I\u2019ve spent two nights staring at a blank page. Two nights of opening this journal, then closing it again with nothing written.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I leave for Breachill tomorrow and will arrive there in three days. I\u2019ve 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?<\/span><\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s because every place I\u2019ve lived has been an escape from where I was. The Conservatory was my escape from home. From mom and dad\u2019s constant fighting. From the reality of our financial collapse. From a family that had been coming apart long before I was brought into it.<\/span><\/p>\n Macridi was my escape from Kerse. From the shame and embarrassment of living through it. I had no one, and couldn\u2019t bear being myself. And for a while, it worked. Only, Macridi wasn\u2019t fully real. I moved through people there without staying. No one knew me because I didn\u2019t let them. The <\/span>comfort <\/span><\/i>it provided was real, but it just wasn\u2019t enough.<\/span><\/p>\n 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\u2019d been. Who I\u2019d chosen to become.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen this pattern before. I saw it in the forest. It\u2019s why Iskaryn is here with me, now. But <\/span>seeing <\/span><\/i>it doesn\u2019t make it easier to <\/span>escape <\/span><\/i>it.<\/span><\/p>\n And now, I am about to do it again. Create a new life, a new me, in a new place. A more <\/span>authentic<\/span><\/i> me, if Iskaryn has anything to say about it (and she has plenty to say). But it has never worked before. Never for long.<\/span><\/p>\n Nish was convinced I am moving towards something, not running. I don\u2019t 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.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know who they are. Only that I am meant to recognize them. And be recognized in return.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elidir evening I\u2019ve spent two nights staring at a blank page. Two nights of opening this journal, then closing it again with nothing written.\u00a0 I leave for Breachill tomorrow and will arrive there in three days. I\u2019ve left places before, built new lives for myself before. This is nothing new. So why is it so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-5404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aoa-vignettes","tag-aemi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5404"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5406,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5404\/revisions\/5406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}