“Why do I throw away memories of something that is so precious to me..

If he decides to stop seeing me, I want to hang on to them, have them in a little box and caress them with my fingertips when he gets married, has his first child, moves to the other side of the country or possibly even migrates, given his work.

I need to build a memory of him, if I can’t build a life.“

from the unpublished manuscript of A Letter From A Stranger, including book 2, Dear Nikki

Over the years, I’ve made multiple attempts to bring these diary entries to print.
Yet, every time I start I can’t understand I dropped it, because the manuscript has been practically ready, the whole time.

I could tell you why technically the approach I had early 2024 and early 2025 turned out to be the wrong one;
Or how I will fix that this time.

But it would be beside the point and also, there is no guarantee my new approach will work.

However, so far I indeed conclude there is absolutely nothing wrong with the manuscript, and that it’s as good as done. As it has been for years.

However, maybe because I started editing from the end working my way backwards (to avoid getting too distracted by the story or chronology, and focus on text alone) I see different things.
And feel a gratitude I did not have before.

The project documents the affair I had, but set in a fictional 90s past.
I call it my first timeline project, and am currently undertaking a new one, living in 1990;
But this post is not about that.
This is about me 2025.
Definitely finding my feet, and having a clearer understanding of how the rest of my life will look, and what place romance will have in it, after it having been the center since 2007.

The affair from the faux 90s diaries has ended, and by now I’m pushing three years of celibacy.
That, is a long time.
In fact, it is so long that it has become its own artefact. My celibacy has unmistakably accumulated value, but I kept longing for what I had.

Until I read that paragraph at the top, and realized it was all perfect as it was. And the manuscript itself is that box of memories I can treasure.

90s Me gave me the treasure box of memories;
So I could always move on.