Hello again tiredness. I have been expecting you. Who wouldn't? I moved from a city to another one, from one home to another in the same city in one week. I am still not done moving. I have talked so much in the past few days, trying to explain my life in two minutes sound bytes to everyone I met. I now realize I didn't need to do that. Sometimes waiting for the questions is a good idea. In the middle of a work day, I am hit by a wave of exhaustion that almost has me sitting on the floor and weeping. Everything feels like jelly. Even a trip to the grocery store for dinner is impossible. Thank goodness for a box of peanuts.
I am not done. This is not it. Things will change, and then some. I will move some more, I will pack and unpack and calculate what I can afford and fret about money and about how I need to learn to drive and why I am so late to such things. I have developed a healthy spirit of adventure and things like puddles of pee in elevators and bus drivers who scold me for no reason don't bother me. But sometimes, when I am compelled by my body to pause, I feel tired at all this movement. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it. But each round results in loss of some kind and this time as well, there has been a high price to say. I bury myself in projects, hoping to let the grief float past. But every time I pause, it is there, all my loss and sadness. The sadness of a dozen lives lived and a million left unlived.
Everyone who is left behind, all the closeness that is now a vague memory. All the distance between us. The things I have, the things I lost. The life that is gone by, the emptiness that sometimes travels with me. The heartbreak, the heartbreak. Still a floating jigsaw piece. I don't even know if I am in the right box. So much love and lightness. The random moments of understanding I have with strangers. So.much.laughter. I have stopped taking things too seriously, what other choice is there? I haven't stopped trying. But as I grow older, I am able to let it go more easily. I too am lighter. My luggage isn't. When it gets too much, I retreat to my bed and think of unclenching and how good it feels. I had six boxes shipped via Amtrak and that is four too many. I run a fever, it makes me light-headed and slightly delirious. I forbid myself from thinking about soup and warmth and home. I can't remember where I am - in a new city, a new home, a new room. Too much newness. Where is the comfort and familiarity?
I am not done. This is not it. Things will change, and then some. I will move some more, I will pack and unpack and calculate what I can afford and fret about money and about how I need to learn to drive and why I am so late to such things. I have developed a healthy spirit of adventure and things like puddles of pee in elevators and bus drivers who scold me for no reason don't bother me. But sometimes, when I am compelled by my body to pause, I feel tired at all this movement. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it. But each round results in loss of some kind and this time as well, there has been a high price to say. I bury myself in projects, hoping to let the grief float past. But every time I pause, it is there, all my loss and sadness. The sadness of a dozen lives lived and a million left unlived.
Everyone who is left behind, all the closeness that is now a vague memory. All the distance between us. The things I have, the things I lost. The life that is gone by, the emptiness that sometimes travels with me. The heartbreak, the heartbreak. Still a floating jigsaw piece. I don't even know if I am in the right box. So much love and lightness. The random moments of understanding I have with strangers. So.much.laughter. I have stopped taking things too seriously, what other choice is there? I haven't stopped trying. But as I grow older, I am able to let it go more easily. I too am lighter. My luggage isn't. When it gets too much, I retreat to my bed and think of unclenching and how good it feels. I had six boxes shipped via Amtrak and that is four too many. I run a fever, it makes me light-headed and slightly delirious. I forbid myself from thinking about soup and warmth and home. I can't remember where I am - in a new city, a new home, a new room. Too much newness. Where is the comfort and familiarity?
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