NOTE FOR MY READERS

Hey everyone, it's been a long while, hasn't it?

Well, I've been putting this off for a while and if I don't just dive in, I'll just keep putting it off (sorry ahead of time for the format. I had better spacing, but FFN refused to keep it, constantly reverting to this style).

I never thought I'd ever get to this point and I never wanted to be one of the people who writes notes where there should be a chapter (still, it's better for communicating this to all my readers than relying on my profile page)

Now, where do I even start?

Let me begin of by saying I'm NOT writing this to say I'm abandoning my stories or anything.

However, things are a bit more complicated. I have quite a bit to say, and this may very well be the most mature I have ever been. It's going to get a bit heavy (I believe nothing triggering, just sad), so younger readers may want to skip this. The same goes for anyone who is uncomfortable with people talking about really personal things because that is what this is.

I'm really nervous about writing all this, but as my readers and followers of my stories, I feel you all deserved to know what is going on.

I originally intended to update my stories on June of last year (the reason it took so long was because I got a new puppy that January and was spending that time getting it trained and accustomed to us and the house. Also, over the summer, I began writing a story and I was on such a roll, that I decided to try to make that my first novel. Unfortunately, an update was not to be. First, our company was doing very poorly because the country all our clients were from had had a terrible turn in their economy and our work slowed to a trickle (sometimes stopping altogether). So we had to prepare to close our company. During that time, my aunt (my mother's only sister) was diagnosed with lung cancer. It advanced incredibly fast and she passed away within two months of the diagnosis. It was a terrible, terrible thing to watch (I really hope none of you ever have to witness anything like that) and for a long time I simply didn't care to write anything at all, and I even lost the 'roll' and inspiration for my own work.

This year, we finished closing our company (which we didn't finish last year due to my aunt's illness and passing) and my parents decided to sell our old house which we had been renting.

I thought I was getting back into the groove of writing, but now my mother has been recently diagnosed with breast cancer (13 months from my aunts passing).

Now for the main part of this note:

To be honest with all of you, I have now realized that my writing has not been going well even before all of this, however. In fact, I know realize it's been terrible and I'm not just (necessarily) talking quality-wise.

I recently deeply reminisced about long ago and i has a realization which I will explain, but first I have to tell you guys a bit about my past so you can have the proper context and to explain what is (and has been) going on with my writing. It might confuse you as to what it has to do with writing, but I promise it will all connect back and you'll hopefully understand when I finish.

I've never talked about this publicly before, but I wanted to help you guys maybe understand a bit of where I'm coming from.

Many years ago, back when I was still in high school, I was in love with a girl who was my friend. We had become friends back in middle school, where she first befriended me. Back in middle school, I had been in a very bad place; I had been heavily bullied previous years, since elementary school, and I was just a shell of a kid, completely alone, friendless and withdrawn into myself (at that time there was no "zero-tolerance" policy), when she reached out to me in friendship. Despite being popular, she always talked with me in our classes (in middle school we had many together the year I met her [coincidentally, it was also that year that I got my first taste of fiction writing in our English class]; which unfortunately was the last year of middle school). She was kind, polite and caring, always going out of her way to talk to me and we always hung out and chatted in class and in the halls. We connected deeply, far deeper than any of my previous friendships and any since. She never knew it, but she saved my life. I didn't fall for her just like that though. We became friends first, good friends, until one day it just happened; it was like I was seeing her for the first time, and that's when I fell for her.

We ended up going to different high schools initially and I spent the intervening time reflecting; I had had crushes before and was evaluating my feelings, realizing that I had genuinely fallen in love with her rather than it being a simple crush or infatuation (if you're thinking what someone in their early teens could possibly know about real love, I was always very mature and careful. I carefully considered and evaluated my feelings with the same maturity, which I admit is not something many teenagers can do [though it's not completely unheard of]). When she eventually transferred to my high school, I was beyond elated and we actually resumed our friendship as if no time had passed. Later that year, I found out that she did not have a boyfriend and I resolved to gather the courage to ask her out.

I lost too much time.

I managed to gather the resolve but before I got the chance to ask her out, I found out she had by then gotten a boyfriend.

(At this point you can pretty much imagine how much I wanted to bash my own face into a wall. Repeatedly).

My one friend who knew of my feelings for this girl had constantly told me earlier to just open up to her, but in my nervousness, I was the world's biggest fool and did not heed his advice before it was too late.

Things only got worse from there. After that year, we no longer had classes together and I saw her less and less, only occasionally in the hallways (and we rarely got to talk because her boyfriend was always around).

Since my university had many of my schoolmates attending, including many classmates, I spent years hoping against hope to see her again there. I did not stop until later when I found out that after graduation from high school, she moved out of state and I never saw her again; that was 11 years ago.

(We regained contact for a little while a few years ago, before she abruptly stopped talking to me before our friendship could resume).

She likely did not reciprocate my feelings, and as long as she is happy I can accept that, but the loss of our friendship was completely devastating to me and now I fear that I honestly don't know if it meant anywhere near the same to her as it did to me (and I'm just talking about friendship here, never mind love).

You should understand, during those few precious years we were friends, she helped to shape who I became. More so than even my parents (you'd understand if you knew them); the best parts of me are because of her.

Countless times I've been told the old spiel of "there are millions of other fish in the sea", but there is no other her. I should have told her how I felt, even if she did not reciprocate my feelings, but I was terrified of ruining our friendship. A whole lot of good that did me now that I lost her friendship anyway.

So what's all this got to do with my writing? I'm getting to that.

Recently, I was going through an old hard drive looking for some old stories of mine to show to my friends from college, and for whatever reason, I started feeling nostalgic and so I pulled out my high school yearbook and, as I said earlier, began to reminisce. As I thought back to how great things used to be, before *I* allowed it all to fall apart, I did some deep reflecting (much deeper than any previous times I had reminisced about the past) and realized that in the years since, I had let everything become stagnant and neglected. I'd fallen into a rut of misery and disenchantment with writing, even fics. I had always known that I had not gotten over her, nor would I ever, but I had been lying to myself about just how profoundly this had all impacted me.

They say your 20s are supposed to be the best years, but as mine approaches its end, upon reflection, I see that mine have been anything but.

For a little over a decade now, I have been going through life in a slump, never really reaching my best in anything. My for-publish work has been grinding along in a pace that a snail would seem supersonic; I haven't completed even one novel yet. University was a drag and I didn't even finish the major I wanted (I was originally studying engineering), writing was no longer as fun and exciting as it had been from '04-'08, and even though I never stopped writing, in life in general, I wasn't really ever amounting to anything. Even in work, I had jobs but never a career. Sometimes it feels like the last decade was a nightmare and that I can somehow wake up from it and find out that I can go back to class and see her again, but alas that is not the truth. What I most have is regret and self-loathing.

So, with the realization I gained from this introspection, I've decided to change. I want to reinvigorate my writing and push forward to finish and publish a novel and go beyond.

I've been drowning in regret and I'm not going to try to fool myself that things will be easier now that I have made this realization, but I've still got my memories to drive me forward. I will do my best to channel the regret that will be with me forever into inspiration to keep on writing and keep on improving.

Like back in middle school, the girl I fell in love with has once again become my inspiration to push myself to become better; to turn my life completely around.

I don't know if she's married or has kids or anything by now, but I think about her everyday and everyday I wish and pray that she is well, that she has achieved her dreams and that she has all the happiness and love that I could not give her.

And I will make myself someone she would be proud of.

Even though I haven't seen her since high school graduation, she has saved my life once more.

As for my fics, I'll still keep pushing through to write as often as possible. They're no longer priorities, but I'm not dropping them.

I know some of you may not understand and think I'm being silly or immature, letting everything fall apart because of a middle/high school love from a decade ago. That's all right. I understand that it may be be nearly impossible to comprehend unless you have not only gone through what I did, but experienced the same feelings with the same intensity. And I genuinely hope that you never have an experience like mine to learn it firsthand. I hope all your relationships turn out much happier and brighter and that you never experience the suffering of heartbreak for someone you feel in your heart and in your soul could have been your soulmate (and trust me, if you ever fall in love that deeply, you will believe in soulmates if you do not already).

For everyone else, I hope you guys now understand where I'm coming from in deciding to refocus my efforts in everything. For my fics, this is not goodbye or even a hiatus, but it is a massive hitting the brakes and I don't know how long it will be like this.

Hopefully I can serve as a lesson to you all; here's a bit of advice which I learned the hard way and which not learning it sooner still haunts me to this day.

There are no (functional) Delorean Time Machines that can allow you to go back in time and fix your mistakes, so give it your best on your only time around. Live in the now, because when it becomes the past, it will never come again.

Thank you all.

P.S. By chance, if any of you ever come across my novel (when it eventually gets published) and recognize me as the author, please, please, please keep quiet about it. Fanfiction is still heavily frowned upon in the literary world and I would like to continue writing fics even when I get published. It would be a shame to be forced to give it up after all this.

P.P.S. When I eventually update this story, I'll replace this page for the chapter. However, this note will remain on my profile page at least until I'm able to get everything more in order.