The original entry

Well, I guess we will indeed be one big happy family in New Paltz. I'm not 100% definite, yet. More like 79%.

You do not go to New Paltz at this point. You earned a full scholarship to a community college. You couldn't pass that up to go to a school that is only fractionally removed from being a community college.

Still, you thought then that it was likely you would attend New Paltz as a resident. You listened to a CD at a music store and knew it would be the music playing from your dorm that would entice strangers to seek you out. This was the sole reason you bought it, clutching it to your hopeful bosom.

The only dorm rooms you ever had were your collected month at Summer Scholars as a student and the one you will occupy as a Resident Advisor for that same program. It would have broken your little heart to know that. That you didn't live on campus will make you feel for years that you were cheated out of a crucial formative experience, that everyone else had a leg up on you and you were socially stunted.

I will not go into this too deeply here. It will be recurring.

Katie didn't like Dana (who will be a part of my New Paltz family) because she ran up and hugged me... um... about five times. Which was a good thing from my stand point (the hugging, I mean).

Dana was Nick's on-again, off-again girlfriend. As at this point, Nick was dating Jen. I do not believe they ever went on again.

I do remember liking Dana. She had a spunky, "air spirit with dirty knees" vibe. I do not recall ever seeing her past this point. If she did indeed attend New Paltz, it would be news to me.

[...]Kate was still a bit jealous. I get kind of jealous about people in her past occasionally too, so I don't terribly fault her.

You were the jealous type, especially about her past. There wasn't much there that was worth your jealousy. Jealousy is rarely a healthy or helpful emotion.

Dana is Pagan, at least as far as I remember. We never really got to do much together, in that respect. We should. I am teaching Katie the Ways. She has had a vague interest in the Craft for a while, but mostly because it is a big part of my life and prior to recently, it was the one part of my life that I kept from her (Because it was none of her business.) So, I am heavily into the informing process with her.

You thought being a witch was one of the most interesting things about you, but it wasn't. You weren't too annoying about it, but it is awkward reading how you tried to make your spirituality extra mystical.

If you knew some of the actual history of that topic, you would have been insufferable. The topic is far weirder than you could have ever made it. My point is that you shouldn't have treated your religion as though we were LARPing.

You didn't think you were proselytizing--and I'm inclined to agree. You did not believe anyone was any worse off not being witchy. You didn't fret about the status of their souls. But you were spiritually lonely. The people with whom you felt most at peace also thought that witchcraft was nonsense. Fun to try a ritual in October, but nonsense, nevertheless.

The Pagans you did encounter made you uneasy. They were too earnest or too discomfiting. You already dealt with a woman ten years your senior, who tried to sexually abuse you and then sicced her witchy buddies on you when you called it out. She thought that she was in some sort of magical war with a seventeen-year-old. You don't realize it yet, but the shaman who lived behind the Dunkin Donuts will go on to leverage his spirituality to assault teenagers, including two of your friends.

Of the Pagans you knew then, I can think of only a few that did not then make you recoil and are still sincere today.

So, you wanted the people you loved to see the world through your lens because it better justified your clinging to it. They won't, but they still love you and that makes you feel holy.

Thomm Quackenbush is an author and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has published four novels in his Night's Dream series (We Shadows, Danse Macabre, Artificial Gods, and Flies to Wanton Boys). He has sold jewelry in Victorian England, confused children as a mad scientist, filed away more books than anyone has ever read, and tried to inspire the learning disabled and gifted. He is capable of crossing one eye, raising one eyebrow, and once accidentally groped a ghost. When not writing, he can be found biking, hiking the Adirondacks, grazing on snacks at art openings, and keeping a straight face when listening to people tell him they are in touch with 164 species of interstellar beings. He likes when you comment.