I'm stronger than yesterday

I'm having a hard time falling asleep tonight. Probably becuse it's like 25 degrees outside and it's almost 1am. It was 38 degrees today, and I had a hard time cooling down after my ride home. But I think riding my bike in 38 degrees is preferable to riding home on a crowded, un-airconditioned bus. At least on my bike I can breathe fresh air and feel the world moving more quickly.

So, I just don't want to go to sleep tonight. It's like I don't want tomorrow to come, which is pretty silly when it's written down in black and white. Technically, tomorrow is already here, since it's after midnight. I started to think about what I didn't want to lose by falling asleep tonight. Because each time I go to sleep I'm farther away from Atlanta. And farther away from who I was in Atlanta. Or even who I was in California.

Earlier this evening I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was drying off my face after washing it, and in that brief moment when I looked up from the towel, I didn't know where I was. It felt weird - like I was outside myself and the question, "This is where I am?" popped into my head, like a marquee sign. Then, quick as the moment came, it disapeared. But now it seems to be swirling in my head....

I've been thinking a lot about the guys I know at home. With each of them I have a story - a brief moment when it was just us, that got swept up in the reality of each other's lives and the pull back into our separate selves. Brief connections over the last 5 years. Yet, some of these guys are still around. I keep in touch with them. I like to, because it means I don't have to say goodbye. But it does mean that when contact is made again, I'm pulled back to where I was with that person, who I was.

I spent New Year's Day on Bondi Beach talking to my college boyfriend, Sam, for a couple of hours. He was travelling in Oz with his classmates from business school and it worked out that we were able to catch up for a little bit. We hadn't seen each other in probably about 6 years, and our year and a half together was almost 10 years ago. That's weird to think about. Anyway, we spent a couple hours catching up and it was surreal to realize that it didn't feel any different. He looks the same, he talks the same, he sounds the same. But who am I? I don't think that I'm the same as I was 10 years ago - I can't even remember me 10 years ago. But he said I looked the same, and I probably sounded the same to him the way he did to me. But the difference was that there no longer had to be an US for the two of us to be together. We could be ourselves and be with each other.

The people you keep in touch with, the people whose roles change throughout your life. I talked to Sam briefly tonight before he leaves the country tomorrow. As we said goodbye we made noise about when we'd see each other next. The truth is, who knows? I told him that I knew we'd keep in touch, since we'd made it this long. I'm not worried about losing touch with him. And I'm not worried about losing touch with the other guys in my life. There are reasons for each of them in my life and there is a reason they are all around. And each of them represents a part of me - a part of me that will still be here when tomorrow comes.

So what am I scared of losing by going to sleep?

I think it's more than my relationships with guys in my past... because there is more to me than my relationships with guys. But it's those specific relationships that have been the center of so much for me. And that's something I've realized only by being so far away.

My family and my girlfriends are constant. The last 4 months has really crystallized their importance to me. Even girlfriends I haven't touched base with in years - there is a different type of connection there... I know I'll see them again and that we'll be able to just pick it up again. But it's my relationships with guys that are the fulcrum for change over here. That's what is going to be lost as each tomorrow comes. My need to be subsumed.

Because I stand up very well on my own. And it's so much more rewarding to be part of a relationship where there are 2 independent people coming together, not 2 becoming 1.

Each morning I wake up over here I feel more like me. I guess tonight I'm just more aware of the changes and want to hold onto them - make them tangible somehow - so I don't want to go to sleep. And that's why I've shared them with you. It makes it all more tangible.