Entry 3 of 2 in Book Two: The Fifteenth Year of the Third Millennium of the Common Era

HA! Extra one because my brain didn’t include things into the other two that I wanted to. Hooray for exhausted brains :D

(Left off of 1)
So… the typical “Greatest Strength” “Greatest Weakness” question came up in my interview… not surprisingly. But… what was somewhat surprising and worth sharing… is how my greatest strength IS my greatest weakness. I am a determined, focused, hard working person. Which has often translated into a complete inability to walk away from something. Anything.
It explains why in almost every scenario, the Girlfriend leaves Me. I don’t leave Them. Because I don’t walk away. It also explains why, despite its toxic and abusive elements, I stayed in a relationship with Aku for so long. Because I don’t walk away. And, even though in her case I did, it was neither clean nor easy. It explains things with work. It explains why I always take on extra assignments, volunteer for extra duty, and never quit a job until I am well and truly beyond burnt out. Because I never walk away. To take it back to relationships… it explains everything with Aoife. She knew that I would never walk away. So she disappeared. Completely and entirely. Likely realizing that if I couldn’t find her or contact her… I’d have no choice but to let what we had go. (Truthfully: if only I could).
But more significantly… it explains things with Wife. I don’t walk away. Maybe I should. Maybe I shouldn’t. But… after 30 years, my hard-headed determination takes the Klingon route: There is a story told among Klingons that a great Klingon warrior’s father told his son to bang his head on the stone wall of their village every day for a year. While many Klingons expect that the moral of this story is that defiance is sometimes necessary; they are wrong. The moral of the story is that on the last day of the year, the wall gave way. Klingons may be seen as stubborn, determined, or hard-headed… but a Klingon’s greatest strength is his determination.

(2) As I was thinking about that screetching little bastard in my head… which btw is more truthful than I care to admit… the thoughts were only interrupted by hearing the following:

Hearing that song took away the SCREETCH WANT repetition and replaced it simply with regret. As that song will likely do to me for years to come.

You see… that was the song Aoife danced to for the last time she did Organized Dance. She had invited me to her Senior Recital and, while I very genuinely wanted to attend, for reasons I cannot recall (and likely didn’t matter)… I made no genuine attempt to see her recital. And I missed it. It was the last time I would be able to see her dance and I missed it. And I regret that. As I regret every time I let her down. And… because of how I am as a person, I deeply regret letting anyone down that I once cared about. But, of course, with Aoife… it takes a special place.