I'm Just a Little Girl Lost in the Moment

It's a beautiful day. I usually don't care for beautiful days, with the sun out, and the sky so very blue, and a light, perfect breeze blowing into my room through gladly opened windows. I usually don't care. I find these days annoying and bright; I prefer the rain. But, today is a beautiful day, and I am feeling it all over. The scent of the lake just a few blocks away, the sound of traffic, and the cool, crisp, late morning air. I am loving it, completely feeling it, rolling in it.
It also helps, I suppose that I slept in this morning. And then I took myself out to get my coffee and steal a paper. I spent the better half of the morning lying in bed with my mug of Pike and my New York Times reading up on Joe Biden and Obamanomics. This is the way I like to spend my Sundays.
I haven't been feeling so wonderful, not lately. I have been giving myself time to get over my departure, to get into this life with an understanding that I made some decisions I may not entirely be happy with. I am not in school, which gnaws at my stomach every day, and I am not truly enjoying my job like I once might've, if I could remember when that was. I want more out of life, feeling like if I don't start moving now, if I don't start doing something, I will be doing nothing for the rest of my life. And I have some fears I will never overcome this barrier that has kept me out of school for so long and will thus never return to continue my education. I have been overwhelmed with missing my mother and her house and missing my best friend. And I miss the store that I opened, and the manager that was my friend, and the people I never want to go without speaking to, even though that may soon happen. I haven't been entirely happy with my decision, because I am so worried and so focused on all of the bad things I may encounter, or an currently encountering. I am worried about money, but more I am worried about missing people too much. So, I have been lying in it, in my unhappiness, and allowing it to consume me so that I might mourn. So that I might go through the stages and come out happier, fuller, and ready. I have been mourning the loss of my past and my partially unplanned, unprepared future. I am slightly, or even more than so, not ready.
But, today. Today is a truly beautiful day. I am smiling and letting the breeze in and accepting that I can read the paper on my bed and not feel guilty or wonder if I've made a mistake. I am accepting that I won't be going back to school for a year, and that it is going to be okay if I don't. I am accepting that I need to be getting over my pain and my fear and my sadness and finally sit down in a cafe to write what I've been meaning to, to do what I moved for. I am smiling despite the fact that I haven't yet put away my clothes in the dresser, or done a load of laundry, or put together the bed frame still sitting in Ikea boxes in the corner of my room. I am smiling because today I want to. I haven't wanted to. I have wanted to lay down on my lonely mattress sitting on the floor. I haven't wanted to drag myself downstairs to clean my clothes. I haven't wanted to fold and stack my life into the new chest of drawers I bought so that I might have a place for my things. I haven't wanted to do anything but cry and mourn and wonder what I am going to do. Today, however, I want to put my bed together, I want to lay around and red the paper instead of watch old episodes of Grey's Anatomy and long to be in school. Today I want to sit and write in a journal I haven't touched for weeks; I want to sit and write at all. Today I want to resolve to always have Sundays off, to make my own coffee, to have a bagel and a banana for breakfast every morning. Today I want to settle into myself, plan to experience life the way I wanted to, plan to write and publish like I've dreamed to. Today I just want to live and let live.
I have a shift at a store this evening that I picked up for the extra cash to get me through until tipday. And tomorrow I start another full-time week at my store downtown. I have Sunday off next week, and I plan to do what I've done today, with a mug of coffee and the Sunday Times. Tomorrow, I will venture to all the stores I've worked at and collect my tips. I will go grocery shopping. I will make myself dinner. And then I will decide, if I am still feeling up for a little bit of happiness and a little bit of life, to put my frame together and sleep in a real bed tomorrow night.
I am feeling good. For the first time I am feeling good, like I can handle it, and like I am going to make it happen. I am not regretting anything right now in this moment other than not getting to spend this beautiful afternoon in a cafe somewhere writing. But, that is okay, because I have time, lots of time. Lots of days, beautiful days, to spend in cafes writing and building on the foundation I have created by moving. I am building my future, right now, in this moment, on this beautiful day.
I'm So Scared, but I Don't Show It

Money Can't Buy You

I Want My Money Back

The wind is strong today,
it blows at skirts, attempting to whisk girls away
but they are stronger than they appear
in their dainty sundresses
and their shimmer pink lip gloss.

And when it finally rains—
the clouds opening to storm the bay
and cool the air
which had them sweating as they ran
from beach spot to train station
in their yellow platform heels—
they pull out their umbrellas
and walk along in a bustle
looking for a rainbow to crouch under.

Some of them, the favorites,
smile as they buy their coffee,
sipping it innocently, politely, and charmingly.
The others scowl,
at the heat, at the rain,
at the sun or at the clouds,
and are usually the ones people tend to renounce.
And all of them stir
the air of the city, laced with pollution
so harmful to their pink lungs.

And each of them is terrified,
because they are in love
or because they are adults
or because they want neither to grow
nor to care nor to wish someone there.
Each of them is falling
into cycles of mistakes
reaching for the next one
to carry her through the day.

Each of them is trying
day-by-day to survive.
And the dresses and the heels
get them through, one at a time,
as the sun beats down a spotlight
on their tiny little lives.

And the rain clouds give a curtain
for them to bow out of the show,
to get their money back, and go home.

August 23, 2008
I am not going to lie, this is a change of pace. A very weird piece for me to have written indeed. But, I wanted to try something slightly brighter. If you can call this bright and shiny. Which you can't, because it isn't...but for me it is.
Back the Love that You Had Then