You should know that some of the things I’ve posted since the late crisis began have upset Emily. We have discussed the possibility of certain amendments or edits and she feels they would blow things even further out of proportion. So I’m sort of posting this instead, as a way of both smoothing a couple things (maybe) and also just examining and analyzing the precariousness of my current position and why that leads to me making decisions that you or Emily or someone else may disagree with.

Throughout this situation, and crystallizing once I got to Liberia and finally saw Emily in person, I have been of almost precisely two minds about the whole ordeal. On the one hand, I am incredibly hurt, both by the specific results of the series of decisions Emily has made and especially by the way she has conducted enacting them. On the other hand, I am still deeply in love with this woman and want only what is best for her. This would be easier if I felt less hurt, easier if I could hate Emily somehow, and much easier if I could not simultaneously hold both of the feelings I hold at once. But the circumstances are what they are and I don’t see any real way to change them. It is impossible to fathom feeling any less pain, except maybe extremely gradually and painstakingly over time. I have no interest in hating Emily. And so I persist in this vaguely twilit state of near-schizophrenia.

Compounding this, of course, is my deep desire to live a life in public, with special focus on emotional honesty. Now many of you may just disagree with that approach to life on face, in which case I don’t know why you’re reading this. You should examine why you’re reading this and maybe find some merit in this approach after all. Or maybe you’ll use words like “car crash” and “train wreck” and I think that will also tell you something about yourself and your approach. In any event, this is how I’ve chosen to approach my life and it includes the effort to try to hold myself to a standard of consistency as a human being that most people don’t even spend time thinking about. I’m not saying I hit the mark all the time or that the existence of this blog is evidence that I’ve advanced in some way. But I see no reason to start abridging things now, at the most critical juncture of my personhood that I have ever faced. If anything, this tool and approach to life become infinitely more important in a crisis, not less.

Part of what frustrates Emily is that she doesn’t have a blog of her own that she uses to talk about her emotions. She has a blog, but she hasn’t posted since this all began. She has no interest in open and wide-spanning communication about this and thinks it’s inappropriate on face. At the same time, she’s happy with the way things have turned out, so there isn’t much for her to try to deal with. It would be interesting to see how she would have reacted had I done something like this to her. But as the person who doesn’t see a roadmap to get to September 1st, much less beyond it, I have more of a need to deal with things, to explicate, to create a record of my own journey and progress, and to share that with everyone.

You should understand and internalize how much I want Emily to feel loved and supported right now. That’s not always clear, because I am often reacting to extreme emotional duress and suffering that inclines me to lash out or to rail against the sources of that pain that I find incomprehensible. But I am not trying to get you to dislike Emily. I am interested in everyone supporting Emily and her moving on to have the best life she can under this set of decisions. I want to be her friend and I want her to keep her friends. Please don’t interpret anything I say or do as an infringement on those goals.

At the same time, I’m losing enough of everything in my life right now that I simply can’t afford to willingly sacrifice more. I have to process in the way that will help me survive this situation. I have to appeal to friends and even acquaintances to discuss the unfairness of this set of circumstances. I have to recommit myself to a life lived in the open because this is the only way I survived prior challenges and heartaches. I am an idealist, and while a world without privacy may sound like hell to you, it’s my conviction that it’s as close to utopia as we can get. The most any one person can try to do is live their life in accordance with their own ideals and be thoughtful about what those ideals are. That’s all I’m trying to do here.

Please understand that it’s hard. I really hope none of you ever have to find out how hard this situation is.