Scion – Petro Campaign – Downtime 4, Part 2
This account was originally found on Livejournal, I am not the original author—I am just a fan of the journal and have found reading it on livejournal clunky to navigate and rife with errors/instability (such as having to refresh multiple times due to the page in questions becoming unavailable often requiring multiple refreshes. The original post can be found here, published by DJ-Yomi, and was published on May 16th 2008.
Well, my tour’s about halfway through, and I’ve been busy, busy, busy! I’m sorry I haven’t had an opportunity to write up a long entry until now, but at least I’ve been able to provide short weekly updates to keep everyone up to date on what’s been going on during the tour, right? ^_^
The tour has been wonderful! I had no idea I had so many fans or that they were so completely into my music! You guys have really made the tour into an incredible experience, and I won’t forget that. Thanks for coming out to see me play and for enjoying my music to your heart’s content. I can’t express how unbelievably inspiring it has been to stand there on the stage, mixing my tracks in front of a sea of people moving to my music on the dance floor. I don’t know about you guys, but for me it’s an almost religious experience. My heart soars every time I’m a part of that.
And of course M’era Luna is coming up in a couple of weeks. I’m so excited about that! I’m sure it’ll be an awesome experience, so I hope you all can make it. If you can’t though, I’ll be posting video recordings of my sets on my website, so make sure to check them out! ^_^
So yeah, the tour’s been great. Better than I even hoped. Unfortunately, other stuff in my personal life isn’t so great right now. I’ve been having a tough time. Uncertainty and anxiety pretty much define me right now, though I guess there’s a healthy dose of anger and depression in there too.
For one thing, after I got back from Yomi, I had to deal with some difficult issues with my entourage. They’re okay…just having some problems. Some of you may have heard rumors of a drug problem in my group. Well, those were just rumors, but there was a kernel of truth in them. Quinn was briefly addicted to lamp oil. She got hooked after hearing Sayuri talk about her own addiction in Japan. Since she’s rokurokubi, it’s kinda natural for her, after all. *sigh* Anyway, Japanese lamp oil’s hard to come by in America, so she went into withdrawal and she’s had to deal with that for the first part of the tour. She had a rough time for awhile, and had to sit out for the first few concerts, but I think Dahlia did a wonderful job filling in for her. I’m glad to say that she’s doing much better now and is back in the swing of things.
The other issue involves Sera. As I mentioned in previous journals, she was close to Amy, whose death hit her hard. Among other things, Sera’s been dealing with guilt issues. Amy was in love with Sera, but Sera didn’t reciprocate that love even though the two of them were very close. Unfortunately, Sera feels guilty that she couldn’t fulfill Amy’s desires, and so she’s been having a really hard time on top of her grief. I’ve been doing my best for her, but she’s going to have a hard time healing. I’m just glad she has such a good group of friends to help her through this hard time. Kimiyo especially has really been there for her. I wish Dahlia would be a little more sensitive about it, though. I think she might just be irritable because her boyfriend, T-Bone, has been out of touch for the past few months.
And now on to the big issue, the one that’s really got me down. Echo and I have been having marital troubles.
I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about aspects of our relationship for awhile now. It’s not really the relationship that’s been giving me problems; it’s the marriage part of it. I love Echo. I adore her. The last thing I want is to lose her. But I’ve doubted whether or not it was right for us to actually be married.
For one thing, I also have sincere feelings for Ray. I know I can love both him and Echo if I give it a chance…if they’ll give it a chance. But I think the fact that I’m married is a big stumbling block for Ray. I’m not surprised. He’s so noble and righteous…it’s only to be expected. But I just wish…
Anyway, there’s also my mother’s feelings toward the marriage. That weighs on me a bit too. I’m not going to dissolve my marriage for my mother’s sake, but it has bothered me since I learned how she feels.
And there’s the issue of Echo nagging me for a child (yeah, thanks to divine magic we can conceive even though we’re both women). She really wants to bear my child, and feels that she needs one to sort of legitimize our marriage. I’m absolutely not ready for a child. I don’t want one, not yet, and probably not for a long time. But she just won’t let it drop.
And the biggest issue that’s been hurting me lately is the way Echo casually sleeps around all the time. Before Echo and I were married, I didn’t really have a big problem with her promiscuity. She’s a spirit of fertility, after all. I knew her heart belonged to me and that was enough. But since we got married, it’s really begun to bother me. And I can’t really say anything because haven’t exactly been faithful to her, what with Persephone and… Well, she and I just have such different outlooks toward love and sexuality. For her, sleeping around with others is different from loving them, but for me, sex and emotional attachment are inherently tied together. I just can’t separate sex from a sort of deep affection, if not love. And so it totally bothers me how casual Echo is about it, especially when she talks about certain people, like Pierre, for whom she feels more than just a casual affection. And I feel really guilty about the whole thing.
Anyway, I brought these issues up. I wanted to talk about them and try to resolve them, but I guess I approached it in the wrong way, and Echo and I got into a big argument. I won’t go into the details, but it didn’t go well. I’ve…never seen Echo grow so cold and distant before. It was scary. As we argued, I felt myself losing her.
I don’t even remember all we said. I wanted Echo to understand that I love and need her, and that I didn’t want to lose her, but I think that got lost in everything else. I wanted to discuss things and work them out, but it seemed like Echo turned everything I said around on me. In the end, I ended up feeling like I was the one to blame for all the issues. Echo even told me that as a divine being, promiscuity is both expected and inevitable, and that I’d just have to “deal with it.” She practically told me I should sleep around too! At the same time, she made me feel guilty about it. Guilty about Persephone, and guilty about…the other person I love. She even claimed that she’d gotten rid of her extramarital relationships, even if she was still holding a candle for Pierre. I didn’t know what to think by the time we were done arguing.
I finally just ended up saying what I had to to placate her. We both left the argument in a bad mood. Since then, I’ve been trying to “deal with it.” But really I’m just confused. I don’t know how I should feel or whether I’m even justified to treasure Echo so much that I want to keep her all to myself. I mean, I know who and what she is. And it hurts that she’s become colder around me than she used to be. I feel guilty about everything, and angry at Echo for not even trying to understand my perspective. I don’t know how to deal with all of this guilt and confusion. I’m trying to adjust to the divine lifestyle she was promoting, but I just don’t see it like she does. I mean, she was talking about shared partners and all this other stuff, and I just don’t even want to go there. She might be fine with casual sex, but I’m not. Not for me, and not really for her either. Sex should be something special and emotional and affectionate…
Even so I’ve been trying to adjust. I wish Ray were around. He always seems to know just the right thing to say to comfort me, even if it is in the most obscure way possible. And I miss him for other reasons too. I wish I could be with him right now. But even if he were here, how would he react? I heard from Juanita the other day that he’s seeing Persephone’s daughter Cila now. That’s another thing Echo’s upset about since she also considered Cila a lover. How am I supposed to interpret that?
Tabby has become really important to me during this time. She doesn’t really have any answers, but she’s willing to listen and sympathize and just be there for me without judging me. I don’t know what I’d do without her. We’ve become really close.
In fact, I slept with her. It just kind of happened. I don’t know whether I was trying to adjust to the lifestyle of casual sex that Echo seemed to be encouraging, or trying to relieve some stress, or just indulging myself out of guilt. Maybe I did it out of anger toward Echo, or maybe I just needed some comfort from a close friend, and that’s the form it took. Anyway, it’s not like Echo really cares. She’s slept with Tabby in the past. And I don’t really regret what I did. Despite what Echo said, sex means a lot to me, and it’s really emotional. I feel a lot of affection for Tabby. I really do. She’s come to mean a lot to me over the past few months. I’m not in love with her. It’s nothing like that. But she does have a place in my heart. And I made her so happy. It was nice to make someone feel loved again.
I don’t know…maybe this is sort of what Echo was trying to get me to understand. I wish things could be all right with her again, but I don’t know how to fix things.