Client KG2.50F - Session 5

(Beep.)

I know you were willing to let this session be whatever I needed it to be. What a way to tip your oracle, am I right? Joking only, of course.

(Music fades in)

I know you were content to let me take this time to reach out to someone else. Someone I’ve spoken to on this feed before. But I can’t. Or rather, it’s not meant to be. There’s just no way around certain things, I guess. Disappointment being a critical one. And I feel compelled to point out that not all disappointments are the same. Or don’t have the same severity, as it were. Regardless, we still have to deal with the aftermath. That’s always the same. 

And sometimes, you disappoint yourself. Not so much everyone else, even though that’s what you think you did. But you’ve put yourself on this pedestal as the person who has to hold the universe together, but surprise, you’re one ordinary human being, for the most part, so you can’t do that. 

I know I should have a message for that professor. It’s only fair and right, in many ways. Who else knows grief, though of a different kind? It might have been some time since (breath) … Well, since the death of a much beloved wife, but grief is grief. And also I… I do know that professor has been listening in. A series of clients affiliated with a not so forgotten alma mater. Obviously, that seems to be alluring, and a former student who is not me even reached out. Didn’t mention me exactly, but you know, finite number of oracles out there. Even fewer are making a podcast instead of just sending an email. 

Or calling. Or doing anything more direct than what I’m doing. But I guess some people can’t play the parts they fall into. Or won’t. And sometimes I wonder what difference it makes--this “can’t or won’t” distinction. The effects are the same, after all.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Sure, there are… small problems I’m equipped to handle, right? Like I can point out the things that could be obvious, but perspectives are tricky. So what do I really do but turn a head? Tap a shoulder? Maybe nudge someone if I really need to? I tell the stories of other people in new ways. In second person. But if the story is always slated to have an unhappy ending, someone in the distance might say, if that’s the only way it can go, then… Then I can’t do anything about that, can I?

Or that’s what I was thinking about a lot his week. And when I did, I somewhat… Well, this whole thing made a little more sense to me, you know? Because I’m not… No. Maybe I was the right person to have this job if only because I don’t believe in unhappy endings. Nor do I entirely believe in happy ones. I believe in complex endings. I believe in endings we may not like and may not make sense to us. I believe in endings that don’t fit into the box of our expectations, and trying to measure results against such an incompatible standard won’t work so why bother. That sort of thing.

I thought many times in my life I was going to have an unhappy ending. And then I met my girlfriend. Then all the things that didn’t quite line up didn’t seem to matter anymore. Because I had her. I had her and our late nights watching internet videos and obscure cartoons. Because I had the puffed rice I tried to make that didn’t entirely work, but once you covered it in chocolate nobody could tell. Because I had a place to lay my head that might not be perfect but still feels like home.

I thought I was going to be an academic. But no, that fell through. I thought I was going to be a lawyer, but that ship sailed, and I was more than content watching from the shoreline, it turned out. I thought I was going to set up the office coffee forever, but now that’s a faint memory… For a lot of us. But I have her. I have her love. Not too many people get something like this.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I used to take karate classes, you know. And the school I went to prided itself on having traditional styles and values, but it was run and classes were taught by one of the whitest people I’ve ever known. But you know he did live Japan for a while. When he was young and trying to find his way. Lost his finger to a sword because he wasn’t careful. And that taught him to listen to what was around him. He tried to pass those things down to us, and sure, things got lost in translation, but he genuinely tried. 

Or whatever. That’s just me rambling. 

Something I learned from him is that life is seldom linear. Outside of fiction anyway. Those of us in the real world will seldom have clean arcs that rise and fall, dropping us off as better people for our troubles. Far from it. You have highs and lows. And then maybe lowerer lows, and maybe the next high isn’t so high objectively, but you’ll get there. 

I’m starting to think that I build bridges. Over parts that could be truly bad but because of my bridge, they don’t happen. I’m starting to think that’s all I can do. And it works sometimes. It wouldn’t work in others, so I don’t reach out to those other people. Just like now, there’s… There’s nothing I can say to a certain someone. Even if that someone is listening, which… Yes, I know who’s here. But there’s nothing productive I can say, so I won’t say anything. Let me fade into the background for the most and let the scene before me play out--all those people and all those pieces they can just go on their merry way. 

I put some events into motion. I set part of the scene. Let the cogs of that wheel turn right on ahead. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

And yes, you heard me right. There are people I don’t reach out to. Messages or visions you don’t hear about. Did you really think this was a neat and ordinary thing? Why would I be such a hot mess if it was. This is a door, somewhere. In me, outside of me, beside me, I don’t know. There’s a door, and things can come and go, but there are cracks in the doorway. Maybe even the door itself isn’t sturdy. Maybe the lock has a pretty big keyhole. Maybe it has cracks or pores that let things through. I don’t know. I couldn’t know. But it’s through that door that I see things. That things seep into me. Purposely or not.

So I have to make decisions. I see the connections. I see faint points, but who knows if I made the right decisions?

You think that you know I make the right decisions, and I appreciate that. But as I see it, there’s a time to step away and a time to engage. There’s that old prayer, you know: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” It floats around on the internet constantly, and I’ve seen it attributed to twenty different people because that’s what the internet truly is, right?

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Honestly, though, that’s the key to acceptance. We want to call it serenity sometimes, but you know… It’s (soft sigh)... It’s a bit messy. This is how you handle the complex ending. Let me know what I cannot change, let me fight for what I can, and let me not get caught up in the what-ifs. 

That’s what I’ve accepted. Take that lesson for yourself. Put it in your pocket. But I hope you find the happiness your second family wills for you. Goodness knows, it was never something I could hand to you.

(Music fades out. Beep)

And with that is the end of season 3 of The Oracle of Dusk. This is a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. It was written, edited, performed, and produced by MJ Bailey. And if you like the show, follow it on Twitter @Oracle of Dusk for updates on Season 4 or some bonus content between now and then.