It has been a time of introspection for me these last weeks. I finally returned home from Ann Arbor, having been quite hale and whole for some months, and I have enjoyed the coming of Spring, even as I hold at bay those thoughts and fears plaguing me since my accident in November. It matters not a jot that I have so many years behind me, not when events have unfolded along such myriad unforeseen paths. I find myself daunted by understandings I had long ago thought meaningless.

I fear my own destruction. I thought I was beyond such petty insistence on self-preservation, but that turns out not to be the case. It is not fear of death, for truly that has not plagued me in centuries; rather it is an unwillingness to offer myself up for annihilation at the whim of others who might believe they were engaged in an act crucial to the survival of their race or creed. After thirty-five centuries I believe I have earned the right to an end of my own choosing- to have others choose for me is a notion so disturbing as to bring upon me a state of near paranoia.

I have invited too many people into the sphere of my personal life. There are too many who know me now for who and what I truly am. Some of them fear me, and I fully understand that reaction: however, I have no intention of permitting their fear to override my own prerogatives. This leads me to conclusions I dislike, but cannot readily ignore.

I was riding the other day, there are several suitable trails on the property and the surrounding lands, but my preferred route follows the borders of the McAllister Farm property. As I rode I found myself making mental notes: A fence line here, perhaps remote cameras, how many guards would it take to secure this boundary? Should I look in to that German concern employing so many former East Berlin border guards? Do I prefer men who will err on the side of caution, or those who are prone to treat every trespass as a grave danger and will respond accordingly?

It disturbs me to be thinking in terms of protecting myself from the community I have struggled to make my own and yet I cannot dismiss those fears for they certainly spring from some buried awareness of danger. I think of poor Isabella, trapped in her cocoon of devoted protectors, and I am certain this is nothing I desire any part of, yet if I do as I say I shall, how can I avoid drawing a moat about this place? I am not so convinced of the goodness and reliable rationality of Man as some of my new friends and advisers purport to be. I admire their high opinions of their species and their fellow countrymen, but I am disinclined to share it. Instead I now go armed at all times, and I consider turning this home in to a fortress.

And I despise myself for those thoughts.

I have been driven towards rash action by sudden event-driven worries that fortunately came to naught. I find myself now poised upon an immensely difficult decision, an opening of my life to the world in a way that just months ago would have been unthinkable to me. Will I regret this in months or years to come? Am I merely trading the cloak of secrecy for the prison of true fear?

Posted on April 18th, 2005 by Zsallia
Filed under: The Present