Independence Day

Strange. Eight years ago today, she moved out, after five years.

Don't get me wrong, it was a good thing. Went out for fireworks with some other single guys, to rejoin that club, and it felt overdue. Hadn't been happy in my own home in a long time.

But it's the five year duration that recurs, at strange unexpected junctures in my life.

Three different career phases ended after five years. Moved out of my all-time favorite flat after five years. Was in college five years, haha. (Now, automatically expecting that I'll be making my living in the Middle East for five years, before moving on to a next career.)

Weird too, because a long time ago, "Five Years" by David Bowie struck me like a thunderclap, charting my direction into music appreciation for the rest of my life. But little did we guess it would resonate more widely.

About two weeks ago, had signed up at deviantART five years ago. And now it's time to leave.

Funny story. Signed up at DA to check out a friend's art, did that business, and then ran the hell away from it. The plethora of amazing art beckoned me like a huge waste of time, and it didn't appeal to me then to sit alone at a computer gawking, nor did any prospect of an online social life. I was no artist (though had long wanted to be), and saw no place for me there.

Little would I ever have guessed...

Six months later, my real social life had become terribly disspiriting, and now craved something more constructive to do with my time. Stumbled backward into the deviantSphere and took a fresh look. All that amazing art, and a comments system that encouraged feedback. (If only our favorite musicians gave us such an easy way to cheer them on!) But reading those comments, felt a pang for the artists' sake. There seemed to be almost no substance to the responses.

Saw great, elaborate, sensational, intimate, and stirring works, treated almost disposably by the faintest of praise.

And found a place for me there.

Funny quirk about me, and certainly presumptuous, but I tend to present myself to others as if setting an example for others to follow. Nowhere moreso than in public online venues. So that strategy quickly garnered me a lot of positive energy in return, and quickly, finally, found the inspiration to become artistic myself. And, unknowingly at first, that artistic mission led to a new one, that still shines as the brightest direction in my life to this day.

On Monday morning, 1 March 2004, was hitting the snooze alarm in the middle of a dream, in which I had won DA's highest honor, their Deviousness award. Until finally woke up with a start at the implications, and thought to check. Sure enough...

"There's always something very special about receiving a comment from `justthorne. This is a deviant who goes beyond supporting the DA community with the volume of his comments, but puts a lot of time and energy into the quality. When `justthorne posts a remark on a deviation, you can be sure that he has something very well thought out and insightful to say..."

Of course, "something well thought out and insightful to say" would come back to haunt everyone later.

There's a long story behind the events kicked off in July of 2005. It shouldn't be retold here. But it led to over six brutal months of proof of my commitment to deviantART, an education in politics that I never could have imagined. 1 March 2006, two years after winning their award, felt like the greatest accomplishment of my life for living up to it.

So it really hurts to leave. It really makes me sad. Know, intellectually, that my accomplishment is none diminished, but emotionally, feel as if I bent over backwards to do right by someone who turned out to be a treacherous whore. We've all been there, right?

But if there's one lesson that's been slow to learn, it's that the secret to moving on is to quit taking things so personally. They've made their bed, and small men will never know the glory of noble ambition. It's their loss. But I can't help that it feels like my own.

deviantART did for me, what it was there to do. Will always be thankful for that.

But the hardest part of giving up on a relationship, is walking away from the dreams that guide it, and made it feel so special and singular in our lives.

Alas.