EDGING TOWARD CLOSURE

Please read while playing this: 

This is now finished. I was undecided as to whether to leave it as a published piece because to an objective grounded reader who is not familiar with "catfishing" or relationships that exist only in cyberspace, the piece appears unbelievably foolish and filled with nonsense and I paint a portrait of myself as a childish unhinged "jackass" who allowed herself to go off the deep end into bizarre interactions with a person I did not even know and with a person I hardly knew. But... it happened, so I will leave it up. Think whatever you want of me... And if you have answers into the psyche of a mind that would allow this to happen, let me know. I say that because I have no insight into it, and the answer may be as simple as common boredom within too much free time. Some of it was fun, most of it was aggravating and frustrating, and I certainly would like to talk to the men who got involved with Miranda Grosvenor. Maybe they could provide more clues. Why?

Here it is, in all it's full blown delusional glory: 

I know that interactions in cyberspace are layered with delusion and imagination... we communicate with others not based on what is real but on what we hope will fuel our own fantasies and provide a measure of satisfaction. But, when these "relationships" unravel... at the end of the day what remains? What process is necessary to untangle the residual leftovers that have fallen away?

When I began internet broadcasts in 2011...  there was so much I never saw coming.

For four years, I was manipulated (on my computer) into feeling responsible for a man's emotional happiness and well being as he tried to convince me he loved me and thereby lure me to connect and communicate with him on a daily basis. He existed for me almost totally on my computer... and he appeared many times a day at the place online where we "talked" and he "spoke" to me in personal ways in almost never ending bizarre text communications. He dropped many audio recordings that he made for me and I would listen to his voice and become beguiled by his stories but I never even knew who he was. Who was this man?

Over a period of many years, we only connected twice on the telephone and never made contact in any other way off the computer. He was a faceless mysterious entity with mercurial online behavior and he presented almost no verifiable truths. He created so many convoluted contradictions that I believed I had taken some mental trip down a rabbit hole and the path out was almost impossible to navigate. The years passed and passed and sometimes things end in startling unexpected ways.... and just like that one day he was gone because I was finally able to determine his identity with almost great certainty and pull back a curtain that revealed a shadowy figure viewed through a hazy dim lens. By that time, I was weary and he was easy to let go. She was a very different story.

For more years than that, I was the object of a strong obsession from a woman who created layers of strange deceit, artistic homages, and lofty flattery... on the computer. Her duplicity included chatting with me under multiple names while maintaining the secrecy of who she really was. She played childish mind games for her own level of fun while at the same time becoming devoted to me and fixated on me and creating copious media content designed to adulate my life. She drew me into a web of uncanny intrigue and referred to me as her "muse." Her love was manifested in many ways and in letters she attempted to make me feel that I was her role model who was guiding her through the waters of her own life, educating her and influencing her path of personal tastes and helping her develop the "soul of a poet." Along the way, I offered advice and encouragement and tried to help her become the best version of herself.

I never met the man and although I spent some time with the woman on two occasions, I hardly knew her. Yet, they both found me. They both "kept it going." They both "dug in" their heels. They both sourced me in ways to enhance their own days. They were two strangers who changed my days, impacted my life and now... they both are at a distance and far away.

They exist as almost memories within a section of my personal mental stained glass and yet I ponder.... why did I give great nuanced pieces of myself along the way and always feel such a "riot of emotions" as the parts changed and unfolded and everything fell apart?

They both were insidious in different ways, but they both managed to get inside my head. They both blamed me in multiple ways for sending messages they concluded were egregious and when communications were misconstrued, I should have put the brakes on the communications because I owed these two absolutely nothing. When I took missteps, I totally owned my behavior but also understood the reasons behind my poor judgement and impulsive actions. How did I, a woman with integrity, go to a low level (when I felt provoked) that upon reflection seems so puerile and almost pointless? I suppose it becomes difficult to "walk away" when there is a need for clarity and the path to that lucidity can take unusual and uncharacteristic forms. The journeys reflected parts of myself that were not who I always wanted to be. I relentlessly had this great need to never let any disagreement go, and in knee jerk reactions I presented portraits of perspicuity, always seemingly "falling on deaf ears" but at the same time instigating baffling and mutual angers.

When it finally suited her, the woman told me to "go away and leave her alone." She also said "like many things in life, I think this road has come to an end." That road was always paved with an uneven and bumpy bottom anyway and the parts were filled with tricky mind boggling crevices. The man has all but disappeared, surfacing only very infrequently as a distraction to create more confusion. There were detours, but both streets were dead ends because "oh, what a tangled web we weave once we begin to deceive."

Along the way, I truly was doing nothing wrong and in mind bending alarming ways I was feeling self doubt within blame and guilt: was I disloyal, did I betray them, did I disappoint them, did I allow matters to derail when they both really probably truly admired me? The blueprint for these tedious relationships was difficult to understand and a muted and blurred road map became almost impossible to follow. The woman confused genuine concern with "negativity" and the man internalized my need for transparency as "suspicion." I felt I was being "gaslighted" in cyberspace. Was I just the object of practical jokes? I felt tangled and depleted.

But logically, I actually never even had any real skin in the game. They were invasive and they both were able to work me into becoming a willing participant in their agendas. They both were cunning and created elaborate theatrics within great guile. Was I descending into a mild form of madness because I was becoming addicted to their games? But I knew I was not that lost; I was cognizant of the fact that to objective spectators much of this was foolishness. I was aging, time was passing quickly... and much of my day was spent in a distracting world that was no longer even three dimensional. My time in outside space was flat lining. Why did I ever get involved with these two strangers and for what was I longing? What within myself was becoming satisfied in small scale ways? Eventually, they each at different times vanished into invisibility. The man once wrote: "One day you will look for me and I will not be here." I did not search for him but the silence in the denouement was deafening.

For years, I gulped that heady elixir they served up and after all was said and done, I was left with nothing.  There was nothing tangible really ever there.  I ended with the weakest hand. And how weird it is to feel that although there is loss within my days, I have lost nothing. Yet, pieces stick inside me as I edge toward closure and I can still see that shy young girl with the long ponytail waiting with anticipation at the front of a restaurant for me to arrive, and that same girl years later running across 14th Street to enter a different restaurant to be with me again.

There really is so much sadness in the turns that life takes within the passing of so much and I suppose moving on will be a work in progress.

I have always been a self-contained woman. And, always at the end of the day, because "my heart belongs to me," I have always been able to connect my dots, compose myself, and find my own way home.

In retrospect, and in a variation of what Sharon Olds wrote in "Stag's Leap": "I did not know (them), I knew my idea of (them)." And just as in Spike Jonze's film, "Her," these were "illusions of relationships."

Note to self: Take care of yourself, Marjorie... you seriously deserve a much better deal. And in shallow waters, always wear a tube

The other dark night, while I was in bed, a soft rain fell on the fire escape and I heard, or thought I heard, a voice calling from long ago. I felt I should be returning to a different place to complete something, but there was nowhere I could go. I missed so much and felt confused because all time seemed to exist at the same time. Strange feelings and emotions echoed and stirred inside me as I pulled the blanket over my head and drifted off to another sleep.