musings from colorado

I can hear the sound of things falling into place, with little light plinks, clicking with satisfying snaps. Thoughts running loose in my head. I try to read, but my mind wanders. Beyond logistics, or money, or work. I am recalling things from my past, things that in retrospect, have all lead up to my present. It is disconcerting.

BT sent me a message tonight, uncharacteristically thoughtful of him. Uncharacteristically mindful, actually – I was not aware that he kept track of my whereabouts or remembered my schedule. But I am reminded of a time, many years ago, when he called me, and I listened in silence as he haltingly apologized to me. Even then it was surreal to hear him say it was his fault, not mine. He had been an idiot, I had not been too clingy, too emotional, too anything. He was simply too…himself. And long ago, we tried again to make it work. Tried to be more, tried to be everything. And there were – are – moments of synchronicity. But it has been years since I thought we could be anything but what we are now. So I wonder why these memories of a more innocent, more hopeful time, are visiting me tonight, so far away from home. Or is that exactly why?

My heart aches with the knowledge of all that I am leaving behind to come here, to start fresh, to “reboot” my life, so to speak. I will not lose my dear friends, and Austin will still be there, waiting for me, but everything will change, more than I can probably imagine at this point. Will I feel the additional distance between myself and those of my friends that I already see sporadically? Or will it feel pretty much the same, with phone calls and emails and visits. Will they forget about me? Will they fill in the gap of me and continue, the same but different? And just how lonely will I be here, thousands of miles away, alone at a new job, a new city, a new life. What will I do when I plummet into my occasional darkness, when I hit my internal emotional wall? Who will I call when I need to connect, when I need someone to hold me? I know there will be other arms, new arms in my future, but will that soften the blow of losing the arms that hold me now?

Tomorrow is going to be exhausting and I should try to sleep. A full day of more interviews, then a race to the airport to catch a flight home, where I will fall into bed tired and mindless and not be able to sleep because there will be two needy felines anxiously curling around my body, nuzzling my ears, mewing their relief that I am home.

Home?