Diotima – Homesickness
From the private notes of Diotima Erthrea:
Being doubly homesick is a feeling I did not particularly need but here we are. I suppose as is often true, I did this to myself. I chose to go to school thousands of miles away, and I chose to cross the dimensional divide to see a better life here. So yes, I did it to myself… but it doesn’t mean I can’t feel sad, or melancholy, or whatever this is.
I’m probably just tired.
No, I’m not being fair to myself. I’m not just tired, and it’s okay to feel sad. Fine. There. I said it. Wrote it. Whatever. I think our reading about the fall of Netheril triggered this… being reminded that many of the places I’ve called home are forever out of reach, knowing that the ties that tethered me to the world I once called home have long since unraveled. I love it here, but I cannot deny that there’s this feeling of… I dunno, loss I guess. Loss of what might have been. Loss of who I was, which, let’s be real, is probably not a terrible turn of events but… yeah. I guess I’ve never really been a fan of me, you know? But sometimes I’m sat thinking and I’m like “okay but she was kind of cool in her own way. I sort of miss being her, sometimes. But mostly, I miss the people she lost.”
Okay fuck you, self, I’m not crying you’re crying. Ugh.
Yes, okay. I know that pretending that ‘she’ wasn’t just a less experienced me is a conceit that I entertain. But… we’re different, in so many ways. Hells, she would never have written this for one, she’s have rolled her eyes, insisted that we stop feeling sorry for ourselves, and gone off to get shit done. And probably given me that look she had, the one that said ‘you are not worth my time’ that made some people hating her so, so much. Tolerant of incompetence, she was not. I think I’ve gotten better about that, a little.
And you know what? She was not as tough as she thought, she was just… locking all her trauma in a box, dying a little every time she did, draining her joy, her capacity to love with every wound she got. Not really caring about anything, especially herself.
Anyway…
So yeah, I’m missing who I was, maybe I’m missing the places to which I can never return. But I never want to go back.