"It's only 4 in the morning. You out for a stroll?"

Actually I'm hungry so I tell the security guard at the desk I'm walking to 7-11. He looks amused. I'm armed with a ten dollar bill, my keys and my cell phone. I suppose if I need to, in the off chance I get robbed on my way there, I can hand over the cash, stab the perpetrator with a key then run for my life while I call 911.

You know what's the best thing about walking to 7-11 at 4am? The birds are awake. It's dark outside, and mostly quiet. There are no cars or buses and except for the occasional drunk freshman and your average crazy there aren't very many people. Except people like me. And the birds.

Inside it’s cold, and I'm looking for cereal. I figure it’s the easiest thing to eat; I don't have to cook it and I'm nuts for cereal anyway. Just my luck I'm stuck with all the sucky cereal. Cheerios, Smart Start, Honey Bunches of Oats? I contemplate walking to Wawa. No self-respecting Wawa would have Honey Bunches of Oats. But, its 4am. That's practically suicide. Besides I am too lazy to walk the two blocks.

There's a drunk birthday girl looking for her cake inside. She misplaced it while buying water. I'm still trying to find food since my stomach is now sucking on itself, and as I'm walking down the cereal aisle for the fourth time imagining what each one would taste like with milk a semi-sober man behind me bends over while stirring his coffee and touches my butt with his. He stands up. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that. We can go dancing and do that later though..." I'm already walking to the juice display in the back. Cereal is over rated anyway. Plus, I didn't have any clean bowls I realized and I'd end up paying the equivalent of $50 for one at 7-11.

I meet the most random people. Fate has a way of playing with me. She is determined to introduce me to people who insist on talking to themselves...and to me. I'm in line holding a turkey sandwich, a tastykake butterscotch krimpet and a twister of the red variety. Drunk fraternity type leans over and says, "You look cold. I could feel that shiver." I did in fact shiver, but didn't think anyone was paying attention. I smile and hand the clerk my money. "Have a good night," frat man says.

Outside it's still just me and the birds. I thought about how people make life so complicated, how we avoid the simple to fill the minutes in our lives. I thought about how we like to analyze ourselves, define our persons, read our horoscopes, because otherwise we feel totally and completely out of control. I thought about how much we analyze our uncertainty. I thought about how hard it is not to think on a night like this, when the temperature's just right, and the trees are singing and the birds are chatting and I'm wide awake at 4am. I thought about how I'm not going to remember any of these thoughts when I get inside. I've halfway already forgotten.  I stepped over a puddle I thought was from rain but actually came from a sprinkler, and watched as a man walked toward me in the shadows. For a second I thought he might be out to hurt me, but then I realized that he could be thinking the same thing. He nodded to me and kept walking.

 "Was your trip satisfactory?"

Inside the building the guard greets me. I nodded. That it was. "Bon apetit," he said. I smiled. "I will."

I'm looking for somewhere to go.

Last year around this time...I felt itchy all over. Not physically mind you, but I felt it in my skin, my blood. I wanted to get out, be away from the things that were familiar. I wanted, actually, to get away from myself. Please don't misunderstand. I love who I am, who I am becoming. It takes quite a bit (noticeably or otherwise) to be the people that we are. I love it all, all my decisions and actions, the things that have combined to create me. But we are, as Shakespeare noted, like players. We move, live occasionally, according to the dictates of the world. Environment shapes us, and sometimes it makes us appear in ways we wish not to. I wanted to get away from what I appeared to be (restless, dissatisfied, unhappy). It wasn't the first time.

The year before that, around fall, I felt the desire to be away even more. It was more desperate then. Odd, because it's still so fresh in my memory. It led me to take a solo trip to Costa Rica, which I enjoyed, but which I wish with all my heart that I could re-do. It is perhaps one of the only things I sort of regret. Not the trip itself, mind you. But my perception of it. I traveled to Costa Rica solo, honestly, out of spite.  To make a long, silly story short, because my ex was traveling to south east Asia for school reasons (and in the process, lengthening the already sizable emotional distance between us with yet more actual distance) I decided I too could add distance. I got on a plane to Costa Rica, which was sort of my way of giving my ex the finger. I don't think he noticed. I was caught between the exhilaration of traveling alone in a Spanish speaking country and practicing said Spanish by reminding various Costa Rican men that "no, I was not married" and "yes I was traveling alone" and "no I was not a teenager, thank you" and being miserable because I had no one to share the emerald green mountains with.

Now it's a year and a half later, and I am again looking for somewhere to go. In my defense I suspect I will always be looking for somewhere to go, some place else to "be" for a bit. I have nothing against the places that I'm in when I'm in them. But, I like to "be." Elsewhere that is. Remind myself that there are people elsewhere "being" and living in different ways, seeing things the way they see them all the time. The world is not flat. These days I'm looking for somewhere to go, not because I want to be away from myself, but because I'm looking forward to "being" myself self in a different place. To listening to my thoughts while overlooking ruins, or in the midst of rustling trees, or atop a sand pile.

So. I'm looking for somewhere to go before all thing the things that need to happen before I move, yet again, and start a new chapter of life, yet again. Can't wait to find it.

Here is my pen. And my paper. And here, in words, is my mind.

I am doubtful. I feel so much. The evening, the moon, the trees move me, and I am happy to be alive, but I also feel doubtful and afraid and unsure. There is always so much to feel. And almost no way to feel it all. There's so much I want. Love. Friendship. At the moment, a hug. There's also so much I don't want. Fear. Dissatisfaction. So what do I do? What do we do? What do we do with our lives?

Here is my pen. And my paper. And here will always be my mind.

 It's been a while, I know. And I'm sort of sorry I've been gone for so long. Not completely though, because during that time I've had a chance to live a little bit. Get used to some things. Get back to being me. Not that I couldn't do that while writing, but writing reflects our thoughts and moods, and quite frankly I've been whining a lot lately. I figured I'd spare you You'll thank me some day.

So. In summary, I've gotten my Masters degree as of yesterday (I might show pics of the event), visited Indiana University (my future school for my PhD) and procured a fabulously wonderful apartment near campus. I'm not hating my current job quite so much (time and experience has a way of doing that), though I am looking forward to quitting in July and heading to Trinidad and Tobago for a 2 week vacation before moving to Indiana in August and starting school. Again. For the last time. Yeah, I have a somewhat impressive collection of degrees under my belt, but I'm pretty certain this PhD is the last one. When I'm done I'll be able to finagle (yes, I typed finagle, and yes, its a word) the type of job I think would best suit me (something creative and meaningful, but capable of providing me with the means to pay my bills...lol).

I feel so different than I did a few months ago. A little more relaxed. Excited. Comfortable. I had such fun yesterday celebrating my graduation with my friends and family. I had been so worried that it would be a stress filled experience (as family events can sometimes be, though I love them all dearly) but it was excellent! I feel like a different person. Or perhaps like the person I always was, minus the things that can distract us from living.

There’s a selfishness inherent in love. We love hoping to be loved back. Of course we will also love one sided-ly; unrequited love is sometimes the sweetest love, the hardest felt love. But we love selfishly. We love to feel warm, to feel wanted and needed and whole. We love because our heart wants us too, because our body longs for us to love. We love to heal ourselves, to fulfill a need that has been hard wired, that is intrinsic. We love because we have to, and not because it makes us better people, makes the world go ‘round. We love because we want to love, and nothing more.

Is it gonna be one of those days?

One of those no call, no write, no visit days?

Those no sound, no voice, no kindred soul days?

Man, it feels like one of those days.

Those, wouldn’t-it-be-nice-to-tell-someone-how-I-feel? days,

Those, no heart of my heart, no breath of my breath, no secret lover days.

Is it one of those “the world has never been so silent” days?

It certainly feels like one of those days.

I hate those days.

I don't know where my words went. Writing is an art, like any other art, like a geyser that operates on its own schedule. Art happens regardless. Met a man at a book festival this weekend, a musician in his forties. Typical artist. Confident, quirky, observant. "It's like a fountain". Art is like a fountain he says. But my fountain has dried up. I love to write. Think about it daily in some form. Not in an artistic kind of way, but I write in my head. Everyday. Just like I dream every night. But I don't write. Not on paper, not with a keyboard. Nothing, no record of what I've written, except for my memory. Some of that stems from lethargy, fatigue. But much more of it seems related to the jumbled nature of my mind. Bits and pieces everywhere. Thinkings. All about love and traveling and look that tree is beautiful like a poem, but I don't write poems so it'll be beautiful but I won't say how. It used to be so much easier to write. Even if it wasn't linear then, it existed. Nothing exists in my head the way I want it to, but I suspect that's the best way for it to exist these days.

I'm so restless my skin itches with it.

I'm not gone for good though. I promise.

Eventually I knew I was dreaming, but not at first.

At first everything seemed sort of real, possible at least. Even though I was sitting next to my ex, the ex I haven't seen in person in about six to eight months nor would have spoken to for months had he not called me about two weeks ago, at a bar of some sort. It seemed possible that I could have been meeting a friend of his who had a young son and was bringing him so we could see him. It even seemed relatively realistic when my ex's friend walked in with said young son, embraced my ex and then proceeded to say "The married man! Welcome to the ranks." That my ex now seemed to be married (to someone else obviously) didn't necessarily bother me (didn't actually occur to me until I replayed the dream in my head), but I think that was because it was at this point that I noticed that one of my teeth felt funny. I pushed at it with my tongue and it came loose. I was terrified. Soon they all came loose, and one by one I could feel them being pushed around my mouth with my tongue. I made it to a bathroom (I didn't walk or run like in real life, but ended up in the bathroom in the same mysterious way one ends up in places in dreams) repeating over and over again "This has to be a dream, this has to be a dream" in my head. My ex's friend walked into the bathroom (and this should also have been a clue that it was a dream, since men typically aren't allowed in women's bathrooms) and washed his hands in the sink I was standing in front of. I was staring at him in the mirror wishing he'd leave. "You're cute" he said and smiled. I smiled a faint tight lipped smile. I remember him looking at me appreciatively and hearing him say something to my ex back at the bar before I exited to the bathroom, something whispered and clandestine. There was a chuckle. I think he asked my ex to promise to properly introduce me. But he left me alone, and I spit all my teeth into my hand, completely horrified and disgusted. I stared at my gums, toothless now, but looking like new ones were in the process of growing in and wished, desperately, that I would wake up.

I just woke up from the nap about an hour ago, and this dream is still present. I think it'll stick around for a while, not only because of the way it feels to remember losing all your teeth simultaneously, but because after researching the meaning of dreams online I found this:

Teeth are used to bite, tear, chew and gnaw. In this regard, teeth represent power. And the loss of teeth in your dream may be from a sense of powerlessness. Are you lacking power in some current situation? Perhaps you are having difficulties expressing yourself or getting your point across. You feel frustrated when your voice is not being heard. You may be experiencing feelings of inferiority and a lack of self-confidence in some situation or relationship in your life. This dream is an indication that you need to be more assertive and believe in the value of your own opinion.

I have been extra sensitive lately to the term nice. It gets applied to me ad nasueam. It often gets swapped or doubled up with "sweet", "kind", or "good". I was talking to my sister about a month ago after asking her what her general impression of me as a person was, and tried to explain to her after she responded by saying "You're a good person" why these descriptions of myself are less than satisfying. After all, one would probably prefer descriptions like "nice" rather than "nasty", "sweet" to "awful", "good" to "baddest mofo to walk the earth". And yet there is a distinct association that comes with nice. I'm awfully sensitive to associations and implied meanings and body language and all other sorts of non-verbal cues and clues that sometimes make me batty. To be nice implies, in a western culture such as the U.S. anyway, naiveté and by extension ignorance, and by extension unintelligence. In essence to be nice is to be naive, to assume the best of people, even those who would harm you. To give people the benefit of the doubt, to allow people to, if you let them, take advantage of you.

I resent the implication, probably because it's true. I am not self-serving. At best, I am self-sacrificing. I have always been, and it has never really bothered me. As the middle child I've learned to become the child that people sort of don't see. The eldest sibling in my family is a boy, the first born and was allowed to do boy-like things on his own. He was sort of spoiled. The youngest sibling in my family is a girl, my younger sister by a year, who has also been spoiled to a certain extent, mostly by me. She used to be stubborn and outgoing. I always saw her as stronger than me, yet I felt I had to protect her, feed her, braid her hair when no one else could. I learned to fade and be content. As I've gotten older I've become increasingly annoyed at myself for all of this. I am the go-to girl for things. I support, I lend, share, smile. My dad has openly admitted that I am his favorite child, which does nothing more than make me feel guilty. I am the nice one, the sweet one, the one who occasionally surprises people when I get angry, or demonstrate some emotion other than pleasantries. I am annoyed because I have done this, garnered this perception myself. And I can't kill her.

At my job I'm referred to occasionally, though by all means affectionately, by the senior teller as "the kid". I intimidate no one, which I'm perfectly alright with because intimidation doesn't necessarily breed loyalty, but I don't know how much respect I get from people. It's like a weird mirrored world. I see myself and my interactions with others, and I am painfully aware that I appear to be passive and even subservient. Yet there's the reflection in the mirror screaming, telling me to deepen my voice and stop second guessing my own decisions. "Man up!" it yells (even though I despise that statement).

I'm tired, and not just because I was rudely awakened from my nap by that dream. I'm tired of my uncertainty. I got accepted into Indiana University for my PhD in Folklore, and plan to attend in the fall, but I am terrified of moving away, of living alone for four (hopefully only four!!) years, of starting something entirely new (albeit exciting), of being uncertain that this is the right choice. No one can make it for me, and yet there are moments when I go "Should I really be spending another four years in school?" particularly when some friends are saying things like "When are you going to get a real job?" I know that the things people say can reflect more about how they feel about themselves than anything having to do with me, and that words are words, but they wouldn't affect me if I didn't have doubts. Of course I know everyone has doubts. Such is life right? I'm tired though.

And I suppose I'm still nice.

Not many words these days, but pictures I can do.