callbacks | 5 ∅ [Anonymous Text]

Entry tags:

5 ∅ [Anonymous Text]

[You'd think Dave would have learned his lesson about anonymity, but maybe learning doesn't stick so well at ass in the morning when he can't sleep. At least it doesn't seem like he's really trying to mask his identity, here. It's just...a plausible deniability thing, maybe. Probably, given the content of his message.]

what was growing up like for you
like
how was your childhood
were you happy

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Then I left.

Now I have places where I live, but I don't know that I'd necessarily call any of them "home". It turns out that as you get older, home becomes less of a place and more of the people who make any place feel like one.

yeah
i can understand that

so then
what makes places feel like home

Having the people you love standing in them.

Barring that, the memories you attach to those places.

even bad ones?

I try to leave behind the bad ones.

[...]

how

By leaving behind the places.

I never said I was a very good role model for that sort of thing. But that's how I coped with things, frequently.

I hurt someone who loved me once, doing that. Leaving. I realized too late that he cared about me — I have a bad habit of assuming that people only care if I...go out of my way to make them.

did you ever go back
after you left him

I did. It took me ten years. He'd spent that time in a depression, blaming himself for my actions.

...Have you heard the phrase "treat the cause, not the symptom"?

uh sure
probably
seems like sound medical advice anyway

I went back to try to fix things, but I was treating the symptom, not the cause.

I think they did end up righting themselves in the end, but it wasn't because of me.

so
the symptom was
leaving?
and the cause was

???

Mm. No, the symptom was...he'd stopped doing the things that he'd enjoyed. Stopped exercising his skills. The cause was that he blamed himself for what I'd done.

I got him to exercise his skills again, but I never treated the cause. I never apologized, and I also never told him that nothing he did had any bearing on why I'd done what I'd done.

I should've told him he didn't fail me. He deserved to hear it from me, but he never did.

oh

what do you do
if you cant treat a cause

Maybe that depends on why you can't treat it, for starters.

what if the cause died three years ago
so theres no
meaningful reconciliation that could be had
if there was even the possibility of such a thing in the first place

That's more difficult, but not impossible.

Then you make peace within yourself, and honor the good, and lay to rest the bad.

that does sound harder

guess its not like i have anything more important to do around here though

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

5 ∅ [Anonymous Text]

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;

anonymous text;