Two entire cycles of the sun since I last picked up my journal, and I haven’t the slightest inkling of where to begin. I could flounder and struggle to relate some summary of events that would undoubtedly fall short. I won’t. Today is my birthday – another year claimed with total indifference.
I have done as I told myself I would and kept my distance from Alo. No long talks or well-meant bottles of wine; no reading and rereading for illusory connection to the source. A pointless despondency, I realize; nothing could or ever would occur. I am not that person, and even if I were half-mad, drunk, and temporarily bereft of wits he could be steadfastly relied upon to reject any incident of coquetry. I suppose my hope is to discourage any deeper feelings of warmth (Perhaps this is what attraction feels like? Have I never experienced it before?). I don’t want to be the woman ruminating over another woman’s husband, and not just for the moral disparity such a condition describes. A miserable existence is guaranteed by perpetually wanting something one cannot ever have. It isn’t a matter of the body that contains him, though that, too, is inarguably flawless. Age and experience has tempered the effortless chaos of a handsome youth into a thousand stories carved into the skin. Regardless, it’s his mind. His mind is what irrevocably appeals; that barbed intellect that both intimidates and inspires. What satisfaction could ever compare to a mere conversation?
Rarely have I felt so keenly aware of the flimsy sagacity of youth. A child with a crush, as they say. Infatuation. I maintain my private distance, and I wait for it to pass.
At the end of the day, journal, – May I call you journal? Look at me, I’m jesting. – I am starting to suspect an imbalance of humors. I feel drowned under melancholia, and I cannot seem to surface for breath. Perhaps it’s Yule coming up so soon and unexpected, or the little ones either volunteered or volunteering for gifts they would not otherwise have received, seeing their sweet faces and hearing their voices plead. Perhaps it’s the ignominious nature of the Baron’s offer, preparing myself to be scrutinized and found wanting by those I have long called friends, and knowing I would be foolish to refuse my one-day children the possibility. Perhaps it’s swearing I see Alexander on every corner; see him laughing and smiling, vanishing into the crowd before I can call to him. A man grown, his rakish confidence but a beaten echo on an older face. I see him dressed down in the garb of a freeman, hair thrown back, tattered cloak beating at his heels. I miss my brother so badly I see a dead man in the streets.
Father visited this evening for supper. I presume the occasion was inspired by my birthday, and it was gracious of him to come. Yet still his manner is forbidding, and I have never known how to mend him. Raidne running from her would-be groom and my decision to shelter her did not earn me his affection; on the contrary, I believe that Grand Magnate or no, he has added my name to his short list of failures. When last we met he talked only of the state of carpet imports. Tonight, he barely spoke to me at all.
I feel that something has to break. Something, somewhere, has to shatter. I need some nebulous, untold thing and I need it drastically. I need help with the Merchants that Corlan (Should I say Damien? How distraught I’ve been to pass by the Reeves’ courtyard and see the notice about a missing Justiciar, knowing where he is and too fearful to write Brynieve…) cannot or will not provide. I need the guidance of friends and loved ones either lost or divided. What would Zeita say, and would I still be wise to believe her? Have I ever made another friend, or just developed a knack for turning a blind eye to brittle gestures? For the first time the stark reality of isolation is looming on all sides. I don’t know what to do with it.
E.C. 12/5/366