For old times sake, I decided to probe the exigent bruise that is the result of a failed relationship. I still cannot rid myself of the distaste that rises to the fore when I attempt to peruse the journal entries that marked the two previous relationships before the Capt. There was no indication that it would be the same for my online journal. But unlocking alithiel, I realised that the old ghosts have no power to haunt me anymore. Unlike the previous ones, these were exorcised simply because all the bile was disgorged, and any strong manifestation of feeling was subsumed in ennui.

I can read my old entries without much excess of emotion. This is not to say that I do not occassionally feel a twinge of undefinable euphemistic feeling when I think about the previous circumstances. But they are so far removed from my self-fashioning at this current point in time that they no longer hold much power to hurt.

The other reason is: alithiel is a foundation stone. This diary has continuity, essential to the fashioning of an identity. It is who I am. Every entity has to have a past to define its present and to ensure a future. To discard it, merely because I decide to ignore the past in order to renounce the old hurt and shame, is a wastrel's sin. So for better or worse, it is better to embrace your past than to be ashamed of it.

In the same vein, I can trace my evolution as a person. Without an archive, I cannot do so.

The next reason, is I am still addicted to readership. And I was always more often read as alithiel than any other of the latter diary pen-names.

But I think, ultimately, the past no longer matters to me as much as the present, or the future.

This entry sounds too cold and clinical, a natural result of stewing too long in my head, and rewritten far too many times.

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