Choose your own catharsis...

I'll admit to a degree of disquiet I've had since receiving, reviewing, and re-reading your "Resurrection" email. I find myself wondering what your self-deprecation and indicated surprise at consideration, regular underestimations of personal value, expressions of surprise at external validation, have been for. 

Are they genuine? I believe so.
Are they fishing for compliments? Possibly.
Are they an expression of a request to continue? I've taken them as such. 

I wonder whether I've somehow misrepresented the value I place in our communication such that you've underestimated how important these letters have become. You've been unambiguous about their worth to you, the value you ascribe, and their conversity to the worth you feel you've been afforded in your 'Real World' life. Have I been any less so? Has my own yearning to be seen. heard, understood, been in any way unclear? The need to hear the audience say: 

"More, I prithee, more!"
"It will make you melancholy, Madame Becky."
"I thank it.
More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs.
More, I prithee, more."

(I owe a debt of gratitude to ChatGPT, who helped me find the verse I was looking for there)

I expect no written response; you can tell me when you see me. 

"And," I say in a way which would sound far more ominous were it not for the obvious literary reference, "you will see me." 

You're receiving this because I'm sitting on my cobbled-together knicked-from-kerbside-collections chair out the front of my gutted no-longer-feels-like-Home house dining on ashes and a rum+cold brew+coke. I'd be quiescing my mind with the umpteenth re-watch of Lower Decks right now were both my TV and Media Server not residing in boxes in a container on a truck (or train). I could be reading Lord Foul's Bane (which I'm now 15% of the way through having almost reached the point where I stopped 2/3 of a lifetime ago), but that will come soon enough. Instead, I'm writing because I feel, not so much inspired, but compelled to do so. 

19.5 years ago I left Perth. I organised a Farewell to say goodbye to anyone-and-everyone who wanted one. It seemed a momentous occasion - a turning point, mourned and celebrated with much pomp and pageantry. I remember my Going Away Party vividly - many pints of Newcastle Brown Ale at The Moon & Sixpence (which no longer exists) in the city, surrounded by loved ones. I was transported to the airport in a small parade, led to the gate in a procession led by a statuesque Chinese-Singaporean girl in Top Hat-and-Tails carrying an umbrella as her sceptre (we're having dinner tomorrow night). I recall blogging about it later, saying "As I looked out the window of the plane the rain fell like tears; I do not think it wept for me." 

This time is far more "not with a bang, but a whimper." 

I've been far too self-absorbed for that this time. It's far less like an end, or a beginning, just... a transition. In a chat with the Herald from that parade: 

Because I've had no desire for attention; "All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." No less importance, just far less impact. Not that there's not been any: 

(Do you think she got The Cure reference?)

I caught up with my "Winderkind-Uber-Genius Cray Supercomputer/HPC/Distributed Storage" friend last night; a fabulously broken ubermensch who's IQ dwarfs ours who I'm ashamed to say looks up to me as the closest he's found in his very-long 28 years of life to a mentor-and-peer. 

He owed me a pint. 

We wound up sitting here listening to my Mashups Playlist, talking about hyper-tech and The Singularity and my Penpal (he thinks you're fascinating and would rather like to meet you, just so you know), and as we were really getting into our stride my neighbour Dave wandered through the gate. 

Dave and I have never really been 'close', but we've always got along. He's rescued swarms of bees from my driveway - he keeps bees in the shade of the enormous gumtrees in his back yard, and always has honey for me which I give away because... you know, diabetic. He waves as he walks his dog past my fence. I grew the shrubs on my side of the wall between our houses so he could see the green fronds waving in the breeze from his kitchen. He keeps an eye on the place when I'm away. I once tried to convince him to shag my mum (don't get like that - she could use it, and he seems awfully single. They compromised, and she now provides him with clean jars for his honey, and he always saves a goodly amount for her. It's still sticky and sweet, and serves both their needs). He hung around for the rest of the evening, to the point where I added a gluten-free vego pizza when I put in a delivery order. 

It occurred to me as the three of us moved from tipsy, to sozzled, to decently drunk, that this was how I'd want my Last Day On Earth to be. No mourning, no Momentous Occasion, just Normal Connection. Another Day, because tomorrow will just be Another Day, but today we Eat, Drink, and Be Merry. 

He asked me when I was flying out, said that he was working from home on Thursday, offered to run me out to the airport. I was just going to call in an Uber; how could I decline? 

It occurred to me that I've been creating a circumstance which I call "Choose Your Own Catharsis". Rather than creating an Event or Occasion, I've been mostly letting people create the experience they want; their own personal closure however is meaningful to them, albeit with a little guidance. 

I spent my Last Friday with Ricky - one of our DNAD nights out for dinner, then laying out on a picnic blanket on the river at the same spot I wrote from previously ("And now for something completely different..." Sun, 20 Nov 2022, 17:38). I'm spending my First Friday with you; I joked about this week being "bookended by Raven-haired beauties" (I apologise for nothing). 

I've alluded previously to burning this motherfucker to the ground and walking away with my way lit by the fires of burning bridges, but it seems better somehow, more poignant, to go gently into that good night. Let the quiet thud of my footsteps behind me echo and create their own thunder, let the vacuum in my wake create a wind. It's not the first time I've departed, ("All of this has happened before,") and it will not be the last ("and all of this will happen again."). 

And on that fading note: 

Regards, 

Peter.