My Rag Doll and Me

DIARY

Okay.

So I did already write tonight, rally and really and truly, but I've got a small bout of insomnia right now, doubtless resulting from too much caffeine earlier on, and various alarms going off in various peoples' rooms.

It's the accompanying nostalgia that has me down here.

Sometimes, I find myself thinking of times, good times, in the past, and the distance of those moments, and their loss... it is somewhat overwhelming.

I got really into Dungeons and Dragons with my friend Victor when I was nine years old, and we played incessantly until I moved to the suburbs just before my 12th birthday. When I was 10 or so, I was introduced to the Dragonlance saga (mentioned earlier) and read through it 2 or 3 times. It's a good story. It's filled with solid, three-dimensional characters that vibrate with such tenebrous intensity that they seem to be almost radioactive. I am now rereading these books with Jessica, and it is the first time I've touched them in over a decade. In about twelve years, to be honest. And I remember the books, and how I enjoyed them, having to turn the page, to stay awake and read no matter what the consequences.

But just as much, I remember my life at the time I was reading.

So it starts out... I'm laying in bed tonight, March something, 2004, a 25-year-old, going on 26, trying to sleep, and my brain is filled with the soft light, the night light, the yellow light that isn't harsh. There are three lights. One is coming from my grandmother's bathroom. One is coming from the living room where my grandma and brother and sister sit in front of the television. And the last is coming from the soft cooking light above the stove in the kitchen, remodeled one, maybe two years back.

I'm lying on my stomach, in the quiet, long, long after the rest of them have gone to sleep. We are staying at my grandmother's so often because my dad works third shift, because my mom has to go to classes early in the morning or at night or some such thing. And anyway, we enjoy staying at my grandma's. It is something we have always done.

I'm laying on my stomach in the quiet and I can't put this book down. I can't put it down. The whole world of Krynn is at stake. The evil Dragonarmies have marched across Krynn. They have corrupted the forest of Sylvanesti. They have ravaged the old seaport of Tarsis and torched the ancient Valenwood trees of Solace in Abanasinia. Now the companions, split, find themselves on an island in the heart of winter. It's cold, but I can see the wilderness in my minds eye. It is still a trickling green, even through the ice. Southern Ergoth. There is a journey involved. Not a long journey, compartively, in terms of miles. Not even a dangerous army, for they are fleeing their kindred, fleeing the elves, and not dragons or lizardmen. But still; it is very emotional for them. A girl breaks her father's heart. Her brother is falling in love, but the love is doomed to failure. They find a friend they thought was dead. They discover a secret of great hope. All this happens under the aspens, and among the evergreens. The world is sleeping in the ice, but above the hard ground, events happen that will alter the future of these peoples' lives.

This was my own discovery.

I didn't have many friends back then. I knew plenty of people; a dozen kids on the block, some of whom regularly beat me up, kids from church, kids from boy scouts. Most of them are indifferent to me, or actively dislike me. They all think I'm a little odd. Victor is my only close friend.

But the perfect solitude. Perfect because it isn't really solitude... perfect because my brother, my sister, my grandmother are a breath away, they care for me, and they sleep is silence. Perfect because it is the only solitude, and I lay on my stomach on the old, worn green carpet, and read and read as late as I like.

And so tonight I lay awake in bed, wondering about all these things, these vulnerable moment where I was still so undefined, where I could have become what I am today, or something very different. And others emerge.

I remember sneaking from my room in 8th grade past midnight and walking three miles to downtown Flushing to say goodbye to my friend Cole as he went to Washington DC. I remember the heat. I remember my paranoia about being caught. I remember the dogs barking all the way from Coldwater road to the Ponderosa Estates, and wondering where I was or if the police were going to pick me up.

And then my mind strays forward to 9th grade, auditioning for the Renaissance festival, or riding with friends from Burton to Grand Blanc.

It doesn't matter. It's all long over now. I can talk about it, but really, whether or not it leads to sleep is the only important question.

Anyway... it's finals week and I'm at a public computer in a dormatory I do not live in.
Someone's waiting, so I really should be courteous and step aside.

~ Connor