[Tolly] We finished Hotel Dusk then immediately went to bed. Staying away from the phone and the Switch has been a boon to us. 40 pages into Voronsky’s collection of essays in one day. Perhaps that is unimpressive for most, but for this body in its current state, it is a great feat.
Hmph. It only took this long for my faculties to return… Better late than never. I intend to return to █████ stronger than before. Why not call now? Because I can’t be useful. I can barely read or think if I’m even slightly tired. I don’t have the means to travel or intervene. Maybe psychologically I’m strong enough to undertake the work. Of course, […] I refuse to admit the fantasies I’ve entertained […]. Stress pushes me easier to the brink than before, I will not deny that.
…Should these things come to light, of course my sanity and grasp on reality will come into question. Am I spiritual? Religious? An idealist? Do I really believe that there are multiple people in my head? I had enough problems being transgender, constantly having to justify my existence to others in my own milieu. I have neither the time nor energy—let alone the desire to defent the multiplicity of personalities in my psyche. Yes, they’re almost entirely traumagenic in origin. I have PTSD. Ansel is also largely responsible for our recovery. He, no, we as a whole—are more functional than most singlets suffering similar traumas, stresses, disabilities.
But none of that is what matters right now. I just have to read, study… I understand myself better now, and the further executive dysfunction wrought by the brain damage, I conquered that, without any help—I will return to █████. I did not survive just to give up on that…
…Ansel has been in a very good mood lately. Switching off the Switch (he’s chuckling at that pun), helping us get things done, being able to focus on cleaning again. It’s been a while since he’s “haunted” me—I can feel him tease me from behind whilst I work, and now, he’s sitting in his own leather office chair next to me, the bastard. Yesterday, or perhaps at this point the other day, he’d been struck hard by futility, some sort of wanting of spirit. When political life seemed totally impossible he took over, and gradually assumed his own aspirations. C. made him feel real. He had a family, a lover, someone to look after, people who called his name and treated him like a person…
[Ansel] Maybe it was all make-believe… Anatolij is looking at me sadly. But I don’t feel grief for that anymore. I really did love that woman and the rest of her family. Now, there’s just a vague emptiness in place of those feelings. Like the shadow of a shadow.
Right, I was yearning for a life we could live, since politics didn’t seem to be an option anymore. But for us C. seemed perfect. Someone who would help foster our political development, and a friend. Too bad she was too broken to do either. And she broke us.
Anatolij seems well integrated. The brain damage from the sertraline split those two apart, Simone can attest to that. The fox smile, the mischievousness—that was Zeni, and those memories, habits, and feelings had disappeared until his part of the brain, whatever it was, recovered enough to retry fronting. He was the one who sketched that sitting portrait of me when we were eleven…
Well, I’m glad Anatolij can resume working on his dreams. That means I can give up mine—some siren song of domesticity—and just focus on supporting him. Even if that means just washing his binder and lecturing him.
These eye spasms are hard to deal with. We’ve had to read Voronsky painfully slowly…
I feel better than I have in almost a year. C. was a mistake. Everyone else, too. Now we can focus on what’s really important.
If I had to say what my dream at this point is… It’d be for Anatolij to be left in peace, after all this is over. I want him to read forever, in a nice quiet place that makes him comfortable… That’s all.
I want him to be happy.