Well, quite a while after midnight, actually, but.... hell if that really makes a difference.

Perhaps I should take another sedative. Perhaps.

I'm pondering how to best convey the past couple days. How can I convey something of which I'm not even sure about the full extent? Even of what I do know, I'm forced to ponder how much I want to reveal here. How much do I want to reveal to the public? About myself? About others?

There's no way to really make this narrative complete without stepping beyond boundries I have previously shied away from. I don't think I want to cross those boundries right now. (And no, I'm not just talking about my so-called "ramblings policies", which are mainly meant to protect the identity/privay of others. Although that does play a role, my larger concern here is about my own secrets. Yes, even some of us crazy web journalers, or whatever we're called, still sometimes hold a few things very close to our chests.)

How the hell can I put this? I want to convey something of what I've learned, or what I think I've learned. Damn, after all this, it sure seems like I better have learned something, right? But have I really? Or will my life just go on, day to day, pretty much as always, with little or no real transformation. It was all very entertaining, thank you very much. Now I'll just throw the whole thing in my little black bag under the heading of "interesting curiosities", and maybe someday in the future, I might take it back out, gaze at it, and take some sort of strange pathetic comfort in having happened upon yet another phenomenon.

God, I'm going off on the abstract vague shit again, and that's NOT what I wanted here. The words may sound right, they may be perfect, but it's all a bunch of theoretical mumbo jumbo until we actually do something with it.

I go through life, living as an observer. Don't get involved. Don't push buttons. Do what you need to do to sustain yourself, mind your own business, and beyond that, keep out of trouble. It makes for a relatively safe existence. Then, after everything's all over, come home at night and write about the events here, all in some vain attempt to rejuvenate my experiences -- lend them some validity. It's as if I labor under the belief that producing a cleverly constructed record of what happened will somehow make up for the fact that while it was happening, I was off hiding in the corner instead of participating.

Yes, saying that may be harsh, but I have my doubts that those who know me in meatspace will contradict it. (And no, guys, you don't have to respond to that, one way or another.) I also don't believe that stating the above fact constitutes self-destructive thinking, or beating up on myself. I have, consciously or unconsciously, been known to occassionally engage in such behavior here. This is not one of those times.

I few blocks of time ago, I came to know a person I often refer to here as my mentor. The reason for using this title was because as well as looking up to this individual... ("An individual who calls himself... Morphius." Sorry. That just popped into my head. lol. ;) Ahem. The reason for using this title was not only because I looked up to this individual, but because I believed that this stronger soul had the potential to help bring me out of my shell. To drag me kicking and screaming into the fray of reality. To free my mind from its own prison.

This weekend.... this weekend, this weekend, this weekend. Where to begin? What to say? What not to say? Where to end?

Well, let's just say that on Friday afternoon, I did get my mentor's attention. In return, I got a heavy dose of cold hard reality. This included pointing me to look, long and hard, at some aspects of myself to which I had become willfully blinded. Some things hit like a lead ball in the stomach at high velocity. Yes, at times I was feeling physically nauseated, and it wasn't because of anything I ingested.

Ultimately, the only person who can truly shape my destiny, decide who I am, is me. Yeah, yeah, I know that sounds clichéd. When you're staring certain parts of yourself you've neglected, things you may really hate, and you realize that the only key to fixing it is you, that realization can be just as much a pain in the ass as it is a blessing. There is no magic pill. (I'll refrain from assigning said pill any specific colors, since I think we've had just about enough of that by now.)

<Very abbreviated summary>
Many words of wisdom were imparted. The toughest and most bitter morsels were given with a smile, a nod, and a sympathetic touch. In return, and in an attempt to help the mentor form a more complete picture when dispensing advise, Bitscape shared some aspects of his life which are less commonly known, except by a few. More good words were given, and...
</Very abbreviated summary>

Bam. Rage goes down. So much for the email addiction.

So here it was, Sunday morning, and I was finding myself pinging like a pathetic fool. Nothing I could do. Sometimes, you really don't fathom how much certain things really mean to you until they're ripped away for a while. Oh, but what an inopportune time for it to happen. Too bad. Such is life.

I reread a bunch of the messages in my inbox again, and attempted to get on with my day, feeling quite phased. Fast forward to now.

So, the question on my mind? What do I do with all this? How can I apply it to my life? I really don't want to just let it all drift by. I'd like to think that this all will amount to more than just another edition of "Bitscape's Weekend Entertainment Adventures", of little bearing in the long run, and soon to be forgotten.

What I really do with all of it is up to me. How willing am I to step out of my shell? To do things which will surely make me uncomfortable? To take risks? What will those risks be? Where to even begin?

These questions I ponder, but I don't want to ponder too long. At some point, one must stop pondering, get up, and take action. The "what" part of it is still unsolved.

Well, there it is. The big tale. Now I'm going to try to go back to sleep. Perhaps when I wake up, I'll tell of my weekend in a whole different way, such that you won't even recognize it as being the same weekend. Maybe.

Two more days off work to go. We'll see what happens.