Down the Rabbit Hole

Electronic Truths

I've been taking my lunch time breaks lately and trying to lousy assemble the parts that will become my book. Today I shifted through letters, pulling out one or two that were important and vital enough to be encompassed into the bigger work. This was a daunting task...there were more letters than I remembered. I marvel again at my devotion to this person, I wonder who I was during that time, someone who seems like such a stranger to me now. Its hard to believe I was ever the giddy and affectionate little romantic that these old letters revealed me to be. I read over my own words, gushing ramblings full of false hope punctuated by silly pics and clipart and I burn with shame and embarrassment. And then, I am simultaneously struck by panic that I've come too far in the other direction from that girl I once was and have hardened into a jaded and brittle soul. This book both challenges and plagues me. It invigorates and exhausts me. It is the most necessary thing I've attempted to write, and its going to take everything to get it all out and bring it all together.
Three months outside my wedding, I know the prospect of getting even a rough, fully compiled draft together is a virtual impossibility, but at least I am actively making the attempt to organize. It is, an honest and dedicated effort amid all the other things I have to be focused on at this time. An effort for which I have been rewarded with sleepless nights, headaches and general unease. Not to mention a few strangely odd occurences the most notable of which happened following a recent argument with my fiance. Pride and anger prompted me to plant myself alone and across the hall in a spare room. I tossed and turned, falling into spells of sleep only to be suddenly awakened by a riveting cold and the unshakable sense that someone or something was standing over me, leaning over the edge of the bed, just watching me. Then, several afternoons later, dropping into the seat of my car to leave work, I was suddenly assaulted by the very real, unmistakable and instantly recognizable scent of sweetness and rot. No sooner had my mind given it a name, it was gone and the customary smells of my car's interior surrounded me. I've not decided if these occurences are anything more than mental reminders, mental prompts meant to keep me on task or something more spectral in nature. Either way, I continue to plug away hoping that 2008 will be the year I get at least a rough draft assembled to polish and pursue for publication.