On the edge of tomorrow

I am standing on the edge of tomorrow. All the yesterdays that led me to this moment of “now” are behind me. Before going forward, I pause for a moment of self-examination. What am I feeling?

Empty.

I have felt much emptiness recently. But this is different, somehow. Until now, I have been feeling an emptiness that is lifeless. Now I begin to feel something else: a kind of dry, windswept empty. I have been empty because of the absence of the one I loved. Empty because I am missing the passion I used to have in my life; I long to feel something, anything. But that kind of empty is about the past, about what I have lost. The past is behind me. Now I am standing on the edge of tomorrow. I am looking forward. I look at the emptiness in another way: maybe empty doesn’t have to be about loss. Empty can be good. Empty can be clean. Empty can mean there is room, now, for something new.

I surprise myself that I am starting again, trying again. Yet here I am, standing on the edge of tomorrow.

I wrote the above words in my journal as I began a new chapter in my Second Life. I remember that I felt nothing, neither hope nor fear. If anything, I felt inert—seeing the future, but unable to move forward toward it. Needing to break out of my inertia, I wrote the words dispassionately, then closed the book and just started walking. I had to move. To put one foot in front of the other and simply move forward, without feeling. Just move. Thus I entered the world of BDSM in Second Life.

Next: Reawakening »

Author: Camryn Darkstone

After more than two decades exploring 3D virtual worlds and their possibilities for relationship and self expression, Camryn Darkstone is leading a life of quiet contentment, building and landscaping for Littlefield Grid with occasional projects in Second Life. Camryn has been active in online communities since the early 1980s, and, under other names, has written extensively about the ways that people relate to one another on the internet. Since 2009 Camryn has enjoyed a loving, consensual D/s relationship as submissive to Walter Balazic in both the virtual world and the "real" world. View all posts by Camryn Darkstone