2025-01-10 - Diary: A Tale of Two Joshes

I've been at Spellbound for a little over a month now. I spent the first 95% of that basically going to work and going home to be alone. Even for a self-professed loner and introvert, that's a pretty isolated existence. When I first stepped foot on Spellbound I felt this...this weight lifted from me. I was home. Fast forward 30 days and I was crying my eyes out talking to my mom on FaceTime. She begged me to come home. And I think I was going to go.

Then some magic started to happen, literally and figuratively. Did Spellbound somehow sense I was at my breaking point, and deliver relief? And if so, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Are we blessed or cursed to be here?

I met Theo and Esme and Robin and Huck all within the space of 24 hours. And just like that, I had friends. FRIENDS. I don't know if I've ever had friends before. I mean, there were some kids I hung out with growing up, but were we friends? Does this place provide us with just enough? Maybe it needs us, tries to keep us here.

They say that when you leave Spellbound and return to the mainland, you lose your magic and start to forget. There is something both reassuring and supremely sad about that. It's like we branch off from our original selves and evolve into this new kind of thing, like I am becoming this Josh-like being who can do some magical things and have friends, both of which are antithetical to Old Josh, apocryphal even.

Yesterday I was high on the Midway. Not, like, super high. Theo invited me and I kept trying to go but the thought of being in that crowd was too much so I had half a gummy. Apparently I could have been fired for that. In 2025. Fired for half a gummy. And then I would have been sent back to the mainland. Just like that, New Josh would be gone forever. Over half a gummy. Is that murder? Would management be committing murder by firing me? Would I be committing suicide by going home?

I think of the friends I have made, each of them so beautiful in their own, unique way. The thought of any of them going back home makes me sad, makes me cry. Not for any loss I might experience, but for the fact that their new selves will cease to exist. I think the whole world suffers a little bit when something beautiful is lost.

I doubt I could tell any of them that in a way that would make them understand. So the secret stays locked away. Like it always does.