And then there was this.
One day now seems like a full week. My head is empty and swimming with loose thoughts & anticipation. My flight to London was cancelled. Seems that every fragment of the UK trip has been disassembled. I will be flying to Paris instead, starting the trip in the middle-the part of the trip where I am alone & meant to be grieving. And perhaps the severity of this seems more pronounced due to the fact that I am weathered (pardon the pun) and sleep deprived. I am riddled with nervousness for the unknown & depression that the trip has been delayed. I am at work, at my desk, with my co-workers. I am drinking the coffee & listening to music on my headphones. Everything is exactly as it would be, exactly as I left it- but nothing is right. This is not what my life is supposed to be right now. I should be walking cobblestone streets, bringing my scarf up around my face & forging the Tube. I should be figuring out my stop on transit & navigating unsuspecting streets. I should be silent & bewildered. Instead I am just downtrodden, halted & exhausted.
I had three beers with Goose yesterday & it felt good to talk. To feel silence, to feel familiarity, to feel absence. I think we both remembered our equilibrium for a moment & then became aware of how unrealistic it was. We hugged when we said goodbye & I only paid attention to my feet afterwards. I walked out in the cold, clutching a cigarette in between my fingers & thinking how our plane ride had escaped us. His trip has been cut short, he won't see his family until Christmas day. My trip has been delayed. Who knows what the final result of it will be. I think we were both banking on a moment to be forced together in an airplane seat. He was my best friend for so many years. It's a bizarre feeling to not have that space to go back to, and even more bizarre to go back to it for a moment.
I can choose to not focus on the down sides of this scenario. I will get to see my entire family for Christmas. I will get to see my best friends who are coming back to the bay area for the holidays. I have time to get my broken Kindle replaced. I had time to buy new boots that can withstand weather. It's all right. It's alright.
But still- everything has changed. Even my plans that I tried to cement have changed. People ask me why I am at work... I feel like I have no where else to go. I have to maintain normalcy. And it's not as if I can't go "home", to my childhood home. My parents will always invite me. But it's not my home. There isn't one of those. It's packed up in boxes. It's still on Goose's bookshelf. There's too much in motion & not enough to count on.
But, then again, isn't this exactly what I have always said I wanted?
I had three beers with Goose yesterday & it felt good to talk. To feel silence, to feel familiarity, to feel absence. I think we both remembered our equilibrium for a moment & then became aware of how unrealistic it was. We hugged when we said goodbye & I only paid attention to my feet afterwards. I walked out in the cold, clutching a cigarette in between my fingers & thinking how our plane ride had escaped us. His trip has been cut short, he won't see his family until Christmas day. My trip has been delayed. Who knows what the final result of it will be. I think we were both banking on a moment to be forced together in an airplane seat. He was my best friend for so many years. It's a bizarre feeling to not have that space to go back to, and even more bizarre to go back to it for a moment.
I can choose to not focus on the down sides of this scenario. I will get to see my entire family for Christmas. I will get to see my best friends who are coming back to the bay area for the holidays. I have time to get my broken Kindle replaced. I had time to buy new boots that can withstand weather. It's all right. It's alright.
But still- everything has changed. Even my plans that I tried to cement have changed. People ask me why I am at work... I feel like I have no where else to go. I have to maintain normalcy. And it's not as if I can't go "home", to my childhood home. My parents will always invite me. But it's not my home. There isn't one of those. It's packed up in boxes. It's still on Goose's bookshelf. There's too much in motion & not enough to count on.
But, then again, isn't this exactly what I have always said I wanted?