Five Hours Ago:

That guy I mentioned, in my third-period class, was talking with some other classmates near me - usually he sits on the other side of the room, in silence, with his ears full of sound buds. I don't know quite how it came up, how it turned from what kind of tattoos he wanted, but at some point he said, 'Mr. [Algebra One] is always trying to get me to join GSA. But I'm like, No, because I don't need to join some club to know I'm gay. He always wants me to come, 'cause I'm one of the only totally les' - lez? - 'people in the school.'

I admire and even agree with the sentiment, but I do feel like the school's Gay-Straight Alliance could be improved with the addition of a few more members, so I say, 'Well, we do always need new people.' This had the intended effect of bringing me into the conversation and keeping the topic on queerity. He asked me if I was 'totally les,' saying 'Yeah, I kinda figured you were like me.' I told him about me not really considering myself lesbian, but definitely queer, and how I had thought he was trans. His response? 'Oh, yeah, I'm totally gonna do that someday.' Meaning, as was revealed as the conversation progressed, with participation from two or three surrounding classmates, one of whom confessed to being bi-curious herself - Excuse me, I have to restart that sentence, as the extra clauses became so numerous that the beginning was lost. Meaning that he really is transgender but intends to keep living as a lesbian for a while before making any sort of transition. This is why I keep calling him 'he' even after learning that he's 'not trans yet.'

So that was actually a remarkably interesting and successful discussion. I do wish he had come to the Gay-Straight Alliance meeting, as there were only five people there, including me, and the other four had paired off into two chatting pairs, leaving me rather bored and prompting Mr. Algebra One, the club's supervisor, to talk to me after they had left. We had a long discussion, almost all through fourth period, about me being all alone at school all the time, et cetera. It made me tear up a bit - no, that's an understatement, I really cried a little. But he really was a better counsellor than my professional therapist, so it was even worth missing 'Tribal karaoke of Christmas carols in Latin' and the long-awaited reading of 'Manlius the Giant-Killer.'

Six Months Ago:

Not quite six months to the day, but even so. Tomorrow it will have been six months to the day. Six months since last I saw the rare and radiant maiden. Six months since I said goodbye, said that I loved her. I've gone back and changed her name in my old journals, given her a codename. Him, too. My ex-friend, the one who didn't show up, wasn't there for me six months ago. They're both codenamed now. Grey and Leigh. I don't know why. Maybe it makes them less real. Maybe. Maybe it makes me less real, too. Maybe if I can turn them into fiction, maybe I can become fiction myself. Maybe we'll all just exist inside my mind, characters, characters in a vessel that is the writer, just a vessel, just characters, just a story...

One Year Ago:

I seem to have removed the pages from my old paper journal. They didn't belong there; it was a summer journal. I still have them, but not here, alas. But I do remember.

It must not have been one year ago to the day. It was a Friday, and the same date never falls on the same day two years in a row. But how? Here's evidence. From my old Calculus notebook:

17 December - Grey's not here. I bought her chocolates and she's not here. I want her to know that I love her.

Bizarre timeline notwithstanding... Yes, that's the story. While Christmas shopping, I managed to buy a box of chocolates for her. I didn't tell anyone that I so much as had them, let alone to whom I intended to give them. On the last day of school before the holiday, which mysteriously seems to have been the seventeenth of December then as now, I brought this box to school and left it on her desk. I was terrified - everything about her terrified me, of course. Terrified to see her reaction, and yet terrified in a positive way. That makes no sense, but it's the truth.

She didn't show up. She didn't come to school that day. When I realised she wasn't coming to Calculus, I wrote that note in my notebook. It was the first time I had ever written that I loved her, though I had been thinking it since the moment I met her, and believing it... I don't know when I really believed. It wasn't the opportune moment, and I erased the bit about the love.

That afternoon I hid the chocolates in my coat and declared that I was going for a walk. I walked all the way to her house - not terribly far, perhaps a mile. As I approached, my fear grew. I doubted whether I could even do it. The last few blocks, I had to encourage myself out loud. But I made it. I brought that gift right to her door, and didn't just leave it there and walk away, either, no, I rang the doorbell, and spoke to her mother (it's a wonder she could understand me, I must have been speaking so fast), and was even invited inside the house... She was there, having stayed home from school on account of illness, and her family was there, and her boyfriend Solace - I remember the exact words I used in my journal on that point: 'And Solace was there, curse him, when is he not,' - Anyway, she thanked me, and hugged me (surprisingly, I was still solid enough for her to hug, but I melted completely then...), and gave me an invitation to her birthday party (to which, despite my vague entreaties to my family, I was geographically unable to attend), whether or not she had intended to before I showed up on her threshold with chocolates....

It was that evening that I wrote, in my old paper journal, 'I'm so obviously in love.' Still, in the same sentence, I tried to deny being gay. Of that I am now ashamed. But at least I acknowledged the love. At least....

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Negative Two Weeks Ago:

I will have been stranded on holiday for nigh on two weeks. The holiday, wherever it will have been, will have been reasonably pleasant, but it will have been nearly two weeks without the sanctuary of Oasis. How many thoughts will I have had and lost, how many feelings, unable to be written down? How many posts will I have to read? How late into the night will I remain awake, reading, catching up on all that I have missed? Weekends away are difficult enough - and there have been remarkably few of them since I joined here, as my father has usually come here rather than us going to him - but what of an entire holiday? I shudder now at the thought...

Returning now to my blue funk, and trying to replace the immediate memories of six and twelve months ago with something more mundane... Pizza, perhaps, or literature. Yes, vainly shall I seek to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the - But not so eagerly do I wish the morrow, oh, no.

End random ramblings.