Tears for the past

"Paradox Olbers, former ISM President, passed away on 13 November, 2019."

Kat Lemieux, founder and current president of the International Spaceflight Museum, sent me an IM today to tell me the news and to ask if I had made a Morphing Portrait for Para and if I wanted to create a memorial for him.

I saw her message as a notification from GMail as I was getting ready to leave work in the evening. I cried in the dark night as I walked to my car. And I don't know why.

I didn't have a close friendship with Para, but I worked closely with him when we were both active in the museum. It was a distant but warm professional friendship. When he took over the ISM, I was amazed at how he was able to keep it afloat financially, using his connections with donors and supporters.

But grief is a selfish emotion, and I knew that my tears were more for me than for him, although I am terribly sad that he is gone.

My last two years have been very difficult, particularly this past summer. In July, I had a cancerous tumor removed from my left kidney and that has not yet healed completely. In August, my mom passed away.

In the past few weeks, I've been missing Second Life. Not SL specifically, but the quietness and peacefulness that I have felt in the first few years of my virtual life. The wonder, the curiosity, the creativity. The innocence.

This week, I set up a trust and I'm still writing a pour-over will. In the process, I'm jotting down instructions for my successor trustee and executor. And the to-do list grows. I have a long list just to handle Opal's and Treasure's affairs. That task started my trek back into the past. And maybe that's why the tears came easily.

Paradox is one of the first few people I met in Second Life. His passing makes me feel like the past that I've been missing is slowly fading away piece by piece, because he was a part of that time in my life.

Many friends from that time have left SL too. No matter how often I log back into SL, I can't go back to that time. I can't step in the same river twice.



UPDATE 2019 Nov 30: Memorial created.

A mother's lap

My middle sister is only a year younger than I.  A year and twelve days, to be exact.  So, I was only about three months old when she was conceived.  And I wasn't even a year old when my mom pushed me off her lap, because her belly was too big and I posed a risk to the fetus when I tried to climb over her belly for a hug.

I was hurt.  I felt rejected.  Her lap wasn't my place anymore.  Her pregnant belly -- and later, my sister -- occupied it.

I vaguely remember this, of course.  I think it was my grandmother or my mom who told this story.  But I remember wrapping my arms around my dad's neck for solace and looking back at my mom with resentment, feeling the pain of rejection without understanding why.  I became so jealous that I refused to come near her for a long time.


Each of us have our lists of priorities.  I understand that.  Each of us shift our priorities depending on changes in circumstances.  I understand that too.  And sometimes, the lap, that was once our favorite place in the world, can no longer accommodate us, because something else -- or someone else -- now occupies it.  And rightfully so.  But it hurts anyway.

There's no room at the inn.  There's no room on a mother's lap.  There's no room in a lover's daily life.

Ah, August again

August 2006 - My life changed when I joined Second Life.

August 2007 - My life changed when I launched Mer Betta.

August 2008 - My life changed when I joined MODA as a fashion model.

August 2009 - My life changed when I met Second Life friends at the SLCC in San Francisco, the event that started the unraveling of Opal's anonymity.

August 2010 - My life changed when I started dabbling on internet marketing.

August 2011 - My life changed when I got engaged and then disengaged and, in the process, lost someone else (not the one I got engaged to) who was very important to me, but it made me realize that maybe I am more open to a real-life relationship than I thought.

August 2012 - My life is probably going to change again, because I have a book out and I'm about to start a talk show related to the book.

But, maybe, August has been a significant month, long before I first logged into Second Life.  My maternal grandmother, the only natural grandparent I really knew, was born in August.  My paternal uncle who helped raised me and my sisters was born in August.  My parents were married in August.  And, maybe my life also changed in August 1971, except I didn't realize it until this year.

Choices

For someone who is not religious, I have a lot of beliefs, most of which are not particularly mainstream either.

And two of them come into play these days....

1.
Many years ago, my youngest sister recommended the book "Journey of Souls" by Michael Newton. I don't remember why she did. It was the only new age book she ever recommended to me.

The theory of the book is that our souls belong to soul groups or soul families that keep reincarnating together. (Of course, this assumes that one believes in souls and reincarnation.) The roles and gender may change, but the connection remains. Before we come back to earth for a new life, we make mutual contracts with other souls in our soul group to help us learn whatever lesson we choose to learn in that lifetime. And there would be something, maybe even seemingly innocuous, that would help our soul recognize that other soul. When the contract is fulfilled, we then part ways until the next lifetime.

If that theory is true, I've come up with a corollary to it.

I believe that, when we are attracted to someone, it's because our soul is recognizing one of those souls that we have a contract with. And when we fall in love, we aren't falling in love with that person for the first time. We have loved them from eternity, and we will continue to love them till eternity. Falling in love is just a remembering of that eternal love.


2.
I also believe in synchronicity, in fate, in predetermination. We *perceive* free will only at a certain level. It's just like how we perceive solids to be impenetrable, when we know that there are huge spaces between the atomic particles. Or just like how we perceive our individuality, our separation from each other. I would even argue that the choices we think we're making in the name of free will is predetermined. It's just another effect after a long string of causes. Or maybe a web of causes.

Some of those causes may be psychological because of some past experience; some may be contextual because of the current situation. Sometimes, we might not even be aware of what those causes are. But, ultimately, fate narrows our choices to one, long before we have to make the decision.


Many people could not grasp the idea that I could honestly and deeply love more than one man at a time. Actually, it was a man who questioned it. The idea of monogamy -- or, more specifically, serial monogamy -- has been so ingrained in our culture. People understand having multiple sexual partners, but they cannot understand multiple romantic relationships.

How can you love just one child if you have several, I asked him. He said, this was different; this was a romantic relationship.

But, in some cases, it isn't just a romantic relationship. Or a romantic-and-sexual relationship. In some cases, it's a spiritual relationship, manifesting as a romantic relationship in this lifetime and expressed as a sexual relationship.

And I don't love them as a group, as a celebrity would love their fans as a group. I deeply love each of them individually and differently. Because each of them is different. And the dynamic of each relationship is different.

Loving one child does not diminish our love for another child. Love for one parent does not diminish our love for another parent. Love for one sibling does not diminish our love for another sibling. Love for one friend does not diminish our love for another friend.

Love as an emotion is not a zero-sum game. However, a lifetime is. And so we prioritize and make choices. And the mores of this society demand that we commit to only one mate at a time.


Most of my lovers are married in real life. There was no way the relationship was going outside of Second Life, although I tried once. One unmarried lover admitted he didn't really love the real me.

So I was left with one choice. We had so much synchronicity in our real lives that I thought he would be it. There were so many near-misses -- opportunities where we could have met, but we didn't. And synchronously, we met after his divorce, when we were both free. But his work took him away so often that I rarely heard from him. But the times when I did were so sweet.

The door was only slightly ajar, just enough for me to peek in, but not enough to let me through, though I've tried to push my way in. I had hoped that one day synchronicity would fully open it for me. After all, synchronicity brought us this far, so I figured it was just a matter of time.

Then I met 6969, and another door opened. And it opened wide. The intensity of his emotions created a vortex that was very hard to resist. Even with all my BUT's. It wasn't the future I imagined I would have. After all, I had given up the dreams of my youth. But there it was. He had answers to all my objections.

Fate narrows our choices to one.


But I am also aware that fate is fickle.


6969 wants forever. From this earthly perspective, there is no forever. But, from a higher perspective, he already has that. From a higher perspective, I love him from eternity until eternity.

The good news is that, from this earthly perspective, there is exclusivity and I give him that. From a higher perspective, there is none. I have met many soulmates in this lifetime before I met him, and I love each of them from eternity until eternity.

And from an even higher perspective, there is no concept of exclusivity at all. Because, from that perspective, there is no "other" to be exclusive with.

Time and time again

As I lived in Second Life, I've learned that time is the greatest commodity, even in a virtual world. It's what makes virtual life very real. You can have a virtual body, virtual clothes, a virtual home with virtual furniture, a virtual car or helicopter or yacht. You can separate your virtual friends from your real friends, your virtual relationships from your real relationships. You can earn virtual money in a virtual company producing virtual products made out of virtual materials. But there is no such thing as virtual time.

Virtual time is real time.

Time is eternal, but our lifetimes are not. There's only so much we can do in a lifetime and there are many demands on our time. We give time to what is important to us. Likewise, we are given time if we are important to someone else.

Time and priorities. That's all it's about.

Intuitively, I have always known this. I've always felt overwhelmed when a man sacrifices sleep several nights in a row just to spend a few more hours dancing with me, when a man misses his plane to an important client meeting the next morning because he lost track of time chatting with me, when a man parks his avatar next to mine and occasionally says something sweet just so he could feel my presence even while he's working.

I was important enough to them, even if only briefly.

Maybe the true measure of a lover is not how much he loves someone or something. Maybe the true measure of a lover is how much time he allots for the object of his love.

Love, as an emotion, is not a zero-sum game. Love, as an aspect of time, is.

Time... and, again, ...

A old friend (with privileges) blurted something out today that stunned me. Well, what he said didn't stun me. The fact that it sounded like a complaint stunned me. It was a comment about me wanting a lot of time.

I only ask for two things from lovers -- their time and brutal honesty.

The men who strike a chord in me are the ones who wish they could spend more time with me but couldn't. The ones who frustrate me the most are the ones who refuse to spend more time with me because they're on a schedule. The difference is very subtle. To the men in the first category, I am important enough in their lives that they consider the time they spend with me as precious. To the men in the second category, I'm just another appointment. Or worse, a time sink. And sometimes I wonder why they even bother to IM me in the first place.

The biggest compliment I've ever received from a man is when he told me he missed his plane because he was talking to me. He was supposed to take that flight to a very important meeting, and he had to rent a private plane to get there on time. But he had no regrets; he said talking to me was worth it. And we never had sex either; it was just regular conversation.

I realize that it really is less a matter of time and more a matter of prioritization. And I've read a quote in many profiles that said something like this: Do not give priority to someone for whom you are only an option.

*sigh*

/me trims her priority list.