Continuing where we left off in volume 12 (https://www.wattpad.com/529035877-daron%27s-guitar-chronicles-volume-12-intro) ... which here on Wattpad ran into book 13... I haven't made the final decisions on where one book ends and the next begins. I...
You may or may not remember that book TWELVE (12) started this way, in January 2018, with a claim that it would be the last:
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As I've said time and time again, I can never seem to estimate properly how long any section of DGC would be. I was always wrong by a factor of two, and this turned out to be true again! Book 12, and what I called "the final year," actually took two books and two years, so at least in that way I was consistent...?
Maybe the reason things always take twice as long in DGC as I think they will is because both Daron and I have to have our say. (There's a good one for some psychoanalyst/literature major to pick apart some day...)
Anyway, here we are, at the end of book 13, and Daron has told me–like he told Ziggy–he needs some real, quality downtime.
It's not a stretch to realize that MIGHT be my subconscious trying to tell me that I need some rest, as well. And no wonder:
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It's taken over ten years of posting to get to over 1.5 million words. Over 1,111 posts (including liner notes, side stories, bonus scenes, etc..). And I'm so, so gratified and grateful that you've all taken this journey with me and Daron, whether you are reading this on the day it posts, or if you're landing here years later.
I learned something about healing from you all, and from Daron.
I was talking with a friend recently who fell off the wagon reading DGC somewhere in book 7 — right after the "Jonathan section." She said it wasn't that she didn't love Daron (and Ziggy) but that she realized she didn't need him anymore. The healing part of the story for her, the part she needed in order to heal herself, was Daron taking those steps to not only reach the knowledge of himself and his sexuality to get into a relationship, but to get out of it again. Although she'd figured out her sexuality much younger than Daron, she said, it still took her years to figure out how those needs intersected relationships, and seeing him grow up before her eyes, and get out before it was "too late," patched over a hole in her heart she hadn't even realized was there.
My reply: "Yep. Same."
Every section in Daron's story patches up some hole in my heart, even ones I don't realize are there. But I always felt it was too much to hope that it might heal other people, too. To hear that it has... well, that heals my heart, too.
