Woohoo folks, internet at home, hooray!

Now here's something I prepared earlier (yesterday):

I can't tell you what has happened, only that the ache has diminished. I still talk to the Boy quite a lot, sometimes twice a week, and I still crave his voice from time to time but it doesn't hurt me quite so much... I still cannot tell you which way it's going to go with us, what's going to happen when I go back to Australia... but that's so far away. I still feel great when I talk to him, I still adore him like nothing in this world, it still feels like the deepest of deep friendships... but I still wonder whether perhaps he'd be happier going elsewhere for the other bits. According to him, I am 95% right for him, and I guess I feel that way about him too... there is too much good stuff there to let go of us in any easy way... but I'm still holding back my final decision. I'm still trying to decide whether 95% is enough.

In the meantime, though I still don't have anyone to tell about my day, I find that I am happy. I have a single bed now and there is just enough room for one... and it is comfortable. I am starting to remember again how good being alone can feel. My apartment feels like home, my own space, and I am far too busy anyway to afford too much time for anyone but myself.

It's not just the absence of the Boy in my immediate life though, it's a part of living here in a country where few people speak my language and I don't understand a great deal of the talk going on around me. To begin with, this made me lonely, but over the past week I have been recognising another aspect in it, a kind of freedom... it's hard to explain. I feel, in some respects, more anonymous even though I am physically very conspicuous. The effect of the linguistic isolation is like being in a glass bubble, seen and not heard, and I don't have to worry because any miscommunication is excused without blame. I am not forced to engage in meaningless interaction with the people around me; every word is precious, every sentence is thoughtful, every communication is meaningful.

In some ways the isolation makes me feel as though I can direct more of my energies internally, I can live happily in a world of my own for a lot of the time. Time and space and energy to myself... a world for one, which is feeling pretty good right now. This was, after all, a big part of why I am here in the first place, to reclaim my independence, to find myself, to be alone. To remember what it feels like to stand solidly on my own two feet. Being here is exactly what I was looking for, in ways that I never imagined it would be.

Before After

© Blueshoe 1999-2005