No One in Particular

Hi.

Maybe you noticed I fell off the face of the earth. I'm sorry.

I'm going to be on a vacation for a while longer. How long that will last, I am not yet sure. I have a lot of things I need to take care of.

I feel like I've been asleep for a very, very long time, and I didn’t even know it. Then 18 days ago I got slapped in the face hard. A total stranger stumbled into my room and threw a gallon of ice water on the bed I was unaware I was even in. And now… Now I am soaking wet and freezing cold, and the last thing I can do is just lie here. I need to get up, dry off. Start the day before it’s gone.

It’s funny. No matter how big or solid the castle is, you pull out the right stone and it can become a dust-shrouded mess before you even know what happened, or what rock you shouldn’t have been leaning on. In my case I think it was a jack of spades.

But once it starts, once the river comes surging over its banks, it won’t stop. If you don’t move, the flood will move you. And you can’t swim if you are half asleep.

And now everything is changing so fast… I’m being shaken out like a dirty old blanket. The relationship that has been a part of my life for the last three and a half years just came to a very abrupt end. I’m having surgery in June. I have to change jobs. I might be moving to a new (or not so new) town. My family is about to re-sort itself, and I’m not sure they even know it. When it rains it pours. So I guess I’m not too surprised by the flood. It seems logical.

It’s still a lot to deal with though, and I need some of time. In the stretch it takes to earn a paycheck, I lost a lover and gained a best friend. I lost another friend, and I gained something entirely brand new.

I’m not sure what’s next. I’m just sort of taking stock, observing the changed landscape and trying to see through the dust. Because I don’t want to wait for it to settle. I don’t know what to do just yet, about the wounded soldiers, about the pile of rubble, the rebuilding, about the quiet stranger and his ice. Well, I do know one thing. I have to thank him. One step at a time.

As for what’s in my own head, I’m no less uncertain. One thing is for sure though.

I’m wide awake, it’s morning.



I'm sorry for waxing all philosophical on you, it’s just when you’ve been skinned alive, being naked isn’t scary at all.