Today I talked to my first
noder. No, not
/msg, not just chatting on
#everything. I actually HEARD another noders voice!
This particular noder was CamTarn, who hails from Scotland. The circumstances that led to the encounter were not happy ones, though. I had just come back from a more-or-less unsucessfull party, and was ready to spend my last waking hour or so with lonely netsurfing and lurking around intriguing, yet faceless noders on #everything. After blabbing a few lines of self-piteous crap I suddenly had the crazy idea to call up a random noder. This is something I could only think of actually doing while inebriated. As Fate so willed it, CamTarn gave me his number. With the nagging feeling that my mother was going to kill me for calling Scotland at 1 o'clock in the morning, I dialed.
At first, I was understandably nervous and started off with small-talkish stuff like "How long you been a noder?" and "How often do you node?" (pausing for a moment to comtemplate the weirdness of actually SAYING the word "noder"). After a while, though, I started coming out with the things I really wanted to say. I started to spill my heart out to a complete and utter stranger. I have no idea how it came to that, especially since I usually don't like talking over the phone. But for some reason, I trusted CamTarn with things I never thought I would say to anybody. In turn, he entrusted me with things I feel privileged to know. For years I had been virtually locked inside my own head, my true feelings being encrypted, locked and buried under 10 feet of concrete. The feeling that I was able to say anything I wanted to and have the other person actually LISTEN was incredible. I babbled like an 8 year old for a good hour and a half at least, probably sounding quite juvenile at times. But maybe that's why that conversation was so therapeutic for me.
My problems aren't gone, they're still there, but finally having the chance to tell someone about them...is just one of the best things that could happen to me.