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12 September 1998 |
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I dreamed about Robin last night, this morning, whenever dreams happen. I thought that chapter was closed, that lesson learned. Guess not. Tears of bitter, stale old pain are rolling off my cheeks. Nope, guess it's not over. I shouldn't really be writing now. Boober's birthday party is this afternoon, and many preparations need to be made, including cleaning the house. Some things scream to get out, though. He never read my journal anyway. I've posted letters to him in the Warehouse before, and really doubted they were ever seen. In our last days as a relationship, in my first months as a journaller, I knew from conversation that he did not ever look. I met him in Active Worlds. He was new, but picked up the interface very quickly. I liked his charm, his manner of speaking, his taste, his humor, his intelligence. We spent quite a bit of time together, and I thought we felt a connection. He bought a personal world for his own amusement, and invited me to help build it, which I did, with joy. It was a beautiful place, and all the people who built there were nice and creative. I fell completely in love with Robin. That was, and probably will be, the last time I ever fell completely in love with anyone. The day I'll always regret to the end of my days was the day he asked me if people actually make money at AW. If it were possible to build a business there. I said yes. It was true, people were doing commerce all over the place and yet all bases weren't covered. I'd just come out of a disappointment in that arena, and had learned many things about that series of mistakes that should have helped Robin make the most of his ideas, had he ever listened to me. Oh he did listen to me, about some things. About technical things, model building, world hosting, social activities in VR, all those kinds of things. With alarm though I saw him pile one commitment on top of another on top of another. "I just have a lot of irons in the fire," he'd tell me. "When this thing breaks, when the investors and clients stop watching and start moving, I can hire more people and you and I will have time... We just have to finish this one project and then we'll have something to show them." Well, "this one project" soon became another and another, and still these prospects didn't budge. We got busier and busier. I never saw or heard from him except on business matters, the status of my projects, how things stood at his end. Real personal contact became so seldom, so little. He just didn't have time to talk anymore, to build together, to look at art, to dream up impromptu poetry. This was around the time I was preparing to leave the Huz. I needed daycare in order to work efficiently. I needed money to get the daycare, but that was not forthcoming, so I worked as hard and as much as I could with two small children crawling all over me. This condition dragged on for months and months. The waiting for something to break, for that first investor to take the step, for that first client to come through... And I was losing my mind. You who were with me in the Warehouse know. You watched me. This was when SpringDew Web Design was born. I needed money. I needed a way out. I was able to do less and less (mostly unpaid) work for Robin, because I was very, very busy with (paid) work in web design. Building my future in a tangible way. So maybe I gave up on Robin. Or did he give up on me? Which was first? It became a matter of survival. I was suicidal. What should I have done? At some point in this long lonely stretch I took an additional identity of "mourningdove" and came down into his world and found him talking to someone. I asked a few questions, made a bit of poetry, and suddenly he was so eager to spend some time with me. Quite a bit of time. This precious time that he could not spare any of to be with Spring Dew. Was I a fool? Am I a fool? Is he a bastard or simply misunderstood? Is he a manipulating charlatan, or just somebody who makes mistakes? I've always believed the best about him, and always been told that the worst was more likely true. It was Robin who introduced me to polyamory, by the way. Not that he used that word for it. We'd had long talks on the nature of love and found that we saw things the same way, but he gave a legitimacy to my feelings. Knowing that there was another human being out there who felt like I did, it was another connection. It was he that gave me the star analogy that I later gave to Zach. If your star shines in my sky, no other star's light can obliterate yours, no other star can occupy that place in my sky that is yours. At the time, I felt so loved. But you have to actually keep in contact with a person if you are to keep them secure in your love for them. Don't you? To this day I still don't know if Robin ever really loved me, if he still loves me. Do I love him? Yes. How can I not? Do I want him? No. Not the Robin he came to be. I very much want the Robin I first knew, but think he could be completely fictitious. Regardless of his actual feelings one way or the other, the fact still remains that he used me for cheap labor. I can't feel very good about that. So, why am I dreaming about this now? Probably because so many questions have gone unanswered for so long, so many things taken on faith that later proved misplaced. I don't feel any closure. --Spring
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