, so that if you have 15 servers to set up, one file can be pushed across all of them. It saves a considerable amount of time, as you can imagine. So, regardless of whether I am qualified to take this job, I am getting more comfortable with applying for more. This is seriously the best present I could have bought for myself, and you gave it to me. I bought the books and web site access with the money I’ve earned from this blog.
I am using that money to further myself, both career-wise and as a person. Your money goes toward visions for myself that take money to realize. I cannot ask you to provide money for St. James… not yet. I want to get the 501c3 in place before you do that so it’s a tax write-off, just like every other religious organization/church/charity. Far be it from me to scare you away from donating if you don’t care about the tax write-off, but I do want to operate within the constraints of the law- better for me, and better for you.
Anything that comes through the web site now is continuing education for me- any kind of tuition, book, entrance fee, etc. If you make a donation, I want to do something extraordinary with it so that you see the changes in me and how much those donations improve my quality of life… mostly emotionally, because every time I see “Paypal” in my inbox, I know that my words have meant something to someone. I have made someone’s life better by displaying what it means to be a human. I am so flawed, and I show it. I am so perfect, and I show it. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. Every human has the capability for the disaster and the divine….. the holy and the moly, if you will.
If the donations get large enough, so with the education. I will go back to school and finish my degree in Political Science so that I can move on to graduate school. I want to go to seminary, and as fast as possible, because I know what I can do with such a degree. I will move mountains. Easily. If you think I am kidding, please know that I am every bit as capable as the ministers who have come before me, both in my family and among my friends. I am the Type A who was convinced at a very early age that her opinions didn’t matter.
Now, that is not a problem.
I believe in myself more than I ever have before, because my core was changed to accommodate it. The change did not happen overnight. I dragged myself kicking and screaming into wholeness, as you’ll read about extensively if you are just now getting on board and going back and reading my archives. Speaking of which, I know some of you are, and it pleases me to no end. Yesterday, because I tagged Outlander on WordPress, Facebook, and Twitter, I gained about 100 visitors, as opposed to views. The difference is that viewers read one entry. Visitors read many. So thank you, Outlander fans, for reading the thing that brought you here and continuing to read as if I am interesting. 😛
I wrote the other day about trying to create a True North out of a compass that had been rubbed by a magnet too many times. It is interesting how I have latched onto the moral code presented in Outlander, because in some sense, I understand it. The part that had me on the ground yesterday afternoon was Jamie having to whip Claire so that she would remember the punishment and not endanger the men again, and doing it within earshot of them all so that they would remember her punishment, too.
In so many ways, I do that to myself on this web site. I put my sins and my punishments in print not because I need you to see them (I do, to hold me accountable), but because I need that remembrance more than you ever will.
Do you think it is comfortable for me to go back and reread the things I have experienced since this web site started? Do you think it is easy?
It is not.
I showed my abused nature, my willingness to submit to hospitalization for it, my openness in admitting that my relationship broke with Dana because of my own inattention to her as it passed plainly to someone else…………… attention that was wanted and unwanted all at the same time. It would have been fine if I had not crossed the line from love to “in love,” but that was not something I could easily control. I was abused, and because of it, emotions only went forward. There was nothing in me that could say “abort” or “back off.” It was a watershed moment in realizing that I was not in love with a person, just an idea. It is something that should have appeared to me as it was happening, and it did.
However, being the jackass that I am, I ignored it and kept on walking in the darkness, because I was going to win one way or another. I do not mean that I would have been successful in making Argo feel everything I did. That’s just bullshit and I know it. You can’t make anyone feel anything at any time. I just thought that the easier way was across the river rather than backing off and finding a bridge. It got a lot worse before it got better, and I own that the reason it did was because I could not find a way to separate out how I felt about her from the way she felt about me.
I cannot speak to how she feels now; then, it was intense. It was deeper than any relationship I’d ever had in my life. I wanted more than she could give because I’d been wired to think that way from an early age. It made her react sharply- pull away because she could see the dog I was walking and didn’t want to follow. I reacted…………………… poorly. I knew I was wrong; there was something in me that had broken long before she walked into my life, and it wasn’t going to get better with a snap of her fingers. I had to learn how to have friends, real ones, before I could become worthy of the kind of love she wanted to give me.
That moment did not come with Argo, and might not ever, but at the same time, her lessons in love were not lost.
The time and date will not come to me, but I remember sitting in Aaron’s arms, squalling my eyeballs out and telling him that because of him, I had learned how to treat my friends. That his love sustained me in all the right ways, because it taught me how deep friendship could be without ever crossing any romantic lines. That, in some sense, his love healed me from it…. “it” being shorthand for the mark that Diane left on me that says romantic love and friendship are the same thing. I cannot think back to that moment without tears streaming down my face, because I realized that it never would have happened if Argo hadn’t loved me first.
I am comforted by the fact that it’s not like this situation has never happened to anyone before. Plenty of people fall in love where it cannot be reciprocated, same gender or opposite. It just so happened that the way I felt about Argo was so easy, so unencumbered, that it didn’t feel like a sin right up until it was. It was all fun and games until I shot my eye out, kid.
And on that note, I need to get back to Outlander. According to my Kindle, I still have six hours left.
Stories That Are All True 