studying strangers.

she was in love with the skin around his eyes.

does that sound strange? it wasn't. it was the most natural thing in the world.

in love with its perfect fragility. its paper-thin translucence.

evidence of something deeply felt and known. evidence of an entire life.

but lying side by side on the floor of the dimly lit living room she looked at that area just around his eyes and wondered if there was not too much life before her--too much life before this moment. a life so full there was just no room.

in the days and weeks and months and years following his disappearance, following the slow withdrawl of his presence, she studied the eyes of many a man she passed. on the street. in a movie theatre. sitting in restaurants. she would get herself into trouble by looking for too long at strangers on the train.

she was fine.

really okay.

but every once in a while she would look up and catch a glimpse of him in a stranger. see those same careless lines leaning in. leading up and around. providing some kind of indiscernible road map.

and it was that that she missed.

that which would undo her.

this chapter.

i've been thinking a lot about what i might call this period of my life when i look back on it in twenty years.

(because this is the kind of thing one must think about. {obviously}.)

and i have decided, after much consideration, that it shall be called:

the period in which i learn to blow air through my lips in all directions and manners of fashion as an attempt to keep myself calm.

(and find that alone to be completely insufficient. {obviously}.)

better

i fell asleep last night with all my clothes on. (bra and makeup included).

i guess i was tired.

today is one of those days that i can't imagine ending: too much work, no time for self.

my room is a disaster.

(i can chalk that up to an april 15 move date, yes?).

i'm attempting at 8:25 am (now) to make food and pack for a day out and about.

oh goodness, let it be saturday.

let me be freshly showered and laundered and brushed and scrubbed.

let me have replied to all messages and emails and phone calls and comments.

let me be better at this.

all of this.

tomorrow.

just ahead.

i went to see someone.

just the other day.

about my... future.

and at the end of our time together she looked at me and said, you have a beautiful life ahead of you.

and never have more comforting words been spoken.

a beautiful life.

she didn't say successful, or happy. contented or lucky.

but beautiful.

and that was just the word i needed to hear.

there are days when i think i've made every possible wrong turn.

when i can sense my parent's growing frustration with my in-between-es.

when i imagine living anywhere other than new york.

but as the night closes in and i find myself with a good book, i think, i could be anywhere else in the world: paris, salzburg, new south whales. i could be lying in bed next to a man. the man. home from the corporate office in which i've found professional success. and yet i'd still be having the same experience.

just me and the story. and no city, no person, no job would change that.

and so for those few minutes before sleep, those few minutes enveloped in a book, there is no reason to fret, no reason to fear, for life is just as it should--just as it always will be.