Chapter 195: Day 194

Day 194,

Made the walk into the Village today.  Funny how something I used to do twice a day now feels like an accomplishment.  It took me half again as long as it used to, but I like to think that’s better time than I would have made a week ago.  

Maiko made the walk with me most of the way.  To be honest, I’m not sure I would have made it without her.  Not a matter of being physically up to the challenge, but emotionally.  

While I’ve been told that the one incident is the worst I’ll ever get from the nature sprite and that it’s exceedingly unlikely to happen again and the rational, conscious part of me wants to believe it, the more instinctive, subconscious part of me is not so easily convinced.  The further I got from the house, the more my pulse quickened.  My mind began looping through improbably, if not impossible, what-ifs.  By the time we reached the main road, it was all I could do to control my breathing and keep from shaking.  I found myself involuntarily casting my mind back to that day, viewing the cobblestone path as the border against that deeper, darker wood.  My inner monologue kept bouncing between a frustrated screaming that there’s nothing to worry about - that I just needed to get over myself and move on already - and an incoherent certainty that something awful would happen if I took another step.

I froze there, for a moment at least.  Even with Maiko’s presence.  Without her, I fear I would have stood there far longer, perhaps even lost my nerve altogether and retreated back to the house.  In the end, it wasn’t so much that her being there comforted me as the potential shame of having a witness to my failure outweighed my fears and forced me to push through them.

It did get better though once I was past that hump and got moving again.  Perhaps it was the demonstrable fact that nothing bad was happening.  That’s probably what I need most of all.  To just get back to my old routine and prove to myself that everything is fine.  And sooner or later (the sooner the better) that’s going to mean making the commute on my own again.  I can’t keep relying on Maiko as a crutch (or anyone else for that matter).  It’s not healthy for me, and more importantly it’s not fair to her.

It frustrates me though that this time was so much worse than the other times I’ve made the walk between my house and the Village since then.  It should be getting easier with time, not harder.  Maybe it’s because it was the first time walking it (as opposed to riding with James and family) since my illness and I know how much weaker I am now.  Or maybe it’s because at first I was in a sort of denial or even shock over it and on some level wasn’t accepting it as truly real until I hit my breaking point and opened up to others about it.  Perhaps I simply have good days and bad days and this just happened to be an especially bad day.

For now, I’ll just keep pushing through it.  Hope hard enough that I’ll get better, fake it until I make it, and focus on the future until I reach that state for real.

And speaking of focusing on the future instead of dwelling on the past, I have a far larger stack of requests of various sorts that have piled up than I would have expected for the past few days.  Not just book and record inquiries, but statements for events to record and storytelling invitations.  It’s like everyone in the Village was putting off any business they might have had with the Archivist until the children’s classes were over for the season.

I almost regret setting that box back up before leaving the other day.

 

Well, that’s been a full day of running up and down the length and breadth of the Village.  Well, less “running” and more “ambling at a moderate pace.”  Still didn’t get through everything.  Fortunately (I think?) most of the requests for recording events were for things that had already happened over the past couple months, so it leaves my future schedule somewhat less packed.  It meant tracking down and interviewing multiple people per request though in order to get a more accurate accounting.  Doesn’t do to have just one point of view on the tale of a trio of fishing boats slamming into one another and capsizing at the onset of a storm and the debacle of mediation that followed with the first fisher decrying the second’s recklessness as being at fault for the situation while the third was hailing his heroism in helping them all get safely back to shore.  That one was at the bottom of the stack, so I’m pretty sure it happened while I was out sick rather than the reporting being put off.

Made use of the opportunity though to try and track down Vernon and Lin to make arrangements to go over various plans.  Vernon I caught hold of, but Lin was out attending to her patient in the outskirts, so I just left a note at her house asking to meet up when she got back.

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I didn’t get around to visiting Pat however, and the requests for tellings I’m putting off replying to as long as I reasonably can.

Well, that’s enough catching my breath for now.  Time to steel myself for the walk back to the house.  I hate to admit it, but I just checked with the bracelet and got the sense that Maiko’s waiting for me to escort me back.

Hopefully getting back into the routine of this daily pedestrian commute will help me get better on both fronts.

 

Back at the house.  Will head to bed after this entry.  After awkwardly starting to say something and then stopping myself all evening, right before retiring for the night (so just a few minutes ago) I made myself do a last minute blurting out that I want to try to make the trip to and from the Village on my own tomorrow.

Maiko gave a one-word answer of assenting acknowledgement.

Embarrassed for whatever reason, I started rambling about how I meant no offense and appreciated her looking out for me but I needed to prove to myself that I could do it on my own and I’ll have the bracelet on me so if something does happen she’ll know but I’m sure I’ll be fine.

That same response.  Technically positive but the emotions behind it nigh-unreadable if present at all.

And then an awkward exchange of “Good night”s.

I dearly hope I didn’t hurt or offend her; made her feel unwanted/unneeded in some way.  I don’t think I did.  From anyone else, that sort of response would have me thinking they were either highly bothered by what I’d said, highly distracted, or simply uncaring, but that was honestly pretty in line with Maiko’s normal manner of speaking and I don’t think she’s normally any of those things.  

Still, there’s enough uncertainty to make me fret.

 

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