a new beginning - part 1?

Here I am, in my brand new apartment. Away from home, just like I wanted to be. Jolted out from bed by jetlag probably 4 hours too early to detect life neighbouring, I decided to make another list of things to do today to save me from being swallowed whole by the emptiness that surrounds me. This exact same scenario happened yesterday, where I deliberately drained myself of every trace of energy to salvage myself from lying wide awake in bed with my new found best friend, lonesome, with absolutely nothing to do but think about and in that, amplify my suppressed desolation. Seeing how not much is terrific, I suppose it’s a pretty good strategy living with the motto ‘Ignorance Is Bliss’, but when I am reminded of things that I miss the most, realising that everything and everyone is so unreachable, I feel a twinge of pain. I think it is the worst sort of pain – the agony of acute longing.


Another thing I’ve realised is that being in the heart of such a busy city only makes you realise how alone you are. You see people shuffling by in twos, threes, fours. Even the sporadic unaccompanied have designated company to return to eventually. Well, almost everyone. There are a few exceptions of course. Like the street preachers, shouting out their sermons on faith, or the fraud that is faith. Wide eyed, they yell to space with such great conviction- they must be crazy and so completely alone. Like my wheelchaired neighbour who loiters in the lobby, like a starving eagle desperate for its prey, he waits for conversation with anyone at all. And when he’s waited around for too long, I hear him wheeling back into his empty apartment. It makes me a bit sad but I think I kind of half know how he feels. It’s not great. It’s a curious thing, how the presence of people can be just the thing that makes you feel most isolated. But yes, I complain too much, too often.
So I’m just going to end this post here before it gets too pathetically sappy.

I will say one last thing before I go though.. I really wish the three people (yes, there are three, hat is skipping in the background) in the picture below were here with me. That would be supersweeeet.

(my attempt at identity protection. canceled out their eyes. how original!)