These Are the Days of Our Lives
Shimmer's Journal
Entry 576 4/19/92, 4:23am
I can't sleep. This is going to be a long one.
I think a lot.
Really, I can't help it. I just do. It feels so fresh and free to think. Sure, it's turned me into an insomniac, but that's a small price to pay for freewill. I will never stop thinking. Unless I get turned into a zombie or something. I've seen stranger things happen.
"Hon? Are you writing in your journal again?"
Like falling in love with this guy.
"Sorryyy!"
"No, it's fine, I'm going back to sleep though. Don't blame me if you're tired in the morning.
"Duly noted."
As my husband turns over and drifts back into snoring, I'm struck by the fact that at times it is the banalities of life I am most grateful for. Like thinking. Most ponies take it for granted. But I'm not a pony. I'm a changeling. I mean, yeah, I'm sort of a pony, in the same way a Saddle Arabian Horse is sort a pony. That is to say, not really.
Autonomy is great, mostly. It becomes terrifying when you think about it too much. I mean, I control my fate. If I mess up, it's my fault. I known I've lived with free will for going on four years now, but I still am struck with the sudden realization that I'm free more often than I'd care to admit.
I mean, it's not like I wasn't free back when the hive mind was mandatory. I still made my own decisions, for the most part. But it's the "for the most part" part that gets me. Who's too say how much of what I did was me, how much was the swarm, and how much was the ever-present seep of the Queens malodorous influence?
The question now becomes, what do I do with all this?
Well, for one, I go camping, I guess?
There's something to be said for dictatorships, you're never at a loss for what to do. That's not saying I like the old way, at least I don't think it is. I know there are grumbles among our people, the ones who miss the anonymity and the order, and I can't blame them. It is a thrill to be undercover. It's also nerve racking. No wonder heart attacks are the number two cause of changeling death. For my psychologist (I know you'll be reading this.), I'll say that starvation is number one, or at least it was before the great breakening. Rest in peace, you dumb queen.
So the question, one that frequently keeps me up at night or in the morning, as it is now, is where do we go from here? Now what? The huge upheaval of the last decade has finally settled down into a trickle of discontent and slow burning change. Now what?
Just as the ponies all remember where they were the day ~~Nightmare~~ Luna returned, so all us changelings forever remember the day the link was severed. It's an image that's not going to go away anytime soon: the flash of clarity, followed by effervescent feeling of pressure off my shoulders, followed by the horrible realization that I ~~was~~ am a monster. And to think that the pony next to me right now was the first one to see this. Well, he was asleep. In a pod. Where he would have spent the rest of his days and nights. As I said, free will does wonders for your conscience.
I wonder. I wonder a lot. I wonder what we do now that we aren't crusading. Now that the changeling, the emaciated and the starving and the mutilated changelings aren't leaving the hive in droves, in thousands, all bearing down upon an overwelmed Equestria, begging for a new lease on life. I wonder. I wonder if this is a pivital moment of time in our people's history, and I can't help but think that it is. We haven't been truly free since our creation, I guess.
I wonder about a lot of things. I wonder what's going to be happening with the voluntary mind linkage that's been all the rage lately. Me personally, after being subjected to it not so much against my will as without consent for the first 33 years of my life, I don't really want to relive it anytime soon. I know it's not really super healthy to be this disconnected, but hey, that's what this journaling is: a prescriptive outlet for my need to communicate. Is it really any surprise so many changelings have gone into diplomacy?
I wonder. Is Clair and I's adoption going to go through? I sure hope so, and not just for selfish reasons. Learning how to love for others's sake instead of my own has been one of the great journeys I and a thousand other lings have had to undertake. It's not easy. But it's possible.
But as I wrote, I wonder. I wonder how this era will shape up in the eyes of the next generation? Will Clair (Cel knows I won't last that long) someday be sitting in a rocking chair, surrounded by a few offspring a few generations removed from his own, telling about how he was one of the first ponies to integrate with changelings? Will he tell of how he bravely married an alien warrior? I'd be flattered if he did.
I think he will. He's always been the sort of nostalgic type. Seeing how I probably only have 15 years left. I dunno. Twenty? He won't have to wait that long until he can start telling the uncut version where I was a huge brat for the first two years of our relationship. I love you, dude, but again, you're too nostalgic.
When you're a changeling, you're raised in a culture where death is second nature. Maybe that's why I'm so blase about the lifetime discrepancy thing. I'm just happy to be where I am, living on my own accord. Maybe that's why I'm so happy nowadays: low standards. Or maybe it's just the fact that I'm alive. Well, again, low standards. Speaking of life, to answer my earlier question I may not have asked, I guess that's why we're camping right now: to make the most of life.
Clair de Lune. I love that name. It slips off the tongue so deliciously. I think all Prench names do. Actually, I don't know a lot of Prench names. Fluer dis Lee comes to mind. I should write back to her. It's been what, three months? Yeah, note to self, write back to your sponsor.
Nope. Still can't sleep. Not sure why. Hubby's namesake is high in the tree-obscured sky. I like Luna. I'm glad she digs us. I'm glad she didn't bite my head off. Rest in peace Tobby, you unfortunate scoundrel you. Yeah, another note: ~~hang out at~~ attend a night court session soon. I hear they are still not crowded. And I mean, she's been back now for what, fifteen years. That's no longer a drop in the bucket of her banishment years. That's more like a soup spoon now.
Yeah. I like Luna. I should visit her. She gets us. You know, the whole tragic villains posessed by an evil force then forcibly redeemed thing. The thing is, my evil possessor hatched me. Talk about mommy issues. Seriously, Shimmer, visit your darned therapist.
What is it keeping me awake anyway? I'm not proud of my past, but I think I've come to pretty good terms with it. Well, mistakes were made. Yes, I'm aware of how the passive voice shift the blame onto some vague amorphous evil doer. But really, when your mother tells you to do bad stuff, and all you've ever known is doing bad stuff, and it isn't shown to be bad, and etc... Yeah, yeah, I still have residual guilt. But it could have turned out worse. I guess I'm thankful for that.
So, why aren't I asleep? It's almost five. Well, getting there. Not too much longer 'til the sun is out. And I'll be groggy and not want to get up, and then Clair will dump water on me and I'll get faux-angry and tackle him, and then... now I'm hungry. Yay me. But I'll tell you. Freely given love is so much sweeter. If only we'd learned that sooner. Again, I gotta stop digging up the past. Again.
Maybe I'm over thinking everything. Maybe, and hopefully, the "Changeling problem" will just work itself out. Maybe this underwhelming but sleep-depriving ennui will work itself out. Maybe I'll become the next queen.
But I suspect in the end I'll do what I always do: shake him awake, ask for hug to stifle the hunger pangs, get a hug and a nuzzle (a treat!), and fall asleep in his wonderful arms. That sounds nice. Sure, I never really answered my question of why I can't sleep. But maybe I got a little closer. In the end, that's all we can do. Keep on keeping on.
Good night journal. 
~Shimmer Song
Author's Note
I'd like to think the song is named after my husband, but I suspect it's the other way around, or coincidental at best. Either way, it's nice to buzz at night.
