The Other Me
‘The Long Hard Fall’ i. Allie was a girl who’d had a crush on me in Grade 6 (twenty-five years earlier) and chased me through high school. Then she married some guy and that was it – until she rang me unexpectedly and we swapped stories. She told me she’d had three kids and was unhappily married. I told her I was pretty much where I was when we’d last spoke over fifteen years earlier. As her marriage disintegrated and she separated, we became friends, and then later developed our own relationship – much to the disapproval of my parents. They saw danger: I wasn’t working; she had major financial…
The Other Me
‘The Fugue’ v. Arguably the worst side-effect of Aropax was that it dimmed my imagination – maybe not an issue to many, but for me it was about the worst thing that could happen. Prior to Aropax, I could sit down and write anything any time. I’d written previously through anxiety and depression. Now, I struggled. The thoughts flowed sluggishly. Once I got going, I was okay (but never as fluent as I once was), but it was like whatever doorway into my mind gave me access to my writing had mostly closed. Years later, I read about ruminations, which is to reflect or brood negatively and to rehash a…