old haunts and new beginnings

Hello everyone. This afternoon, I geared up and went to Symposia's with my mobility instructor Ray. Now that the microphone was properly oriented, the direction of things was correct. Now, I just have to do something about the damned wind. The low cut-off filter seems like a good thing to try first. I've also ajusted the volume of the Trekker Breeze to a better level that I can hear clearly through the speaker but doesn't override other conversation too badly when it hollers out information. Live and learn as they say.

Originally, I had planned to start with the route to Ron's apartment. Ray and I discussed the route alternatives for that over a coffee. I wasn't certain how I'd feel going back there again given the utter emotional devastation I just experienced there. Intelectually, it would be completely unfair to blame the restaurant for a decision made by a woman who I made the mistake of thinking was a lot more certain of what she wanted from life than ultimately proved to be the case. However, emotionally, I wasn't at all certain I could avoid having that kind of painful experience associated with it. Happily, I discovered that I still feel completely at ease there. It's a place I'd feel comfortable going to and eating at alone. Going there with friends or a girlfriend would be far preferable but,... well... one step at a time I suppose. It'll be quite a while before I get to the point where I'm confident in getting there and back but I think it'll make for a much better starting route to master.

The route to Ron's will take something like two hours each way. It'll involve three busses and two transfers at those damned oval transfer points. There doesn't seem to be any way of avoiding those things. Between Ron and Ray, perhaps, I'll discover a way to cope with them better than before. The kind of time it's going to take to master that route frankly illustrates why I could get so much farther in life if I found a sighted companion. It'll eat up four-hour chunks of God knows how many days both for me and for Ray as well as Ron when he helps me try to learn it. I just wish more people had an understanding of what they ask of people like me when they just think we should learn the routes to everywhere. What takes perhaps half an hour in a car and a brief examination of a map takes me utter ages to learn with any degree of competence. All that time spent learning to get to Janene's was rendered a complete waste of time in the space of the half an hour during which our engagement ended.

First things first though. Getting to Symposia's and back with confidence will take a while I expect. There's also the route to Adam's to start on with him eventually. I just hope all of this leads to some sort of breakthrough for me either in mobility difficulty easing or socially in life. I'm going to need a greater sense of being connected to a community if I ever hope to finish Enchantment's Twilight. Having Janene break up with me has severely damaged my sense of finally making some headway in that area. I know she didn't mean to do that. However, when you get right down to it, I ultimately got the same message from her that I get from pretty much the whole sighted world: "Mike, you're a great guy. I value your patience and purspective highly. However, not highly enough to follow through with marriage. Lets just be friends instead so I can keep what I value from you without the serious commitment we were once both looking for and you still are." "Mike, you do great work and have a deep sense of honesty and loyalty. Can't add you to our payroll though. In fact, it's not even worth getting you there and back to do volunteer work for us." Intelectually, I know Janene doesn't belong in that catagory. She truly did love me until the stress of what she was trying to do wrecked things for us. She fully intended to be the woman who saw enough love, compassion and worth in me to fundamentally change my life for the better.

I've always held that good intentions damned well ought to count for more than they regularly seem to in this world. That was, I believe, a large part of why the Audyssey magazine and the community which grew up around it was so successful. That's one of the qualities which has made me a better friend to people. Perhaps, it is just a matter of time before I'm able to truly forgive her the pain she's caused me and approach her again as a friend. I'd like to think I were strong enough to do that. I'm not though. There just wasn't enough good reason to dump me like that after all we had built together. Right when there would have been time to start regaining lost ground, bang! It was just so capricious.

Part of me hopes she discovers to her sorrow just how hollow and meaningless life can seem when you're going it alone. Now there's a thought which isn't up to my usual standard of charity towards others. "For every anguish, there is an equal and opposite reanguish." Those words occur written in blood on a blackboard during the course of the only recurring nightmare which still haunts me occasionally. They certainly added to its overall creepy tinge but had no real significance before now. In the afterglow of unilaterally shattered love and trust, I find they make a truly aweful kind of sense. I think it'll take a lot more than time to emotionally put Janene in the catagory she belongs in. A truly good person who just wasn't ultimately ready to commit to marriage. What could have been is just too freshly torn away. I don't expect to find anybody new or to have my life circumstances changed to the point where she's no longer the closest I came to making some sort of real progress down the path of life. Not for quite a long while anyhow. If and when I actually find someone else who truly values what I have to give enough to make the commitment Janene wouldn't then what? "Darling, would you mind if I reacquainted myself with my ex-fiancee?" That just seems to beg for trouble. Supposing, God knows how many years down the road, I finally get situated in affordable housing. I suppose I'd then be tempted to have her over for a dinner. That's going to be something I look forward to doing for all of my friends who have had me over their way so often. For her though, it would be somewhat marred by an element of "This is the kind of thing I would happily have done for both of us these past years." A very awkward friendship to actually start. She doesn't seem to have any such difficulties. Am I just some dinosaur that the implications bother me?

Last weekend went so well that I guess I figured I was pretty much through the worst of getting over being dumpped. There's obviously still a ways to go on this ride full of hills and valleys. I'll have to keep a bit more of a guard up going forward for a while. Glad I didn't have a drink tonight. I'm not feeling all that sad or anything. There's just a kind of grim emptiness which usually wouldn't have a chance of overtaking me after such a good weekend. That's warning enough for me. Unless I'm happy and among friends, I won't touch another of those delicious beers in the basement until I've found more solid emotional ground. I've just got to keep plugging away at stuff until I'm there. Tomorrow, I'll take the digital recorder out for a stroll to see how effective the low cut filter is against wind noise. There's got to be a way to overcome that better without having to buy yet another thing. I'll also listen to at least one of my Sherlock Holmes stories and make a point of playing two games. A new episode of Spark would have been most useful this week but there isn't one. I've also already listened to the excellent Digital Flotsum episode which has at last appeared. I'm very happy indeed to know that Mr. Fenton plans to keep that going despite having a month to wait until the next one. I'll hopefully also remember to grab the new From Our Own Corespondants episode which should also make an appearance tomorrow. Other than that, I'll let the day take its corse and see what it brings other than the noise generated by people working on downstairs windows.