A Hollow Place · 6:03am May 17th, 2021
I was re-reading a fabulous story tonight-- Celestia Plays Dice with the Universe, by the inimitable and wonderful Cynewulf, who I have been privileged to call a friend.
It's from early 2016, which was part of the best 12-month stretch of my life. We had an amazing BronyCon in '15, my parents' business had its best year in most of a decade partially on the back of a six-figure project that I shepherded from first request for bid right on through to the end. Our daughter was born. My dad was so proud.
In October, he fell off a ladder and lingered ten days in the hospital before it was clear that all anyone could do was withdraw life support. A few days later, Trump was elected--I still remember darkly joking that at least Dad hadn't lived to see that. For a few months, my brother and I tried to run the business, but we wound it up at the end of March, after the IRS had stuck its oar in. A couple days after that, my mother went in to surgery to remove what turned out to be a fist-sized ovarian tumor and a moldy speckling of metastases across the omentum. I subsisted on unemployment and helped her through chemo and the great financial shock, both of us sure we would be lucky to get another three years. It was a year-to-year plummet worthy of Icarus.
There are comments on that story, supposedly left by me. They're funny, and playful, and creative, and the man who wrote them didn't stop himself because it felt safer to assume no one cared what he thought rather than risk finding out for sure. He may have had something powering him along other than a sense that failing to fulfill his obligations to his utmost would be the final surrender to worthlessness and nihilism.
I don't recognize him.
Things not only can change, they will change. Hang in there, because you make the world a better place! You've done me an incalculable amount of good and undoubtedly made my life more joyful.
Those comments made me feel connected to something when that feeling was hard to come by.
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Part of me always chose to feel that you were specifically indulging me by writing that story, which is maybe a little silly. But it is excellent, and it made me happy to leave comments that got a reaction out of you.