A new chapter! Revised and revisited.
Out ta get me | “1994”: fanfic inspired story episode 4
Written september 2019, but situated in 1994 in a city that has a bar named Warhol, the chapter is part of a retro, vintage, diary project*, which is still ongoing (we’re now late 1998) but I have picked up publishing the first two years, 1994-1996.
It is expected in March 2024.
Retro diary project means that events that were taking place current day, or as was the case here pre-pandemic four years ago, were translated to their (and mine) 20th century counterpart.
Emails became letters, Whatsapps became phone calls, and a lot more time for reflection in between the slow daily grind, was inserted.
All my posts written late 2019 hold a special place in my heart, because diary project and love troubles aside, it were these final pre-pandemic months, where we had no idea our lives were drastically going to change.
I often feel September 2019 – February 2020 were the last 6 months of an era, and I value everything I wrote then more than all my other work.
Maybe also because from a personal point of view, these months were absolutely dramatic.
If you click the link to the retro diary chapter(s), you may be able to find several other posts, letters to my coach Sara, but also other posts, about autism.
September 2019, was the month I really started coming to terms with the fact that I was probably autistic.
Due to events I will not get into here, I pulled myself from the waiting list for a diagnoses, February 2020. Right before the pandemic.
A decision I never regretted, because the pandemic brought my “condition” to the surface. It went from something that was understood by me on an intellectual level (see other posts on the main blog, written Aug-Oct 2019) to something that developed in a lived-through understanding of being different.
Yet ultimately it would take until November worst-year-of-my-life, 2022, for me to apply for help with presumed autism, again.
Which started this summer, and has been an incredibly positive experience.
But reading the diary I wrote 2019, translated to 1994, a time when my lover was already moving away from me;
Knowing, how that ended in December, and with the pandemic lurking…..
It is like watching a horror movie.
He would break up with me, and although things would work out later as well, the heaviness of the pandemic years would certainly take some of its glow.
The amazing times came under a dark shadow.
I am writing this in the final weeks of 2023, and again, my lover has moved out of my life, exactly in the year I am finding help to get a diagnoses.
2019 has repeated itself.
Although the reason he has been moving out, as far as I can reconstruct this, has nothing to do with me, it is tough that from my point of view, finding mental help has come at the cost of losing him;
Twice.
My professional life has evolved, and I am so happy with where I am right now, late 2023. I know myself better, know how I will live what I optimistically call the second half of my life;
And the psychologist that is helping me, is warm and loving, and highly respected in her field.
She has predicted I will make a full physical and mental recovery, to the woman I used to be.
Although I have not yet talked to her about how far back we can go there. The strength of 1994? ;)
But that late 2023, the same desert analogies would apply to describe my sexlife, as they did in September 2019/1994?
That stings.
Those are the moments you feel you’re diary writing your way in circles.
And God knows, what doom lies ahead in Feb/March next year, this time.
I am mentally preparing myself, for a long stay in the desert.
~Lauren/LS Harteveld
An unexamined life is not worth living
* An About section, on this diary project, has been added to the bottom of this post.
since 2018 my official blog is: https://laurenharteveld.com/
This is also where I write my Lauren 1998 diaries.
Plus letters to my coach Sara.
publishing journal is a stand-alone project, written on my oldest blog, which has software I do not master (explaining the light grey or blue color of the links; I cannot (yet?) change this);
And it also does not have a “Subscribe” button, nor would I know how to install one.
But you can follow publishing journal on
Facebook
and
Twitter
This blogpost was about the publishing process of
A letter from a stranger
diary 1994 – 1996
including book 2, Dear Nikki
There are currently (I may have missed a chapter, which will be added as we go)
13 chapters in book one “A Letter To A Stranger”, 1994-1995,
and 22 chapters in book 2 “Dear Nikki”.
So with my resolution of giving this project one hour a day, I should be able to share the entire 1994-1996 diary* with you before the end of January 2024.
And it is expected to be for sale March 2024.
The books I’ll be publishing next are:
1.Reboot – a hero’s journey. Diary 2017-2019
2.I M NOT CHANGING MY FUCKING SHOW
All my other diaries and erotica are readily available in my BOOK SHOP
* ABOUT THE DIARY 1994-1996
In summer 2019, I started keeping a fictionalized diary, as a 25 year old younger version of me. Events that happened in 2019 found their way into the diary, translated to their late 20th century reality.
And I also absolutely, intended to LIVE, like it was 1994!
But this is a hard thing to do, I feel I am still (2023) learning there…. but that is my endgame;
To LIVE like it’s the turn of the century.
It was/is an amazing project, and to this day I consider the diary entries it produced on my main blog, my best and certainly my most interesting work, because it combines performance art (living in the 20th century) with diary writing, leaving ample room for fiction.
In 2021, I harvested the diary posts I had so far, with the intention of creating a published diary out of it. Two actually, volume 1 and 2, but I decided to put them in one bind.
But I abandoned the project in spring 2022, losing complete touch with the project….
December 2023, I have picked up publishing this amazing work, of vintage erotica.