So after everythings. And I do mean .. everythings. Because everything plus everything times everything compounded by everything equals ... everythings. So after all the everythings ... I avoided the First Fires and I avoided my family and I avoided my friends and I avoided my "not so friends" and most of all I avoided Seveya.
Seems a cruel thing to do .. it is. It is a very cruel thing to do but a necessary thing to do. I had spoken to Ayguili about my concerns. About the fact that Seveya felt safe with me. That she felt protected by me .. and she knew I would protect her if she came to me again. Now I had gotten a promise from Seveya to wait three hands before throwing herself at me. Yes .. it was safe .... no I was not sure it was the right thing for her yet. Did it make my life easier? Of course. I could have everything and give nothing. Would I take that from a Tuchuk woman of the First Fires .. a woman I had respect for? Not without a lot of convincing and I .. was not convinced.
So it fell on me to protect her .. from me. To give her some space to think and be rational. To consider her life and her future and what she wanted from it .. for her. Without me. If I died tomorrow .. what would she want? To be a camp slave? To die on my pyre? Or did she want to be Seveya .. the woman that I knew some about and had learned to respect. Did she want to ride her Yew and be responsible in her clan and find the many little ways that the members of the First Fires served the rest of the Tribe? Without those moments of fear .. fear of her uncle ... fear of ever getting through to me ... fear of never being enough for me ... without those fears making her feel as if she did not have time to think ... what did she think? What did she feel? What did she want out of this future of hers?
I wanted to know .. Seveya ... the real Seveya .... without my own wants and desires and scars and weaknesses and needs and anger getting in the way. Because I know me .. and at some point I have to know who she is beneath all that or I can not believe in her. I can not have any faith in her if she remakes herself to my whims. I have too many whims and none of them are consistent. I am careless with my whims .. I leave them laying around for anyone to stumble over. I needed to work on that .. but until I do ... I need to know that Seveya is safe and secure inside of herself. That she understands her feelings well enough to know herself in the middle of them. Feelings are lying controlling sneaky fuckers and without a basic thread of knowledge of who you are you can easily get lost in them.
And the first thing that needed to happen for this to happen was that I needed to be scarce and not go stirring up all her feelings and making the waters all muddy and murky and hard to see through. The hurt of my distance would be nothing compared to the hurt of her losing herself. I wanted with everything I am as a man to ensure that she did not do that. That she did not lose herself .. not because of her uncle .. not because of Ayguili and not because of me. Seveya deserved a chance .. a chance to learn ... a chance to be.
And there were plenty of women around who knew what it was to make those kinds of choices and stick with them .. I figured they would have her back. They would share their wisdom and their knowledge and their survival skills.
How to not trip over a man's whims and drown in your own feelings for him-101.
And I was going to give them a chance to do that without said man hanging around and getting in the way.
Not that all this was easy for me. I had been given a gift .. a gift of "everything" and I had to give it back and be mature and responsible when there were parts of me .. parts of me that were not so grown up and mature ...that wanted to keep my gift and play with it and make it mine. Drag it all over and show it to my friends and be proud of it and then leave it out in the rain and forget where I laid it. Two days later to wake up and demand to know why it was not where I wanted it when I wanted it .. despite where it was happened to be where I left it. And to throw a colossal temper about the entire thing. Find my gift .. clean it up and patch it back together and then start the entire process all over again.
And .. knowing that about myself still does not change a damn thing.
Seems a cruel thing to do .. it is. It is a very cruel thing to do but a necessary thing to do. I had spoken to Ayguili about my concerns. About the fact that Seveya felt safe with me. That she felt protected by me .. and she knew I would protect her if she came to me again. Now I had gotten a promise from Seveya to wait three hands before throwing herself at me. Yes .. it was safe .... no I was not sure it was the right thing for her yet. Did it make my life easier? Of course. I could have everything and give nothing. Would I take that from a Tuchuk woman of the First Fires .. a woman I had respect for? Not without a lot of convincing and I .. was not convinced.
So it fell on me to protect her .. from me. To give her some space to think and be rational. To consider her life and her future and what she wanted from it .. for her. Without me. If I died tomorrow .. what would she want? To be a camp slave? To die on my pyre? Or did she want to be Seveya .. the woman that I knew some about and had learned to respect. Did she want to ride her Yew and be responsible in her clan and find the many little ways that the members of the First Fires served the rest of the Tribe? Without those moments of fear .. fear of her uncle ... fear of ever getting through to me ... fear of never being enough for me ... without those fears making her feel as if she did not have time to think ... what did she think? What did she feel? What did she want out of this future of hers?
I wanted to know .. Seveya ... the real Seveya .... without my own wants and desires and scars and weaknesses and needs and anger getting in the way. Because I know me .. and at some point I have to know who she is beneath all that or I can not believe in her. I can not have any faith in her if she remakes herself to my whims. I have too many whims and none of them are consistent. I am careless with my whims .. I leave them laying around for anyone to stumble over. I needed to work on that .. but until I do ... I need to know that Seveya is safe and secure inside of herself. That she understands her feelings well enough to know herself in the middle of them. Feelings are lying controlling sneaky fuckers and without a basic thread of knowledge of who you are you can easily get lost in them.
And the first thing that needed to happen for this to happen was that I needed to be scarce and not go stirring up all her feelings and making the waters all muddy and murky and hard to see through. The hurt of my distance would be nothing compared to the hurt of her losing herself. I wanted with everything I am as a man to ensure that she did not do that. That she did not lose herself .. not because of her uncle .. not because of Ayguili and not because of me. Seveya deserved a chance .. a chance to learn ... a chance to be.
And there were plenty of women around who knew what it was to make those kinds of choices and stick with them .. I figured they would have her back. They would share their wisdom and their knowledge and their survival skills.
How to not trip over a man's whims and drown in your own feelings for him-101.
And I was going to give them a chance to do that without said man hanging around and getting in the way.
Not that all this was easy for me. I had been given a gift .. a gift of "everything" and I had to give it back and be mature and responsible when there were parts of me .. parts of me that were not so grown up and mature ...that wanted to keep my gift and play with it and make it mine. Drag it all over and show it to my friends and be proud of it and then leave it out in the rain and forget where I laid it. Two days later to wake up and demand to know why it was not where I wanted it when I wanted it .. despite where it was happened to be where I left it. And to throw a colossal temper about the entire thing. Find my gift .. clean it up and patch it back together and then start the entire process all over again.
And .. knowing that about myself still does not change a damn thing.
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