introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- evolution near noon - sixth of march, 2005 "everything in it's right place."~radiohead i feel a shift in things...a reversal of everything that i have become to the way that i used to be. i feel a happiness sinking in, a sense of relief. my partner was accepted to the university of his choice this time last year and i've spent a year readying myself for his departure, only to have each date moved back further. this time, though, he is really leaving. this time, i am unprepared. i'd gotten used to this rhythm of pushing back dates and then getting comfortable again. this time, there is no pushing back. this time, he really leaves. on easter monday, he will go. he will take a plane or the trane or a greyhound bus. or, he might pack up a rental car with clothes and bedding and a few photos. he will drive to new york and move into a small dorm room with roommates and, at age 31, he will live a life that i've already lived only he will be old enough to appreciate why he is there more, perhaps. on easter monday, at five o'clock, i will leave my job that makes me happy but runs me ragged. i will perhaps stop and pick up some groceries...some simple, cheap food. i will go home to a house inhabited only by a dog and a cat with an older man-neighbor living in the apartment below. the apartment will be vacant but for the animals and myself. i will make cheap food, cooking for one for the first time in years, no reason to leave an plate or a plastic container of leftovers for anyone else. any leftovers will be my lunch for the next day. leftovers make good lunches. cooking for just one has its perks. and so my life will be. work. sleep. cook for myself. walk the dog. clean the litter box. clean the house, which is barely messy because one person lives there. it sounds lonely on the surface...like something reclusive or like a barren emotional wasteland. but it isn't. there is all of this time to fill...a knitting class, another yoga class. walks with the dog at sunset. walks with the dog at three o'clock on sunday morning. meeting new people. finding old friends to visit. there are semi-goals. and my partner is still here. easter monday is a few weeks away and yet, the time seems planned out. i am emotionally detached, decompressing as quickly as possible to get used to the fact that the dates won't move back...that this time he is really going. he wants to spend time with me...to make these moments "count", though i'm not sure what it means. i have no way of making him understand that i need to numb myself ahead of time...that i need to do this in order to be happy for him, in order to keep myself from falling into some canyon of stagnecy from which i cannot crawl back out. i need to keep myself from wanting only to sleep and only to be still. i have three years of my own to fill now and i need to look ahead. i feel my self reverting to an older self. a self that is sufficient only to exist and go as moods take her. to experience. to be. it is a good infusion of self-dependence. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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