Chemical structure

Purple orchids are blooming in the potted plant on my counter - a point of particular pride for me since I've never been able to keep anything alive in my apartment, and this is the 2-year-old plant's second blooming.

I was up late last night, researching and writing the SBIR grant. And the night before. Today,  I had a difficult Phonecon with a member of the team. Afterwards, I took off on the bicycle and headed to Bethesda. I crave the physical activity and meditative state my brain goes into during a long ride. If my bum could handle more than this, I'd be on the bicycle every day (how DOES Patrick ride 40-100 miles each day? Don't have a clue.)

It was late by the time I arrived. Nearly 8 PM. I sat outdoors in the warm weather, drinking green tea and eating sushi. I talked on the phone with San, and with Eve. I paid, strolled around Barnes & Noble, and bicycled home in the dark. I had two head-lamps so it was fairly safe. But I encountered 4 deer on the trail, and an animal that may have been a raccoon or a skunk. Inherent dangers of night riding, I guess. Didn't hit anything except bugs.

I wonder what I'm doing here. Does it make sense for me to stay in Virginia? I've often thought about leaving. I haven't been able to recover any of the work I did before MIVD fucked with me. It is a difficult thing to have so much taken away and to never be able to take it back. I'd hoped that, by now, I could turn around and say, "Ha! You bastards. None of your evil mattered because, in the long run, I have triumphed." Of course I could never really say that with any degree of honesty because the truth is: I loved Sjors. I wanted him. Nothing else they took away mattered much after they corrupted him. He is lost to me. Any success would be a Pyrrhic victory. I loved him, and continue to love him, in spite of everything. And this causes me pain. What is it the Buddhists say?  All suffering comes from desire. I manage to go through long periods of forgetting, and then suddenly I'm struck through with such a pain. Some memory of his person-hood has struck me and I'm back where I was five years ago, suffering as though it was yesterday.

San asks me about this sometimes. She sometimes becomes desperate for me because Sjors is not dead - so there is still a chance. But this type of thinking always sends me down the rabbit hole and I despair all over again. She realizes this now, and so talks about Sjors as if he were dead. And we each grieve for the other person, for the future we each wanted with the men who loved us. And which will never happen.

Taking back my work was my primary reason for staying here, for spending all my savings on the high-rent DC metro area until I was out of money. It made sense to found a company here because of the proximity to the Pentagon. But instead, I work a job whose primary appeal is that it allows me to pay my rent and lawyer's fees. And what have I bought with my time? I'm no closer to the contracts I'd worked so hard for.

I was doing good work when I had to walk away. Really good work. I've never been so proud of anything in my life as the work I did on SAMP and African Winds. Gerritjan knew this. Patrick knew this. Its been two years since I last saw Sjors in Amsterdam Centraal. And the two-year anniversary of my work-stop is coming up. Now its possible I'll never do that work again. I wonder if Sjors ever thinks about it. What would he do if he knew his betrayal cost me everything? Do you know, Sjors? Do you understand what you did? Do you have any concept what your choices cost me?

I wish I could be angry at you. But I've never felt anything except profound sorrow. I love you. I pray for you and your boys. I have only ever wanted you. None of the trappings. Nothing else. Just you.

Now I spend most of my spare time trying to build this chemistry invention - an effort I could run out of any location without paying through the nose on this rental property. I think sometimes about moving to Europe. If I could pick a place, that's where I'd go. I loved Italy, and I lost her, too.

Right now, I'll just focus on getting this grant. I can't do anything for my African friends now, but maybe I can solve the structure of some chemicals.