Elidir

evening

I’ve spent two nights staring at a blank page. Two nights of opening this journal, then closing it again with nothing written. 

I leave for Breachill tomorrow and will arrive there in three days. I’ve left places before, built new lives for myself before. This is nothing new. So why is it so hard to write about it? Why is it so difficult to face it?

Maybe it’s because every place I’ve lived has been an escape from where I was. The Conservatory was my escape from home. From mom and dad’s constant fighting. From the reality of our financial collapse. From a family that had been coming apart long before I was brought into it.

Macridi was my escape from Kerse. From the shame and embarrassment of living through it. I had no one, and couldn’t bear being myself. And for a while, it worked. Only, Macridi wasn’t fully real. I moved through people there without staying. No one knew me because I didn’t let them. The comfort it provided was real, but it just wasn’t enough.

The Minstrels were the first time I felt authentic. I joined them, and that was a choice. So I was reaching, not running. I wanted real connections again. But maybe that need for belonging was still an escape from who I’d been. Who I’d chosen to become.

I’ve seen this pattern before. I saw it in the forest. It’s why Iskaryn is here with me, now. But seeing it doesn’t make it easier to escape it.

And now, I am about to do it again. Create a new life, a new me, in a new place. A more authentic me, if Iskaryn has anything to say about it (and she has plenty to say). But it has never worked before. Never for long.

Nish was convinced I am moving towards something, not running. I don’t know if that is true, but I want to believe it. I guess it comes down to whether, this time, I will build something I can remain inside.

I don’t know who they are. Only that I am meant to recognize them. And be recognized in return.