The doom of Shelby

* You may recall (maybe not, if you're a 'new' reader) that Shelby is a fictional blogger. Ok -- what I mean is .. as I warned .. or prefaced when I started this blog, Shelby is not the real name of this writer.

It is my belief that Shelby may fade away from this pretend existence at some point.. this year, next year.. I really don't know .. but what I do know is that Shelby's writer is in a quandary. Sick.. no, not sick as in disease.. just dissolving a bit.

Oh - the events here have all been real.. the names not so much. Shelby connects not (here) with some real people she's known and loved her four decades on earth .. instead, Shelby has mostly sought refuge here among an alternate universe of friends who have never known her -- people with whom have had no expectation of her -- people who have never judged her-- people who understand her and 'like' her.

The real people -- well, they are real. They know the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly, the exciting and the boring.

They make the world a harder place, but a richer place too--richer in the meaning of full, complete, raw, difficult, challenging and ultimately rewarding.

The real people are often uninvited here (except Brother-he's always invited). This is the writer's place .. a retreat of solitude, a certain intimacy much of the time. The guys here.. they're invited. That's the difference. Some of the difference I guess.

The real people -- people with whom only remember her and know her today with the sensibilities of the writer as having been skinny and awkward and socially somewhat inept (show me a teenager without those qualities--I dare you--can't do it).. they are the ones who cause Shelby to fade. They are real, Shelby is not.

.. it might well be the nearness of the doom of Shelby. She's fading a bit. More transparent than usual.

You see.. the writer connected with some ghosts of Shelby's past yesterday.. the real people. Some of the real people.

The writer had long avoided some real people, childhood friends, because of .. life -mostly. But they had become ghosts .. because they were so long ago.. so hard to see.. so hard to connect with somehow -- why? Such is life. Why indeed.

Time separates.

The time gap was bridged some in the last few hours. The writer has become more real--Shelby is not so real anymore.. The ghosts don't know Shelby -- never will, she has no past.. the ghosts know only the writer ...

..and they will never know Shelby.

It's like there are two worlds, and one cannot exist wholly in one and not in the other.

Real must win at some point. Shelby simply cannot pretend forever. The real is beginning to take hold. With all its faults.. still, the real is actually real.

And Shelby is actually pretend. You don't know - and may never know the writer.. and the real people don't know - and may never know Shelby.

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Narnians will never travel to London (well, Prince Caspian almost did - but it was after he had died, and they were technically in heaven, but he had always wanted to see their world, so Aslan allowed that to happen). And a few Londonites went to Narnia - but couldn't stay.

So...