[Mon Jan 12 16:53:19 1998]From: Wind Walks Lonely (lanfear)
[Mon Jan 12 16:53:19 1998]
From: Wind Walks Lonely (lanfear)
Subject: Present
What words can shape the despair of an empty future?
That is what I see, sometimes, looking forwards into the patterns of my life. Patterns repeated and fading to nothing, never changing, never growing. What is there to want when the only dreams are impossible ones? And with nothing that I can hope to be fulfilled, why wade on through the joyless mists?
I don't know. Why do I? Yet I seem to do so all the same.
What will become of that which I could have been without an answer?
[Tue Jan 27 17:18:22 1998]
From: Wind Walks Lonely (lanfear)
Subject: I am not what you think.
Whoever you are. Whatever you think.
[Wed Mar 18 16:47:00 1998]
From: Wind Walks Lonely (lanfear)
Subject: Angharad is mine.
She fits by my side as if forged to rest there, and her hilt is comfortable in my hand.
Light and slim, with the minimum of ornamentation, her blade shining silver in the dark. She is my sword, as she always should have been.
[Thu Apr 9 17:16:50 1998]
From: Red Storm Rising (lanfear)
Subject: Dreams of light.
Slanting through clouds in a sky of storm. Far-off mountains towering through the atmosphere, bases hidden in the haze.
A world that is not this one.
Dreams of light. Dreams of change.
[Wed Apr 29 13:08:30 1998]
From: Red Storm Rising (lanfear)
Subject:
Come unto me
I am beauty, I am the light
Come unto me
Hold the darkness and stay the night
I am wonder I am the heart's delight
[Tue May 26 14:43:49 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: An impossible task.
A night when the world listened. Energy crackled in me that I could scarce contain. A feeling of waiting, of need.
A task I was given long ago and abandoned. I am no longer what I was. But I am returning to that which I need to be.
Once my acceptance would have been immediate. The rage too near the surface for anything else. But I drove the rage away and entered the world I hated. I am joined with it now. Harsh decision, harsh acceptance. I will not survive victory any more than I would defeat.
It is something more than love. Something wilder, and colder. I love almost because it does not care. But there is need, yet, and I see the path to right.
We are pledged. We are the destroyers.
[Mon Jun 1 09:37:24 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: The mistaken thoughts I see.
The thoughts that twist in the name of good, like snakes in the hand. The bitten who cannot see that the poison is worse than if the snakes were released.
One day I will show you all the truth.
One day I will destroy you all.
Which aspect of me is the stronger? I already know the elder.
[Thu Jun 18 14:36:07 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: The cards say it must be.
Question, answer. Temperance, destruction. Justice, the Tower. Destruction, the World. The Devil, Death.
And others with meanings equally clear. Twice through the pack, and the path is firm before me.
Time to start walking.
[Wed Jul 8 14:39:56 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: Am I losing something in this quiet content?
It is what I have always, always sought - but I now find myself almost more alone than ever, trapped by the banality of the life I live.
How can you talk when there is nothing to talk about? How can you think when nothing new appears to be thought about?
I sink back into the obscurity whence I came, determined not to disappoint those I value with all the conversation of which I am now capable.
There should be more. There should always be more. But will I always be unworthy?
[Mon Jul 13 10:12:04 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: Finally.
Finally I have had someone look, and see, and tell me not what I think I am, nor what others think I am, but what the world thinks I am.
A crackling and warmth. Yellow. A bright glow centered in the heart. A great hunger to help, and the obscure pain that I cannot heal everything. Anger and violence, but under an iron control. Another self, not separate but part of me, and whom I fear.
The relief that it is not so much worse.
[Mon Jul 13 12:58:20 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: Oh, yes. And...
The smell of pine, and flecks of green and red.
Strange...
[Fri Jul 17 10:02:47 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: All over the world
There are disasters waiting to happen. Reaching to the sky, blanketed in snow, hearts warm and ready.
Fire under the sea, over the land. Power equal to any of ours, exploding out in careless destruction.
Wait, yet. Your time is coming.
[Thu Jul 23 09:38:26 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: Present
Last night, someone else saw Wolf. She knew he was there, so it was not a true test, I suppose, but she saw him nonetheless, and agreed with me his reactions.
It's good to know he is more than my imaginings. But I am jealous. He is here for me, but I have never seen him.
[Mon Jul 27 13:24:17 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: The answer is always the same, yet still I keep asking.
Cards, runes, dreams. A crackling in the still air. Temptation of the Devil, they say who do not understand.
Evil is not absolute, any more than is good. What I do is what I must, not what I have been told. I would never obey but that my heart carries me that way already.
Sometimes I wonder whose answer it is they show me in the runes, whose eyes behind Wolf's in the silent, crackling air. But don't you see that it doesn't matter? I know what is right, and I will die for it. For my love.
[Mon Aug 10 12:22:57 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: It is wrong to gloat.
And it is most wrong to delight in a suffering I too have suffered with, that which almost killed me.
But I cannot help feeling that it is just, it is fair, that this is the rebounding I begged for, even if in the end all the curse I laid was of understanding and repentance. Is this understanding? Maybe.
Once I strove to be Good, to be forgiving, understanding, gentle and generous to all. It seemed the least I could do to atone for being me. And, used and abused, I struggled still to fulfill my ideal.
Then came Wolf, and with him understanding. To be gentle, to be forgiving, all these things yes - but not so far. Because I mattered, I mattered too, and I was clawing at myself inside to be free.
Sometimes what someone needs is forgiveness, is trust. Sometimes to trust is to cause that trust to be kept.
And sometimes, all that will be understood is punishment.
You see, there is nothing will reward you for being a doormat. That's not the way the world works. And for your pains you will be punished, and used, and used again, and the soul that uses you slips further into darkness.
Would you heal? Would you bring all to the light? Then don't tempt them into darkness. Love in strength, not weakness, and bar them from the dark with flaming swords and agony.
[Fri Aug 14 10:40:46 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: I need to make some kind of decision.
Nuada is far away, and not for a lifetime, never for a lifetime. My heart aches at the thought of his touch, and of his pain.
And Fenris is here, with so much in common, pledged as I am to destroy. A good friend, but how could I ever give up Nuada for him? How could I give up Nuada for anyone?
And yet, and yet.
[Thu Oct 1 09:49:18 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
'Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me'.
What utter pillock came up with that one?
Not only is it an invitation to use said sticks and stones, it is a lie. Names do hurt, and they hurt deeper and longer then the fast-healing scars from the sticks.
Children know that, and they wield the most damaging weapon in their armoury with the power of a bludgeon. And even when its cutting edge is blunted by their lack of imagination, its force still takes it through your defences.
And when it does, who is there to turn to? The ones who told you that names would never hurt you? No, it can only be borne in silence, and the creeping shame that only the weak can be hurt by names, that you have failed all expectations of your strength, that you are worthless. And that name, given by yourself, the most damaging of all.
'Names will never hurt me'. Why do we tell children such lies when all our lives we, too, have been hurt by names? Why do we believe that the mere words will persuade those who have seen the very opposite in the tears of their victims?
Can I ever forgive those who abrogated their duty with that lie, and left me to suffer alone?
[Wed Oct 7 09:59:21 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: If fitness were free of confounding factors, I'd be fitter than most.
My muscles are certainly stronger, and my heart-lung fitness as good as they're likely to get for an asthmatic.
I realised this while swimming the other day, when I was so much less tired and aching than someone who I had thought was far fitter.
My weight is the confounding factor. My stronger muscles and heart are so because they spend all day carrying the equivalent of two people, not the one of everyone else. And that's what I ought to compare to. Not those who merrily run up hills and walk for fun, but what they would be if they were carrying another copy of themselves on their backs. And I win hands down.
An interesting thought, is it not?
[Tue Oct 13 09:33:17 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: Autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness?
No. That's late summer. Autumn is the season of mists and winds and the coming dark. Autumn is where the other worlds reach through and shadow the edges of reality, waiting.
Can you feel them watching?
[Tue Oct 20 10:41:07 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: Claws out, everyone.
The very next person who informs me (with the earnest air of one bringing light to the poor souls struggling in darkness) that the weight would just 'drop off' me if I took to eating less will be shot.
Eating less! Wow, I never thought of that. What a revelation, I'll start at once.
Eating less. Like those diets spanning the years of my childhood. The tasteless crunching of lettuce and the hunger. Sickness from the acid in the oranges. Just eat less for a while and it will all go away, and stay away.
Only it didn't, you know? Stop for a short while and suddenly it's back again, worse than it ever was.
So walk around, get your metabolism going. Walk around on the damaged tendon and the stressed muscles that support the extra person on your back.
Some people really have no idea.
[Tue Nov 3 11:09:35 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: It's difficult...
<What is?>
Spending two hours of almost every day trapped in a car with someone you don't like.
<Why don't you like him?>
I don't know. Well... he keeps talking when I don't want to talk, or to others when they're obviously trying to sleep. He never considers that he might be wrong. If he knows anything about something he assumes himself to be an expert in it and won't listen to those who know better. He argues against what he thinks you're saying rather than what you are, and can't seem to differentiate between the two, or understand that you think differently. And he always seems to want to be the centre.
<You have the same traits>
Not all. I know I'm at least as self-centred, but not the rest. And why do you think I've put up with this so long? Because I know I'm no better.
<What is there to put up with?>
Not much. Minor annoyances. But they mount.
<But what there is, is nothing. It is what is within you that is the problem>
I know that. But it is there, and I can't seem to get around it.
<Then tolerate it>
I'm trying! But it keeps getting harder! And he won't take any of the hints I give to shut up! Things are getting unpleasant for the others.
<So don't take him in your car>
It would be unfair to do that just because I don't like him.
<Then what will you do?>
Nothing.
<And take it out on all those around you>
I know. Have you got any better ideas?
<...>
[Tue Dec 1 10:45:43 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: At last.
My diary's available and I can wibble.
But first, please repeat after me: "Bad Sarah, naughty Sarah!"
There was the Christmas party on Saturday. Since this diary isn't X-rated, I shall edit the highlights.
Highlight 1:
"You're the sexiest woman I've ever seen. What's your name?"
This fresher had, apparently, felt this way since he first saw me weeks ago. So in retrospect, maybe wearing that dodgy body to various events wasn't my most cunning plan to avoid complication. Neither was dancing with him. Although I did explain that offering to go home with me was moving just a leetle fast.
Highlight 2:
"I wouldn't complicate your life. I rather like your boyfriend."
There seem to be a lot of men who prefer the, um, more curvaceous figure. And they rather appear to be clustering around me like bees around their Queen. This is unnerving. I hadn't realised that the queen bee had such difficulty in sending her subjects away. Persistent, strange, exciting. Fear of discovery. Guilt and the breaking of societal norms. But nothing more. I slept alone.
Highlight 3:
"I think I saw Wolf."
I don't understand. Or perhaps I do, somewhere within. A sceptic once, but sympathetic to our cause. A sceptic until he saw my personality change,a change that went deep to the heart, and the shadow of a wolf in the air, watching him. And a wolf again, later, and now he would speak with me and with my other of the coming storm. Doesn't he see my fear of myself?
[Tue Dec 22 11:37:46 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: I exist in a state of confusion.
This time, the confusion has been generated single-handedly by Fenris.
Now, what would it signify to you if someone, immediately after a twenty hour flight from Australia, came around to see you, and that evening took you out to dinner with their parents? Or if they bought you an exquisite opal pendant?
Yes, these are the actions of someone in the later stages of a good solid relationship - or would be, if I were going out with him.
Something rather essential appears to have been bypassed here, would you not agree?
And I can't even ask his close friends what's going on - because that would be me.
Suggestions welcomed.
[Wed Dec 23 13:10:07 1998]
From: A Butterfly Madness (lanfear)
Subject: My God, all these years I have been so deceived.
The medical profession are a load of bigoted lying hang on, this diary isn't x-rated.
What happened? I looked around all the 'Fat Acceptance' web sites. And found all the research studies people don't mention.
Did you know that only 5% of people manage to maintain a lower weight after dieting? And most of those can only do it by starving themselves.
That dieting is dangerous - associated with higher risks of cancer, heart disease, depression and many, many other things?
That dieting slows your metabolism down to the extent that the next time you try to diet you can't lose as much weight?
And that dieting is the major cause of obesity. And all these years, all these agonising, heartbreaking years, they've made me try to lose weight, try to diet. All these years they've told me that being so fat is unhealthy (not if you can manage to separate it from various other factors which may _cause_ obesity rather than being effects), and all these years they've sent me to the agonies of weight cycling, the psychological pain caused by being the victim of the last acceptable discrimination.
All these years they've been doing me more damage than the genetic problem they've tried to 'cure'.
All these years. And the only thing that can overshadow my joy at release is the bitterness of the wasted years, the hurting years, the blame years.
I'll never forgive them. And I'm not going to take it anymore.
