it's already october. the chill in the air reminds me that another year is passing. another year in which i haven't accomplished my goals. another year that i am older. another year that i have wasted time. wasted time at work; at play; and even in sleep. wasted time not doing the right things, the important things, the things that i can look back on and smile thinking, those were hours that i don't regret.

i have half-listened to friends; half-assedly surfed the internet; half-heartedly liked someone i was dating (but whom i couldn't really bring myself even to kiss); and half-spent my life now. it is nearly half spent and it feels like i have done nothing that is even half-worth it.

that's not entirely true. a few moments shine. the crowded beach when i was 13 and lithe and tan. wearing my tight jeans and feeling like the world was ahead of me. late nights with my friends doing nothing more than drinking and laughing at the absurdity of things. that chocolate mousse that was nearly perfect. a warm cup of coffee on a frozen morning. the way that he smiled and looked at me. lounging on the porch, listening to the rain and reading a book.

the world is falling apart. it's times like these, i realize that i should pay attention to everything. even in the midst of half-assed half-hearted moments, life happens.

you will never know how much i missed you.

you will never know that i used to wake up with your name on the tip of my tongue and mind - just hanging in the space of everything, like dust and molecules floating in the air... invisible but present.

you will never know that i recently started writing you letters in cyberspace - a place to voice my thoughts in penance.

you will never know that i still think of you with the sorrow of someone who in hindsight understands loss.

you will never know that sometimes, late at night, i imagine that you are here with me and that our lives had turned out differently.

last night i remembered you again. i was with someone else but for a second, i imagined he was you... and it made me happy. silly me.

you will never know, but it's time to let go.

i'm trying to be compassionate, respectful, and fair in my dealings with people. sometimes it's hard when they throw only anger, disrespect, or bad attitude at me. and it makes me wonder whether i've somehow drawn or attracted that situation to my life? it makes me stop and examine my role in the interaction to see whether i'm contributing to the reaction, and many times, i realize, yes i am contributing my share to the situation. sometimes though, people can just be plain rude, unprovoked. in those cases, i've decided that it's best to shake it off and let it go. after stomping all over 'em, of course. ha. just kidding.

When you lose someone whom you were close to, it can be shocking. It really drives home the idea that all things are transient - even those things we take for granted as being permanent fixtures. You realize that all the little things that you obsess over are not important. Not as important as the people whom you care about and not as important as how you spend your time with, and treat, them. We're all on this ride for a limited time so make sure to enjoy it and the people who are riding with you.

When the leaves fall and turn orange,
they paint fire on the cool gray sidewalk.
Last remaining embers scattering
flying, torching the world.
Last burst of sun and summer
Reminder of lush green trees
thick with leaves.
Now fallen, shivering, moldering,
when did it get cold and gray.
Darkness comes too soon.

it is one of those unseasonably warm november days. it reminds me of the summer, in fact. everywhere i turn, people go about their daily routines as if things are normal. no one seems to have noticed the change in atmosphere - the definite shift that causes me to wonder, what month is this?

one minute you can be going about your life on auto-control and the next, nothing is as you thought it was. it's something to remember - this feeling.

i can't believe how quickly the year has gone. the surprises of the past month are still settling into my brain as if after an earthquake. things feel unsettled; one quick movement, and who knows what the disturbing after-effects may be... will the dishes fall out of the cabinet and crash to the ground; will the foundation of the earth buckle and swallow us whole?

i move carefully these days. i guess that's all that any of us can do. strive for elevation but hold onto the ground.

i'm at a loss for words. it seems incomplete, everything. i remember you and i remember this and that and i remember that i'm not done remembering, even though i can't remember what i had for dinner the other night. i can't seem to stop them - the memories flitter here and there. and then this happens. which causes another set of memories. a whole new catalog to be built - good, bad, sad, incomprehensible. the thoughts are muddled and confused and keep me wired all night. i feel bad that i did not see this coming. i wonder if there is anything that anyone can do to prevent things. i feel like i have failed. amid all of that, a funny thought pops up and makes me smile. i hope you're ok... everyone whom i have known.

positive positive positive

time and again, i try to stay focused on the goal - which is not to stay focused on the goal. i keep trying to remember it's about staying in the moment and focusing on the here and now. snap out of my self-pity and obsession and moping. but it's so damn hard sometimes not to wallow and whine.

timing.

I ran into someone recently whom I wish that I'd gotten to know better. The timing, the way that we interacted, or maybe or the color of the sky or the day of the week wasn't quite right for us then.

And, it was still a bit awkward when we saw each other recently. Awkward as in, we kind of didn't know what to talk about but we were sort of trying. If we could break through each other's walls, we might like each other and have stuff to talk about. We're kind of like astronauts in our space suits, all suited up, protected from the elements, trying to gesticulate and communicate through sign language, making faces through our bubble helmets - trying to touch the other. If one of us were more assertive and less insecure, maybe we'd actually have connected. Or, maybe not. Who knows.

Anyway, I think I need to take off my space suit and get to earth so that I can try to communicate with other people a little more clearly...

Today was a long day. Unbearably long. The partner whom I work for called me into her office and asked me to organize documents for yet another deposition! When are they frickin going to stop the endless discovery on this project. I sometimes think there have to be better ways of making money - including going through the painful process of injecting myself and harvesting my eggs for sale. Or, renting my womb.

Speaking of eggs, I am about to reach that stage of a woman's life in which her eggs may no longer be as um, fresh, as they used to be at one time. This is causing me no small amount of anxiety. I won't panic. Yet. Maybe in another five days though I might.

losing it

i'm losing memories of you - they are fading fast into the background. that's probably a good thing. the more they linger the harder it will be for me to pretend that i don't care, that i don't have any feelings left, and that life is marching solidly on, without my care.

i'm losing bits and pieces and fragments - they fly off like shards of glass splinter in a crash. they are flying everywhere and i'm ducking and trying not to get hit, hurt by the fragmented memories and thoughts that scatter around.

it's fine. it really is. but sometimes, in a quiet moment when the car is at a stoplight and the radio is playing some song that was our favorite, i find a piece of something that reminds me of you. and it makes me smile.

test me

sometimes people like to test people, to know where the boundaries lie. they are like explorers, charting the course of the new world and attempting to figure out how much of this world/person they can conquer. maybe they test how much of the landscape is something to fear - something to submit to or at the very least, walk around with a watchful eye. or more likely, they test people to see what they can get away with, how far they can push things and how much their will dominates.

i don't test people. i take people at face value. i don't push or poke to see where they will crumble. i don't put walls up deliberately. but i do have fences. i think of them as wrought iron fences that help keep out intrusions but through which you can travel, if you get the key.

but if you test me - act like a jerk, manipulate, or push my buttons just to get a reaction, the moat goes up. the fortress goes into lockdown mode and i won't respond. i don't appreciate tests like that.

test me and i'm out.

maybe I'll never understand the reason for why we never worked out. ironic, because i thought for some reason it wouldn't but couldn't figure it out. maybe you and i in a parallel universe are living out a happy and fulfilling life together. sometimes when i'm stone cold sober i remember the reasons, but lately, i am awash in a fog of wonder.

and maybe i'm just wishing hopelessly against hope that someday it will all make sense to me. right now, it doesn't - even though it did a while ago.

it feels confusing - mashed up gray emotions mixed with the soggy memories of the past. it feels like the laughter that left in the middle of a joke, like a sneeze that never came out. it feels like the cat scratching against the door, pawing, wanting to go out but kept inside with the rain beating on the window pane. or the scream that you try to do in a dream. i want to yell but i can't. maybe that's what i'm missing right now. the inability to express something anything whatever. but even if i did, you would never know.

maybe you wonder too. maybe you understand, better than i do. i thought i understood but then it came apart - my understanding.

maybe someday it will make sense. and maybe someday it still won't. but maybe, baby, that's ok.

I was cleaning up my apartment the other day when I came upon this old CD that a friend gave me. I popped it into the player and sat back, nostalgia washing over me as I listened to The Smiths, The Cure, and Echo and the Bunnyman. I remember when I had those big waves/fins as bangs and the striped t-shirts and the stirrup pants tucked into little boots. I remember bouncing around in a club to the Go-Gos. I don't remember thinking that we looked ridiculous. It's only now, in retrospect, that I realize how bad the fashion was.

Then, today I went to the mall and saw all these teenagers wearing striped t-shirts, straight-legged jeans, with glowing skin that looked almost radioactive. They looked happy and oblivious. They have no idea what awaits for them. They have no idea how bad they will look to themselves in the future. I envy them that innocence.

there have been a lot of changes in the past month or two. things seem to be shifting again and in strange ways, echoing the past. is this the way life is? is it a spiraling down or up toward some final destination point in the sky? it lately feels a lot like de ja vu, but this time, i think i'm a little more prepared to handle the new (and old).

after all the little things that have happened this year, the latest is really not a big deal.

yet, at one time, it would have really hurt a lot more than it does now. i mean, it doesn't really hurt. it's more like a tiny slap on the arm - something that reminds me that i've got to get a move-on - but nothing that i didn't really know wouldn't happen. i quit my job in the past month, moved back to s.f. (where it just kills me that it's freezing cold in the summertime!), and am now enrolled in night school for a new degree.... but that's not the biggest news. the biggest news is that a friend, someone for whom i once carried a big torch... well he's done it. he's gone and gotten married. what's happening to this world when people i knew who used to proclaim that marriage was for idiots are committing this act?? happy news like this can make me sad. :-)

anyway, i've done a lot of moving and changing and growing but sometimes it feels like i'm the only one who's standing still.

it is a struggle sometimes.

I am at work right now, craning my neck at the computer, trying to pretend to be entering a chronology of events in this case that I'm working on but it is the biggest struggle I have not to click onto the internet and go to my favorite porn site or to surf on over to the best betting site I have bookmarked. How do you really bookmark something as the best, though? It's difficult because the minute you do, something else pops up that replaces what I thought was the best until pretty soon, the best is now the worst on the list....

Anyway, the days have been slowly slipping off like a silk scarf billowing and falling off one's neck on a breezy spring day. No that's not quite right. The days have been falling away and receding from me like a body falling off a building - you can't believe how fast it's going but before you know it, it's done. Kaput. Splat. Over.

I was thinking about how the days are slipping away from me because I've got a deadline on this case and yet, all I can think about is... what should I eat for dinner; or is that zit getting bigger; or am I always going to be in this job forever and ever. And, what's going on in Iraq? Ok I'll be honest. I threw that in there not to sound so self-absorbed but I am self-absorbed. Hopelessly. I'm trying not to be but uh, it's not taking very well.

In the midst of all this, the lawyer on this case calls and asks me where the Hell is the chronology of the case? I'm supposed to be organizing documents and chronologizing them into a neat pile in different boxes with an index. But, I can't stop thinking about everything else.... the Internet calls to me, its siren scream drawing me to the mouse until I click. Again. and again. and again.

It's a struggle sometimes to stay focused on my work.

The drinks started slowly and the conversation was a little halted... I wasn't sure that you were interested; you seemed somewhat abrupt and uninterested when we met... I felt my defenses go up. I found you to be interesting and funny and someone whom I'd want to get to know better... but something about you made me feel uptight and serious and so not cool. I didn't like feeling so uncool... I started to shut down; I'm not sure why. I think I started to wonder if you were really my type and thinking that Im not your type, and then before I knew it, I had decided that nothing was going to happen between us. Typical overthinking, overanalysis... over before it started.

And that's kind of a shame... because you seemed like you could have been fun.

i just googled someone whom i went to school with and found out that she's become a big-shot corporate lawyer at some big firm. she was always the kind of girl who would try to show off her knowledge and who felt compelled to tell everyone else how wrong they were about this or that. and, to learn that shes ended up as a lawyer in a firm made me smile with a little satisfaction... because, no matter how little i make and how much drudgery my job hands me, i get to go home at the end of the day and just forget about it all.

Ive had a stressful week. I had to endure a coworker's ranting and raving about some perceived slight of which she accused me; had a "talk" with this boy whom I'd been seeing which informed me that there was no "us" in us; and had the worst migraines.

But, on the bright side, I lost 3 lbs!!!

I'm looking for something to ignite me, to get me worked up and to feel alive, the way you feel after a long jog through the beach. I'm looking for a way out of the drudgery of my everyday life - the spark that keeps you going. For a long time, I looked for that in things: the right pair of jeans, the car, the restaurants that I went to, the purses... Then I looked for that in people: my friends, my teachers, my boyfriends. But I ended up burning out these relationships. So I looked for it in places: travels to paris, london, rome, and berlin; hawaiian holidays; thailand; vacations in the carribean. And I looked for it in religion. Finally I looked for it in my hobbies: jogging, skiing, hiking, whitewater rafting, and even, yes, writing.

But, I found that none of this really totally ignites me. I think I've only felt that alive when I'm falling in love; then I feel like the world is both endless and finite and that I could conquer anything. Yet this feeling doesn't last when it happens with relationships. So, is there a way to experience this independent of people, places, and things?

I think that if I can maintain this sense of wonder and marvel, regardless of where I am in my life, then maybe I can possibly move worlds. Maybe then I won't need to search constantly outside of myself.