As i type this, spring has come but we’re still deep in jacket weather. As is usually the case, there’s ice on my windshield in the morning and i have to run my heater at night to keep it at 14c (aka: 57 freedoms). The sky is mottled with the fragmented remains of rain clouds that have been looming over us all day. The ground is lush, wet and as green as a living emerald. The air is cool and simultaneously both crisp and heavy with the smell of rain.

My yard bun buns have returned and the army of zig zag nut monkeys (aka: squirrels!) have made their demands for peanuts known. In return, i dispense them often but not enough to satisfy them. The plum tree in my front yard is laced with flowers and the birds have started to sing again.

I will have to worry about summer soon but for now, it’s nice to have spring on our doorstep even if it’s still not warm.

I’m making a bit of a hasty entry tonight because time is not on my side. Let me wind up my Cranky Old Man Rant machine against the stupidest fucking idea that humans have come up with since organized religion: Daylights Savings Time.

Looking outside right now one would think it’s a pleasant afternoon around 5p. It’s not. It’s 7p and i have yet to eat and soon as i’m done with that, i need to get to bed because shitty DST or not, 04.30 comes very fucking early.

Strange bit of trivia. The number of times i’ve actually slept to when my alarm goes off at 05.00 during the last three or four years is about three. The voices in my head always seem to wake me up right before or right at 04.30.

This particular entry is for someone from my distant past. BH. Truth be told, i’m still a bit stunned that you contacted me and i genuinely don’t know why you did. I was a shit toward you. If anything, i should have reached out to you a very long time ago to apologize and explain how i was being manipulated at the time but even that aside, i was an emotionally stunted ass. But just by virtue of saying hello, you punctured a blister i wasn’t even aware that i had. Hence an apology and collection of bizarre but hopefully amusing series of stories started to swirl, churn and unravel in my noodle all day Friday and Saturday. Those thoughts slipped the purchase of my mind and took flight in the 10 page note that i made.

And while i explained why i hoped that you wouldn’t write after having read it, it was expressed in my typical way that lacked explanation and came out as something kind of crass. While it’s true that i don’t want you to feel any kind of obligation to respond as i think people often do, there was something under the surface of my thoughts that i couldn’t articulate; thoughts that had no words but demanded that i listen to them anyway.

I would have eventually found and written you, by the way. I have some things on a bucket list that i intend to finish before i’m on the wrong side of the dirt. Some are ideas i need to share— things that i want others to build if i’m unable to, some are letters i need to write. I spend a significant amount of time composing letters in my head. Even if i’m not ready to write them, i find myself going over rough drafts of what i need to say and how it needs to be said.

Nonetheless, i was a bit shocked at how much came out of me on Sunday. It was necessary to write the apology part, to be accountable for my words and behaviors but it was also fun to write parts of it because i can laugh at some of the utter insanity that i’ve lived through. But it was emotionally exhausting. Hearing from you after more than two decades rattled me. I mean— i don’t really know you. We dated for one month and that was about thirty years ago. I don’t like being old enough to say “thirty years ago,” by the way, yet here we are.

I couldn’t tell you any specifics about the time we spent together other than for that time we slept, ate, worked, had sex and then slept again— it’s not like we stayed friends after that ( again— because of me) and it’s not as though our paths will cross again. So yes, hearing from you of all people rattled me. There’s only one other person in this world that could have rattled me harder than you did and last week if someone had dared me, i would have put my life savings on never hearing from either of you again.

I put a lot of myself in that note and i poured a lot of sincerity into it but it had a purpose. In the last couple of days, i’ve tried to articulate to the voices in my head why i said i hoped i wouldn’t hear from you. And while it is the reason i gave you, it’s also this— i’m afraid that you’ll ask questions that i won’t have the answers to. I’m afraid you’ll say i wasn’t as accountable for my words and behaviors from back then and demand more of me. I had to peel back some old scars to hammer that note out and i guess i’m just afraid that you’d come back to me and say it wasn’t enough.

And me being me, the easy thing is to just turn off the lights, close the door and walk away. But not only are my fears probably unreasonable (as many fears are), it deprives you of the chance to ask me for clarification, to ask questions or just tell me whatever you need me to know about what i put you through in those days should you choose to do so. And i don’t have the right to deprive you of that.

To that end, let me amend the last statement in that letter. I hope that i gave you a clear picture of what was going on with me and that my apologies were adequate but if there’s anything you want to add, if there’s anything you need to demand or ask of me or even if you just want to give me an earful— what have you— you know how to find me.

shelly.