10-04-02 @ 4:02 am EDT

I had a little dream. It wasn't even much of a dream, not having any of those surreal qualities that usually make up a dream. I simply dreamed that I remembered I hadn't written to Mya about my latest trip to Mackinac Island, so I was going to e-mail her and tell her all about how it went.

And then I woke up and cried.

Mya was the closest thing I've ever had to a true friend. She was the only person I really got close to who didn't end up betraying me somehow. The fact of the matter is that we simply faded apart, and changed. She moved away when I was in junior high but we kept in close contact via regular mail (this before the Net), and she would occasionally visit. But we grew more and more apart...and the tone of her letters changed, while mine did not. I don't blame her for this; perhaps I should blame me. I'm the one who DIDN'T change while the world did. I stayed that same person who giggled and joked about the goofy things we did in elementary school, while she grew up and moved on.

Eventually I wrote her a letter letting her know this. Our correspondence was onesided, both ways; I didn't know how to reply to her mail, and she didn't know how to reply to mine. And so we were both just firing off missives into open space, each without regarding the other. So I told her I wished her luck, but we'd changed too much. I could think of nothing else to write. That was the last I heard of her for a long time.

Eventually she wrote again to let me know she was getting married and settling down. I was invited, if I could make it. I couldn't...but I was glad to hear from her. Regretful that we had fallen so far apart, but not angry. She, too, was glad to hear from me, as she'd been worried I'd been angry with her, but I wasn't. We started up another tentative correspondence, moving to e-mail when she told me she had that now. But it wasn't the same. I tried a few times to reminisce about the old times but her responses were short, distracted, as if she hadn't even read my words. She had a life now, and like the way with all people, that tends to keep them too busy to deal with an attention-starved child like me.

I wrote to her once to ask her something...I can't remember what. But I remember her response was that the e-mail address she was using was her husband's work address. That sparked it for me. I felt guilty and ashamed. I STILL hadn't changed, while she had, yet again. I couldn't abuse her husband's work e-mail just to write my stupid letters to her, about things that didn't concern her anymore, hadn't concerned her in years. So...I stopped writing to her. I don't think I even warned her this time, or told her why.

I don't remember the e-mail address.

I don't remember where she lives.

I don't even remember her new last name.

And now I'm so full of regrets, not only that we changed so much, but that I let it all slip away so abruptly. Maybe if I'd made more of an effort to care about HER world, she could have cared about mine. And maybe we would still be writing, and we would still be best friends. Or at least good friends. Because I could use a friend like her. I've actually missed the days of snail-mail letters...you could send drawings with them, pictures, doodles, colored text done with pens, and they were personal, unlike e-mail. You could hold them in your hands, fold them up, stick them in a box under the bed. They were REAL. Since the Net, nothing is the same anymore.

What sparked this now? That dream helped, but Manitou Island, oddly enough, is a big part of it also. Maybe also my worries about my future on this site; I'm wondering if they will soon ask me to remove my journal, as it takes up so much space? And even should I get that upgrade, and manage to get myself beneath the limit, what then will the new limit be? And how much of my material will I finally have to remove, and how often will the limits lower so I have to remove even more? Lately I've come to realize how much I depend upon this site and others like it (if they existed). I share myself here, much more of myself than I ever shared with anybody. I realized that all of the stuff I type in this journal is the same stuff I would be writing to Mya if we were still in contact with each other. That was how close we were.

I don't know if I ever let her know...in fact, I know I didn't. She fueled a lot of the dreams that I still have going, for better or worse, today. She inspired many of my Egyptian stories, my D Is For Damien stories, the great bulk of Manitou Island, and even my lowly Trench Rats. I can't begin to tell you of how many times we spent pretending to be Amy and Damien and Rudy and Kat and everyone else on audiotape; how whenever it was storming I would write to her to tell her how Set and Horus were fighting in the sky, and she would affirm my theory, to then tell me that Choby was singing on some TV competition; how we would march around on the playground as Inspector Dobermann in metal boots, and hide out in foxholes made of old tires; how every time we went to Mackinac Island together it was a MAGICAL thing. Whenever we returned, we'd talk excitedly about Ocryx and Mitchi Manitou and the GeeBees and every single mildly odd thing we would see would be something mysterious and unknown. When I was with her and we were friends, nothing was ever normal. Everything had meaning, everything was special; nothing was to be taken for granted. She UNDERSTOOD me.

And then she changed, and let go of the same dreams I had...or maybe she just had to move on to more important things. As I said, I don't blame her; but I'm so regretful I let her go without a fight.

After my dream, I realized, I would not be able to simply e-mail Mya and tell her of the magic I saw on the island. Because she's not there, and even if she was, I don't think it would be magical for her anymore. And I have nobody to tell, who knows the magic I know. She has BEEN there, so she knew what I was talking about. We started out Manitou Island together, remember. I still love Mackinac Island, but the past few years...it hasn't been magical anymore. It's just an island.

I realize this is because I have no one to share it with anymore. I could prattle on for pages and pages (hell, if you read this journal with any regularity, you should know that) about the place and its mythology and history and scenery...it's obvious I love the place to death. But without somebody to share that magic with, it doesn't exist anymore. One can only spin a story to themselves for so long before it's just a story. Magic is only magic because you can share it with somebody else who cares about it. It's not magical if you keep it all to yourself.

I must confess; that when I was friends with I., and he suggested going to the island, I actually hoped he would show up, spontaneously. The same thing happened this year; I hoped P. would show up, though how would that be logical? They have lives, and schedules. Yet I was still disappointed both times when I ended up on my own (along with Ma). Ma, she doesn't like the island at all; she would just as rather not go. She doesn't believe in the magic. So basically, I'm alone with it, so it has to lie dormant. I've actually had fantasies of leading tour groups just so I can share what I know, and see the magic of other people knowing it too. Tourists can often be the biggest believers in magic, you know, simply because everything is new to them. Everyone around me has gotten too used to things, and even I am threatening to grow jaded. I used to spend all day on that island and still didn't want to go home. Lately, it grows tiresome, even though I still long to go. It's just that when I get there, the magic I had hoped to relive isn't there anymore. Because it's just me who still cares.

Maybe this is the real underlying reason behind Manitou Island. It's my only way of capturing that magic I knew once and of sharing it with people, seeing if they care. That might be why when people don't care, I get upset. My life has been about sharing myself, trying to create magic to make others happy, and when I can't do it I grow lonely and regretful. Like I have now.

I wish I knew how to get back in touch with Mya, but even more, I wish I knew if she still cares, at least a little bit. I would so love to write those long letters to her again, and to read her replies. I would like to open up to others, also, but I'm too afraid to. Online, every time I have opened up to someone so much, I've ended up regretting it. Either because they've betrayed me, or because they grew tired of me; either one, who knows. I fear it's happened again recently, but I won't bother to fight against it this time even though I probably should. I've grown so used to it that I expect it by now. There's too much inside me I want to let out, and it overwhelms others when I start to spew it out. Why wouldn't they back off?

This is why, with the couple of people I do write to, I haven't fully opened up to you. I WANT to, believe me. But I don't want to drive you off. If I rely upon you by opening up to you, I know I will be disappointed because like everyone else you are only human, and have lives of your own. I grow resentful of other people's lives when they don't have the time to include me in every waking moment, and I would rather that not happen again. I don't want to resent anyone else for being human. And so...I sit here with tears in my eyes, and have no idea what to do. That magic is stuck, with nowhere left to go. And tonight, with this dream, I only just realized that.

Do you believe that waterfalls are pretty? If you do, imagine what it looks like if one is blocked with huge ugly boulders so that it stops flowing. This is how I feel right now, knowing there's still this magic, somewhere, but I can't share it. I'm afraid the water will grow stagnant, or I'll finally take a long close look at it and find that there was never really any magic there at all. Just childish dreams.