nathaniel shield56 I think I'm in love with him...Infact I know I am. I try, but can't find the words. I try but can't find the actions. I guess all I can do is stare... 050401 ... Nathaniel Is a great name! 050429 ... FA/MC I don't know how the story ends. And I think that's why I haven't wanted to write it. Because it hasn't ended itself and I think I might be too scared to end it. So I'll just try to stick_to_the_facts and see what kind of story reveals itself. April 17, 2025: had a funeral_for_a_friend who's not dead. Buried alive, left to die. Nathaniel is a succulent. Specifically a haworthia. My malapropism/associative brain/sense_of_humor told me that was close enough to Hawthorne that I decided to call it Nathaniel. Nathaniel was a breakup present. I did not know I would be dumped at the time that she took me to the nursery and bought it for me. Maybe she didn't know at that point either. But regardless of any writing on the wall, that was the last time I ever saw her in_the_flesh. So in hindsight a breakup present is absolutely what it was regardless of the intent. But it's really the perfect gift for the occasion. It's a responsibility. A big deal of a small step for me. I'm the baby of my family, never had my own pet, never been a babysitter or a caretaker or really had to be responsible for the well-being of anyone or anything other than myself. And succulents are about as low-maintenance as it gets. No matter how much of a selfish negligent head-in-the-sand junkie you might be, if you care even a little bit you can take care of a succulent. It was something I had to keep me holding on to her when I was not ready to let her go. Nathaniel really did not need much. I would gather some little pebbles to make a nest on top of the soil, because I think it liked a dry rocky home. I was instructed to water it slowly but thoroughly and I took this to heart. I largely played it by ear, or by my own ability to give. Sometimes it would go 10 days without a drink, sometimes 6 weeks. But I would never completely let go of it. There were a lot of days where I couldn't actively demonstratively care about anything other than myself. But I never let myself slip into a mindset of not caring about what happened to it. I would always make sure to keep it alive. I always did care even if I didn't or couldn't show it. I do eventually come around. But credit Nathaniel for its fierce will to live. This plant has strength in its roots that I could only dream of having. It has survived my relative negligence, as well as cats and the ignorance of others and road trips and being repotted a few times (it was never happy to be moved any time it had to happen but it always settled in and re adapted to a new environment, such is the nature of strength and survival). Maybe I should've repotted it again last year. I had worked in a garden for a while. The work I was doing was entirely unrelated to botany and horticulture, but I still had access to a lot of free resources including knowledge. Also including a community bed of soil which I used the last time I repotted Nathaniel. But there must have been something else in that soil. The haworthia eventually started to grow what looked like a long invasive vine, shooting up right through the middle. I don't know maybe that was natural. And maybe it was the soil. I am so in over my head about these things. But it looked like Nathaniel's leaves were starting to discolor and become unhealthy, like the vine was functioning as some type of posion. I consistently cut it out and it would inevitably grow back. Such is the nature of strength and survival...It applies to parasites as much as it applies to hosts and independents. Any time there is a goal which more than one person or thing is trying to accomplish, it's a competition. For better or for worse this does include survival. I could've tried to restructure its environment but I felt like it was approaching the end of its lifespan regardless. One cannot change the past. I thought it would be best if I only moved it again one last time, to a final resting place. My roommates and I have been renting since we moved here but one of them just bought a house of their own, and I'm about to sublet as their only tenant. The first thing that I moved to the new house was Nathaniel. I found a spot for it in the backyard. Downslope facing northeast. A space of its own where it won't face too much competition either for nutrients in the soil or for light between the shadows of the trees. The soil might be a little too clay-like, a little too saturated, and the potential for erosion is a concern. It's not the most dry environment imaginable. Maybe not the very best that I could've done to make it happy. But I put it there to die. It really did feel like a kind of a goodbye, a kind of a letting go. Even if it'll be right there in my backyard. Even if I continue to be its caretaker and its best friend. It was still a funereal procession. I gave life to its deathbed, or maybe I brought death into its life I don't know. But it's a step I had to take. If making connections in the first place is so difficult for a person then it would follow that letting go of things would also be difficult for them. But I took care of Nathaniel. I nurtured and cared for it for 6 years. I proved to myself that I can do it. I think she would like to know that. And I guess maybe that's why I'm choosing to write about it, commemmorate, commisserate, whatever this is about it, in a place where she will never ever read it. Not just for the malice of silence and withholding information from someone who does care about me and who would want to know. But it's also about my own safety and self-preservation and (I fucking have to fucking the fuck admit it fuck) trauma. A course of action taken based on the hurt she's done, hurt that comes from within her personality, the type of hurting that that is a fundamental part of her living. For as badly and as consistently as she damaged trust boundaries (and not just my boundaries either) I can't blame myself for not wanting to give that to her. For not wanting her to know about my life and how I'm doing and what became of me and these gifts she gave me. I just don't feel like I owe her that. I'm burying her too. But she's not dead either. The story doesn't end. Life_goes_on. I don't think I'm ready for the past, let alone the future. I don't feel like I'm well equipped for anything. I don't feel like I've been given the tools to build or a foundation to build on or a reason to build. Even though there is clear evidence to the contrary, even if I just proved to myself that I am absolutely capable of caring and giving. The emptiness is still what I feel. I'm still just a sore little baby waiting for someone to come take care of me. Or waiting for someone to say cut and roll credits. But it won't happen. I will have to step back into the light on my own and use what strength I've gathered in my survival and what assuredness I have in my ability to love. I will have to add and subtract my attatchment, my investments, the care that I choose to give and hope to receive. I will have to take on a lot of pain. I'll have to try, I know. What else can I do but try? Nathaniel taught me that I can. Maybe she did too. I can't choose to let that build resentment in me. How someone who's hurt me severely has also given me a great gift. I can't choose to deny myself of that gift just because I can't separate the giver from the hurt. I have to separate. She does not have to be part of my life in order for me to appreciate her and what she's done for me. I don't need to hold on to her or to give her anything more in order to keep the love that has been given to me with me, in me. I. have. to. separate. A few tears. As much as I needed. A deep breath. And_I_let_it_go. 250419 what's it to you? who go blather from