I just realised that the two weeks with coaldustcanary is the first time that I've gone a whole two week period without once feeling the depression that lives in my hindbrain. The two weeks with Kris was wonderful. No depression, no questioning myself. I was who I am in the way that I can only be with like minds to play off (I feel much the same way, mentally, when around gominokouhai). I was also very happy.

The realisation is spreading that no matter how much I may rail at just two weeks... it was two whole weeks together, doing what we knew we wanted to do and similar. I may pine for more time and hate myself for having the ending to that time, but to have an ending you've got to have everything before it as well. And that was worth it. For all the negativity, the pining and the missing one another, it's two more weeks and that's another milestone passed, another waypoint on the long, hard road to it all being worthwhile, the time when we have a place that's ours.

I won't get down to a blow-by-blow, but I will summarise the Edinburgh days as that's where I stopped my recording. Lots of walking, lots of talking, lots of random ideas, lots of smoking, a fair amount of drinking, some more walking, some damn fine food, some great people, fantastic weather (fog and rain, ahh...), media cascades, steak, and collapsing in a wondrously comfortable bed next to the one person I really wanted to be there with me.

It doesn't hurt any less, but sometimes it takes time before I remember the good that goes along with the bad.