Drifting on Empty Seas...
In August I was back to feeling adrift and isolated, and it was worse than ever. I spent the first two Saturdays of that month taking pictures of abandoned buildings around town. The second Saturday I got my legs bit up by fire ants and barely made it home in time to take a Benadryl to alleviate an unexpected allergic reaction.At the end of August, Peter, a South Korean high-school exchange student, arrived to live at our house for the school year. At the end of August, I had what was to be a most important conversation with some retired missionaries who lived on the outskirts of town about mission work and the value of starting small.
On September 1st, Leanne was passing through town with some high school friends on the way to the beach, and over lunch we got to have healthy face-to-face closing statements. Also that afternoon i met some retired missionaries who showed me the value of starting out small. The next day I went to Charlotte with my dad and some friends to see my most favorite band in the world, the Vigilantes of Love.
September 11th-- ‘nuf said. Leanne decided to write about and compile her reasons for leaving the cult for the sake of anyone else who might be struggling with the same thing or trying to help someone who was. It largely consisted of pertinent journal entries from the past 10 years. She sent it to me to proofread, and it was upon reading it that I realized that the Taliban had a colony and Osama bin Laden had at least one brother if not many in Greenville, SC. On September 17th, I had three very surreal dreams all in one night. On September 21, I invited some friends to come out to dinner and they forgot. I went home and watched parts of the September 11th Telethon, trying to bring Leanne up on the telephone but knowing she was on the phone with her childhood sweetheart. How lonely can you get? The next weekend, I went on the Men’s Retreat sponsored by my church. At the end of that month, I was officially debt-free, having paid off my car and school loans within a month of each other.
Coming Home.
The first weekend in October, I went to Greenville one last time to visit the family who served as a refuge to Leanne during her flight. It was a very nice visit which served as another kind of closure to the whole ordeal. On October 12th, I started contributing to the company 401k plan, now that I had no more debt to pay off. Also that weekend, I had an exquisite time of remembrance and reunion and the 125th Grove City College Homecoming.
On October 18th, I bought half of our house from my parents, securing a mortgage payment for myself, and officially establishing the concept of “Wit’s End” in physical reality. Also late in October, I was moved to the Model Year 2004 Team at work, which essentially moved me from responsibility for the current product to assisting with the next year’s diesel fuel injector-- making functional and durability improvements, reducing product cost, etc. Over the ensuing months I grew to love my job more than ever.
In the first few days of November my parents and I went half and half on a complete replacement of the ventilation system in the house. In a few days, the asthma and allergies that I had been struggling with that fall absolutely disappeared.
On Thanksgiving day, I sat down to a huge dinner, and could hardly eat anything after practically fasting all day.
The Monday after thanksgiving, I called Leanne to see how she was doing. She too, had had an interesting weekend. Rob proposed to her and she accepted, and then she went with him to speak to her family, and they mostly laughed in her face and almost disowned her.
Near the end of November I spent a most wonderful evening with good friends watching that most unusual movie, “O Brother, Where art Thou?” A good time was had by all. Also in November, I found out from the admissions office that since I wasn’t an electrical engineer, I couldn’t be accepted into the Master’s Degree program in electrical engineering. Go figure-- if only someone had told me that before I went to all that trouble.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
On December 3rd, I opened my website, “Wit’s End Online”, which I affectionately call my “Page Home”. My brother Dave came home for Christmas break in mid-December, and I went to see the first movie of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy with many friends on the second day it was out, and was positively enchanted by it. The next day my brother Tom flew in from San Francisco, and boy were his arms tired. The next week, Peter Park’s sister arrived from the same town, and on the 28th we set an occupancy record at Wit’s End: eight people. In the last week of the year, I made up for some lost time in terms of reading, in subjects as varied as how to program in HTML, Psychology, Gardening, the influence of Charity in modern society, and 19th century historical fiction. The last week of the year was a welcome and relaxing end to an inadvertently harrowing year.That’s it in a Nutshell.
And for those of you who might only take a casual interest in the doings of this particular pilgrim (which you are welcome to do), it should be sufficient. But if you would like to imbibe a more in-depth exposition and analysis of lessons learned, then make your way to the old Page Home: http://home.sc.rr.com/fromwitsendAnd point your clicker to the left side of the window and careen across the timescape that is my web journal. I haven’t completely finished putting all my thoughts down as verbiage about all these things (though I am about half done), but you may rest assured that I will be adding entries on a weekly basis, so come back often; I promise you it won’t be dull.
And for you die-hard papyrus fans, i’ll most likely put it all in a more conventional newsletter form, especially if you ask for it particularly. The more requests for paper I receive, the quicker i’ll finish the paper newsletter for the record.
For the foreseeable future, however, I think that I will give in to the nigh-irresistible pressure to take up a semi-permanent presence in cyberspace at my Page Home. It seems like its going to keep on growing, and I might even eventually get my own registered domain; you will be kept posted. Meanwhile, who knows what the future holds? Somebody does. All I can do is remember and dream, and pray that God would give me the will, the strength, and the presence of mind to remain, in the here and now,
