Who was it that said "Love is nothing more than the resignation to getting hurt"? 

I don't trust people, but I let them in anyway. 

That's love I think.

Omnia mea mecum porto

There is something about moving that rehashes terrible memories. Maybe it's the act of leaving everything behind. Maybe it's the thought of the things left undone, the things that will never be done, and yet there are still things yet to do. And maybe, it is the fact that the leaving is known. The exact date and time is planned, hence you have to prepare yourself. Some departures are spontaneous, like death. All that suddenness protects you from all the nostalgia, the melancholy, the sheer desperation of leaving and preparing to leave. Of all the constant goodbyes, all the doubt, all the realizations that you are in fact leaving nothing and yet everything all at the same time.

My life has been a series of goodbyes. I've always seen it that way and before that was the beauty of it. The fact that I allowed people in despite knowing, for sure, that leaving was always there with us. In the midst of us. But things happened, and by the time I was sixteen I've lived enough to become a pessimist. I applaud cynicism. Either I'm wrong and pleasantly surprised, or I'm right. Win-win. People leave and the vindictive side of me kept thinking that I'd be better off doing the leaving. But I was wrong, because I know how it is to be left. I haven't lived long enough, by far, to stop myself from feeling this pain.

For the two to three months of when I was sure that this is what I had to do, what I needed to do, if I was to even survive the year, I was faced with the daunting task of preparing. There were papers to sign, interviews to do, things to close or withdraw or deposit. Things to let go of, things to keep, things to talk over, things to keep quiet about. Things to pack. All things. I bring with me all my things but people are worse. I am everyone I have ever known.

And lately I feel like I'm dispensable. Like I've been used, for the things I convey, the things I stand for, the things that people want and get from me. That I was born a girl, and as such should therefore be an appendage of family name and will. That I was born into the family, and as such should stand up to the bar. That I have resources, that can be used and depleted. That I can be gullible. That I believe too much on the ability of people to be good and overcome and rise above themselves. That I revel in pessimism and yet have this constant belief. I keep letting people in in spite myself, against better judgment, only to find that I was right. And I never learn. It's always circles with me.

I'm never assured of any love and I want to be. This is my fatal flaw. I know this will be the death of me, as I know that my blood and my bones are of my body. 

There are people in my life that I've chosen to love, people who I'd be better off not loving but do. There are those who I just can't help myself from giving that place. I'm so tired. These past few days I've seen people use the fact of my leaving to benefit themselves, or go on the proverbial high horse on me and it's maddening to be proven right.

There is still a place in me that believes, but on days like these it becomes smaller and smaller and I'm afraid that one day all of it will be gone. And there'd be nothing left but the wind and the howling.

The tickets are ready, one suitcase is all done, and yet there is still so much to do. What's put me in a foul mood is my books. I cannot bring them all. I'm not even sure if I can bring any. But there are just some I cannot let go of. Even if I need to carry them in my arms, to hell with excess baggage, I will not leave without them. If only because I know, beyond doubt and questions, that these books are real. I am one of the people who are saved by stories. There are some I want to sell, some I want to give away, some I want to forget. And it strikes me now that my books are my people. Few people have ever been my people. I don't know if it's my fault. Sometimes I think it's me.

I don't know anymore. I have never known. But life never stops, no matter what you do you always find that a new day has come even if you were in yesterday's clothes and smelled like shit. So you go on. And you see, and hope, that things will get better. Sometimes, you find that it was all just a dream, and you are happy again. Let's drink to that.

I've already made peace with the fact that it's best not to get too happy.

The Green Fairy Is My Friend, But Not Vodka

I should tell you how I am when I'm drunk. This is to warn you, because I don't get drunk often. Only twice has it happened, and both times I have splotches in my memory. Things I don't remember and things I don't want to remember, things I'm not even sure really happened and things I hoped never happened. Okay, I may have lied. I could have been drunk three times. Maybe four.

The first time, it was with lovely Long Island Iced Tea which I has been proven to be my Achilles heel. I didn't know it was alcoholic because well, it was sweet and I copped off the biting to the cold. It wasn't the cold. The second and the third time, you don't really need to know. Frankly, I don't know myself. I just know, I had every interesting morning afters.

It is the fourth time I need to tell you about. Because it happened quite recently. And I think it was karma because I was trying to show friends the beauty of getting drunk in the company of friends who will take care of you and make sure that you will not make a fool of yourself. I'm afraid I made a fool of myself. I've been told I had a break down. I may have had one, it was a stressful day. And I had most of the two liters of alcohol to myself because the people I was with were virtual teetotalers. Next time, I really should go with drinkers. Heh.

Well, the thing I do when I get drunk is I tell stories. I'm sure they are very inappropriate. They are the ones I would never tell sober. They are my secrets, and other people's secrets. They are my stories and other people's stories. I have no threshold, everything just spews out. But I tell it like they are all my stories. And sometimes, I tell lies too. No, I always tell lies. It's what I do when drunk, and sometimes when not. But mostly when drunk.

I think I ear-raped a friend of mine with very, very colorful details about my former life. Maybe even those of my friends. But I'm afraid he thinks it's all me. My other friend tells me he was freaked out. I would've loved to have seen that. But again, I don't remember.

What I do remember is refusing my coffee and asking for some whipped cream. Then after that is all blank until the taxi ride home. I had a very interesting conversation with the taxi driver. In English. From what I can recall, we both complimented each other on our accents. I used my Mid-Western one, his was a garbled New Yorker's. It was fun.

I don't recall how I got to my room, and when I woke up in the morning I had vertigo but no headaches or regurgitations of meals past. I know how to hold my liquor, but sometimes my head just leaves my body and goes to other places. I'm warning you because I might get drunk again. I'm telling you not to believe anything I say. I'm crazy and drunk, I tell stories, I tell lies. Just record one of my stories or tell me outright the days after, so I can tell you myself. I'll be honest. I'll tell you if it's true, even if it's about someone sleeping with an airline pilot.

Coffee To Our Sadness

I find that music keeps great company. Since I've been up in a jumble lately, listening to these songs helps keep me here on earth. As of now, I can only remember two: Vienna Teng's Recessional and A Lack of Color by the perenially-loved Death Cab For Cutie. Recessional doesn't talk about the recession mind you, but of a girl saying goodbye to a lover. I feel like it is somewhat appropriate. A Lack of Color is about a man being left. It is only now in explanation that I've realized these two songs who have been my constant bedfellows are talking to each other. It's a little bit funny, they speak to me.

"It's so beautiful here", she says, "this moment now."

And this moment, now.

And I never thought I would find her here: flannel and satin, my four walls transformed.

But she's looking at me, straight to center. No room at all for any other thought.

And I know I don't want this.

Oh, I swear I don't want this.

There's a reason not to want this but I forgot...

In the terminal she sleeps on my shoulder, hair falling forward, mouth all askew.

Fluorescent announcements beat their wings overhead: passengers missing, we're looking for you.

And she dreams through the noise, her weight against me, face pressed into the corduroy grooves.

Maybe it means nothing...

maybe it means nothing...

maybe it means nothing, but I'm afraid to move.

And the words, they're everything and nothing.

I want to search for her in the offhand remarks.

Who are you, taking coffee, no sugar?

Who are you, echoing street signs?

Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover, dark curtains drawn by the passage of time?

oh words, like rain, how sweet the sound...

"Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around..."

And when I see you

I really see you upside down

But my brain knows better

It picks you up and turns you around

Turns you around, turns you around

If you feel discouraged

That there's a lack of color here

Please don't worry lover

It's really bursting at the seams

For absorbing everything

The spectrum's A to Z

This is fact not fiction

For the first time in years

All the girls in every girlie magazine

Can't make me feel any less alone

I'm reaching for the phone

To call at 7:03 (and) on your machine I slur a plea for you to come home

But i know it's too late

I should have given you a reason to stay

Given you a reason to stay

Given you a reason to stay

Given you a reason to stay