Sunday

March 16, 2008

Thus my vacation, my sabbatical if I can call it that, has begun. I haven’t made it very far geographically. But I am away from my home in the city. I am living out of my suitcase. I am embracing people. I am embracing this.

This weekend was supposed to be for Paul and I and Chicago. He decided that his fears were much stronger than the things he had first felt for me. Things are over. And I am not yet in Chicago.

Instead of the big city, Friday nite became the friend that was there to hold me, phone calls and rendezvous over wonderfully overpriced food. It became the friends that were there to listen, cheap beer in beautiful containers, and much cursing. Saturday was for conversation and packing and laundry and books. For buying cigarettes and for the dear friend who took them away. The nite was for friends who have been around since we were children, for coffees, for making maple syrup, for cheap beer in cold cans. It was for friends who know me, friends who love me even if I've once caused them pain. Sunday morning was not for Chicago, but it was for a room in my parents' house that I hadn’t slept in before and waking up with that terrifying, familiar, and so comfortable feeling of not knowing where I was when I opened my eyes. It was skipping church and having pancakes for breakfast, drenched in the maple syrup I watched boil down the nite before. The fire that kept me warm that nite helping to fill my belly the next day.

I have mud on my pants and am going on two days in the same clothes.

I am glad that I am not yet in Chicago. I am glad for people who know me and haven’t given up on me and love me still.

I feel really wonderful things in all of this pain. I am glad that I waited a few days to run away. Tomorrow morning I will get up very early and ride the train. And I will lose myself in a city much bigger than I am.