- Rollo May 

Response 2022.09.23
Why have I not been writing? Because I was busy living. These things happen.
Actually, more correctly, I have been writing quite a bit. It merely is in a journal that no one can see without my express permission. It certainly is not the sort of material I wish to have on the internet. And no, just because I know how your mind works, it isn't dirty. It isn't like that at all.

I am still, technically, unemployed. Though certainly not for want of effort. Okay, I have a job of sorts, it merely hasn't started yet. I shall be selling occult items and jewelry at The New York Renaissance Faire. Emily spoke to an associate of hers one morning while I was quite unconscious in her bed. She awoke me with a kiss and the information that, soon, I would be gainfully employed. Sadly, only on the weekends, though it pays well enough. Even better, the dear M finagled her way into working at my side. This could indeed prove to be delightful, as it requires me to spend all weekends up at her house until it is over. Lovely.
I also applied to work at a library about ten minutes from New Paltz, my future college. It is tiny and quaint. Seems like a wonderful environment. I would be coordinating programs to attract teenagers and the elderly to the library. That pleased me so very much.
The director seemed impressed with my background, but I am not sure that I did well on the interview. I did make her laugh a few times, but I think that was mostly because I was so nervous. I was supposed to have been called yesterday, as that was when the choice was made. So, likely I did not get it. I shall call tomorrow to confirm. If I did not, I will truly be disappointed, as this sounded like a wonderful job for me.

Recently, a few females in my life have lashed out at me and rather attacked me. Do not worry, however. No one who I was particularly close to has decided to name me the anti-Christ. These people pushed themselves from me before attacking me.
Let me explain further. These women, in my opinion, do not have legitimate quarrels with me and are, in my opinion again, immaturely sublimating deep-seated issues that I am not wholly aware of (nor do I much think that I wish to be made aware of these issues if it is not paying me at least $60 an hour while I sit in a plush maroon couch with a small notebook) onto me in an effort to externalize what so plagues them about themselves/their lives. Which is hardly fair toward me or healthy for them. At least one of these lasses will likely drive away many people who care about her because she cannot handle necessary life changes in a normal way. I feel very sorry for her, truly. She seeks to alienate people, especially men, because intimacy (or at least what she perceives as intimacy, which to me more resembled a vague sort of friendship more based on mutual acquaintances than anything I would perceive noteworthy) frightens her so much. The path ahead of her will be rough and she is being enabled by people just as unhealthy and repressed in their worldview.
I wish I could believe that these people choose these sorts of paths. I suppose on some level they do. This girl could easily choose a different one. But she doesn't owing to what social psychologists call the "foot in the door" effect. She has already come this far and figures "Well, just a little further and I'll be done." But a little farther builds upon itself, and I think she lost sight of whole she honestly is, underneath the artifice she has piled upon herself.
My, that sounds familiar.

I have come to what some might call an epiphany about my dear Katherine. Well, several. One, why I am still concerned with her. She shall, for the purpose of this mental experiment, eschew the obvious. That I love her. That she is definitely one of my best friends no matter how I fight it. That some small part of me is still pondering this rejection from every angle in a highly unhealthy way. No, those manners of things that are obvious here can be skipped. No, what I realized is that all of this teaches me about myself. How I react and perceive situations, especially in this little passion play, sheds great insight into who I am at the core.
The other thing I have gleaned in nights pondering is that she is now exactly who she is supposed to be. Permit me to explain. Kate was on a path when I intersected with her. It was, from my morally ambiguous moral stance, a negative path that would likely hurt her. But this is wholly how I saw the path, not how she did. In fact, I was to be a part of this path, as she wished only to use me as a fling. A diving off point, as it were. And she fell in love with this wounded angel (please, let me romanticize who I was at that point, it's easier that way). So she ended up veering from the path she belonged on to create a two lane road with me.
However, the person she was with me, much as I did love her and always will in my memories, was not who she was supposed to be. I interfered with the hand of lower-case fate. Kate had a lot she needs to still so through in this psychoemotional moratorium before she can meet her destiny. And I gave her something. And it was wondrous. But it was not for her. It would not bring her to her goal.
I read some of a book on identity by Erikson while waiting for the job interview at the library. He studied the case history of George Bernard Shaw, focusing on his psychoemotional and educational moratorium (basically, taking time off from progressing internally and learning only things he had an interest in). It quite reminded me of Katie, especially when Erikson discussed how GBS (as Erikson so casually dubbed him) would write exactly five pages a day, whether inspired or insipid (that phrase, I'd like you to note, is mine and not Erikson's. His writing would do well to have such poetry along with ten-syllable jargon. You know, if he weren't very, very dead) sometimes stopping in the middle of a sentence and continuing it the next day. This practically screamed "Kate!" to me. I mentioned to Emily that these behaviors of GBS reminded me of Kate. M stated with authority that she is GBS. That was all she said, with a wry smirk chancing her lips. So, I shall have to check into GBS for insight.

I have, very slowly, been making progress into indeed making my newly acquired bedroom my own personal space. If you are one who has always has a space of your own, you cannot truly understand the plight of those who had shared a room since birth. No solace can be found. Children, to my way of thinking, require a separate area all to their own at a certain developmental level. Not necessarily a room, but a private space where the developing person feels ownership and safety. I do not think I was exactly aversely effected sans this space, likely I found my escape in books. Many do not and suffer for it.
All that was really beside the point. I own hundreds of books, likely owing to my choosing that form of escapism coupled with a librarian's and occultist's penchant for very old and rare books. However, I lacked shelves owing to the commodity of floor space and actual money growing scarce. So these tomes were hiding in duffle bags on my back porch.
Today, spending money I clearly didn't have, I finally got shelves, though hardly ones befitting a copy of Don Quixote from 1840. Still, better than the duffle bags, I suppose.
The point being that a wall full of books (other then three shelves and growing of Pagan/Wiccan/Psychic/Occult books that were given a plot on the Magic Cabinet as soon as it found its way into my room) has made me feel that this is actually my room now. My private space, not merely a place I lay my head to rest. A computer in the room would be even more delightful, but highly unlikely. Still, a space of my own.

Unless I get campus housing. I have been thinking about this heavily since I met Emily for lunch at New Paltz yesterday. I was exhausted and overheated and plopped down into one of the sternly soft chairs in the New Paltz bookstore. The one I happened to fall into faced a small tree and the campus lake colloquially referred to as "the Gunk." And I felt... lacking. I wanted to be a part of this campus in a way that merely visiting it for classes would not provide. I wanted all the delight and dread that I purloined while visiting Kate. I wanted to know all about horrible campus food and cramped rooms (though, really, I do that last one wonderfully at the moment). I want to scurry across campus in the snow and befriend the only other person I meet outside at four in the morning. I want this sort of experience.
However, there are money concerns. Namely, that these sort of experiences would be paid wholly out of my pockets (though the pockets of the suit jacket I yet to wear, as I am not yet an accredited teacher). Were I of a more carpe diem attitude, I might go for it. I may anyway. All of this is little more than babble, as I have not been offered campus housing and likely will not as I am not a freshman. I will cease.

Zack told me that, if I ever ruin things between M and I, he will smack me. Actually, he intimated greater bodily harm than merely a smack. And rightly so. Zack also said that he wishes he had met Emily first, but he said it in a very upright and sweet way so I am not killing him quite yet. (I like the Zack, his death is not forthcoming). Both Stevehen and Conor (they, M and I had a sleep over party, which you aren't really getting told about because I am sleepy. If one of you people bothered to mention it below, maybe I would) adore her and said that she is very good for me and good in general. I find it firming, mentally, that three so close to me confirmed in her what I saw. I know it did wonders for her (they said these things in her presence and outside it) as we got off to a rocky start, as I have chronicled therein. I'm sure you quite understand, as I had just grown blissful being alone.
Ah, well. I suppose we are never given anything that we cannot handle.

reading: Communion: A True Story, Whitley Strieber
listening: "Elza," Elza (I know her. We've hugged!)
wanting: wall shelves. Or inner peace... no, definitely the shelves.
interesting thought: Wal-mart does not stock affordable wall shelves.
moment of zen: diving into a pool and forgetting which way is up for a moment.