The last 24 hours

Yesterday morning: Words

There is a joke between me and P. in which he refers to me as Consuela, the Mexican maid. It’s a kind of joke about the chauvinist background he came from and the cheesy movies we both watched in our youth, but also about our respective roles in the relationship: me the yearning one, the lower one, him, the powerful business mogul, or aristocrat, or whoever, rushing through the mansion between his important engagements, while I stay at home, dusting and polishing the kitschy brass ornaments, waiting patiently, needing my (illegitimate!) man to sweep me in his arms and devour me with kisses (as he indeed does!). And he is not even “my” man, because it is an illegitimate relationship, to be hidden, and maybe he is intended for someone else. But such illegitimate relations (in the romantic novels) are the strongest, and after many ups and downs result in a happy end. And we need that so much. I mean I do, I need a happy end. But when I think of it, this roleplay gradually disappeared over the last months, and now we are more just us, maybe because we don’t need it so much anymore.

New Dutch course. Teacher is a writer, but I didn’t have the energy to change my outlook yesterday after P., who has also had him in the past, told me that (and usually I think everything happens for the best. I find that I have, when I dare to admit it, the heavenly care as we say in Hebrew). We had to make small talk with the person sitting next to us as a warm up exercise, and then tell the class what we learned about them. Everyone asked each other “heb je een relatie? Ben je getrauwd?”. That depressed the crap out of me. Asides from 3 early 20s people, everyone was coupled up. I am too. But I was the only one who didn’t say so. I thought it extremely lucky that I didn’t attend this class last year, or God forbid, last semester, right after Z. broke up with me and while carrying my diagnosis (and I had felt like an outcast and an old maid even before my diagnosis; thank God for my diagnosis for coming along and saving me, in fact, and allowing me to reassert my identity, but that is too early for me, I think, to thank my diagnosis. Yet there is a part of me that is ready to acknowledge that already. Because I was a footrug to Z., and no relationship would have succeeded that way. As terrified as I am of losing P. I was a hundredfold of losing Z.). But yesterday – and I must remember, like A., a classmate, told me after class, any change is hard, and so it is imminent that I get scared and depressed at first, and need a little time lapse to readjust - that was enough to depress me and make me feel uncomfortable, because it just stressed how gewoon (normal, average) everyone was. The woman next to me immediately proceeded to try to hook me up with an Israeli friend of hers who is married to a local, which is something I usually avoid. Asides from the two important holidays, Passover and New Year’s, I have no need for Israelis, and even then, as my post here quoting what I wrote upon return from the last Passover meal shows, I intend to be pickier in the future and avoid what gets me down. I might as well be with my aunts and uncles and own family, face up to my own reality, then have it with pairs of gossipy middle class strangers. No offence to anyone but this gets right under my skin. Of course, I immediately tagged this rather friendly and slightly insecure Dutch class neighbour (it seems, but that is the first impression) as a nosy gossipy person, especially since she didn’t want to reveal my age to the class (I said it out loud later), and asked me not to reveal hers. But that is my frigging stereotyping. I hate it when people are embarrassed of their age. But of course, I like to think (and maybe I am right) that I look younger than I am (that’s why I got depressed yesterday when R., whom I was having lunch with, cracked my vanity and told me I look older than a girl in the university paper, who looked mighty old to me, but he estimated her age to be between 24 to 31. I would really like people to think I am at the very least 31, and preferably much less, and I am so used in my vanity to have people exclaim when they hear my age, that even when they think I am 28 it disappoints me, and in that, I have absolutely no reason to denounce my sister in law, who lies about her age. But I have noticed that the things I criticize all around me are aspects of me that I reject, naturally).

So I was the only one who remained slightly mysterious and didn’t flaunt her relationship. Then yesterday I asked P., who is going to the States soon, as a joke, not to pick up any Mexican waitress in a bar. It was a joke, but there is truth of course behind every joke; my last Israeli BF cheated on me, and that was awful. The lying, the deceit. He said that if he met someone and was attracted that much to them, he would tell me. He also added, though, that this was highly unlikely, since his problem was not being able to fall in love. Sometimes I think he is with my as compensation, he feels sorry for me. There is a kind of bond between us in which he roleplays the heartless one and I play the miserable needy meek apologetic one, but also the one brave (or desperate???? I sure hope he doesn’t view me as desperate though sometimes I view myself that way, thinking of my age, my disease, but knowing I am not with him because of neither, and I would still rather be alone than be with someone, even a “good catch” like E., that didn’t do it to me) enough to go for it, to reveal and live her feelings. He plays “the man”, tough and insensitive. Jokingly, he used to call me Consuela, the maid, and I used to call him Alfonse, the aristocrat, and we replicated some cheesy supermarket-rack gossip magazine telenovela. But this joke (as they all do) goes deeper than that. It is about where we both came from, inherently traditional, overbearing places we both try to break the molds of, and resist. And it is even more eluding since the mold is changing. Neither Israel nor Spain are the downright chauvinistic, traditional, oppressive places they once were, but nor are they the individualistic, equal, free places they pretend to be. It is a façade. Maybe even the past was a façade, and there were always exceptions. He told me that his village is full of stupid people, a typical Southern place, but at the same time he resents the stereotypes in the Spanish movies. Yet, let’s face it, there is truth to every stereotype (that was our argument last night about 9/11 and the inherent violence of Muslim culture. I am the last person I think who can be labeled as racist or whatever, since in Israel I am the epitome of what people like to call a traitor, and since I have been in love with a Muslim till not long ago, but yeah, I have stereotypes, and they are based among else on personal knowledge, not just knowledge of bombs and violence although I have quite a bit of that, but also of the deeper underlying oppressive makings of a culture. At the same time, there is so much that is inherently similar in Jewish culture, at least in Israel. Though I guess not in the American or European versions of Judaism. It is just the forces of evil, they can be present anywhere. Even people with a Buddhist background can succumb to them, and men and women are inherently different, but that is a reality no one [except Ali G.'s dad, the renowned psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen] will admit to anymore, and even he talks about the typical male and female brains rather than males vs. females, which might be about right, since there are always atypical people [and all of them, like P. no matter how many times he cooks and does the dishes and acts emotional without admitting to be emotional and lets me come first, have a lot of the typical inside them too, in their grain, which they struggle against]). So my dream tonight was about our maid, I mean my parents' cleaner at home (who comes once a week and isn’t a maid per se), who is one of the most meek and quiet and (passive aggressive) and gentle people ever, and makes me always feel like the spoiled brat of a grown teenager, in the way she crawls around us asking things and you half expect her to bow (that was one of the things I found hardest in Japan, these strict set roles you couldn’t break away from; of course being a foreigner I wasn’t expected to comply with them, but my tendency is always to adopt characteristics of the society I am in). I took a cigarette (of the kind my parents smoke) off of her, and she said we would drink coffee together, but changed her mind, and then I made the organic herbal tea I drink, because I don’t drink coffee usually (which is what I am having as I type this). And I wonder what in me she represents, and why she deserted me, I mean why did she change her mind about the coffee? And what it all means, a part of me no doubt, a meek insecure serving over-ingratiated part I am ready to lose, or acknowledge. I felt so bad when I was fake with A., my Dutch class classmate, last night, even though A. himself means nothing to me, or not nothing, but he is not important in my life, and in the past, he has made an ass of himself too, talking too loudly and too much about sex, trying to drag me into endless innuendos (with which I collaborated by doing the eye-rolling stuff). But yes, I was more about asserting my identity through my sexuality then, even if my sexuality is much more thriving now without all theat bollocks. That is how I approached my diagnosis. I mean, practically the first thing I did was actively search for a mate. I didn’t change my dress style at all, but I think I gave off a different vibe, and sex is never about clothes or even behavior anyway. He had felt at the time my vulnerability (something which G., another former Dutch classmate who also went out with us, was too innocent or absorbed in his wife to respond to) and reacted with full-on almost violent flirting. This aspect of th interaction bwteen me & A. was completely lost yesterday, but he seemed to have transfered it elsewhere, I mean I saw what happened with the Chinese girl next to him in class, who could handle it, oh boy she was strong and she could serve back, which shows yet again how misleading appearances and stereotypes are. And also show what a diluted version of Chinese people we get here, because of language barrier and insecurity, yes insecurity does a lot to conceal people’s identities, and all these walls and barriers and schemes we come up with that are often as telling as the truth.
Coming back to the exchange between P. and I regarding the mexican waitress gag, 'great', I thought cynically. That was not the answer I wanted. "But how can you know", P. asked, "that you won’t meet someone and fall madly in love with him?". And I said, "I know", and he said, "but in a year, two, four, twenty?". And I said, "I know". And today he has a meeting with his bosses, and he said he might (might!) ask them about the possibility of staying on. But I have a feeling he won’t and even if I am right, that would be a) typical of him and b) not the last opportunity for him to ask, although naturally I am very nervous about that, since we know many couples here (in fact, the majority of couples) who break up or live in separate countries and at the very best of circumstances in separate cities for lack of employment here, once the contract of one of them is up, as P.'s is next year, and we just mentioned that the day before yesterday (or rather, I did, while sitting on his lap after the dinner I cooked and rubbing against his crotch and kissing and him murmuring that he feels as though he knows me for years and years, which of course he doesn’t, he knows me for months but with the intensity accelerating and building momentum, despite both of us wanting or at least partially wanting and saying we want to take it slow and easy and see what happens, I can see how it feels like years but it is not years, and that might be too much of a scary commitment thing for him to ask, even offhandedly and nonchalantly, about the possibility of staying on, and I understand that, in a deep way I do, but I don’t want our fight-or-flight mechanisms to destroy what we have, and an artificial deadline might do just that, even though between me myself and I I keep the possibility open that I will leave the Netherlands, but I am set up nicely here, and I don’t want to go, it’s a good place for me, and my health needs won’t be met like this in many other places, or even nowhere else, as well as other needs too. I set myself up, shield my heart and protect it against bitter disappointment, tell myself I could go home, go somewhere else, stay here alone, but I fear so much…. I fear it would break me in two, at least writing now this is what it feels like, even though I know I can handle what comes my way.
But God, he was talking about 20 years yesterday, I almost miss out all the good things, for fear of latching unto them too much. I am in a relationship, but I won’t admit it, for fear of loss. I had a normal life, but I didn’t hang on to it, for fear of the dark undercurrents, and my fears fulfilled themselves, and the undercurrents emerged (in my teens) and drowned me in their dark depths. But am I not setting myself up for failure just through this skepticism, this disbelief? Anyone in my Dutch class could have thought the same, that their relationship might end at any moment and therefore it is better not to mention it, keep it on the low. But the fact is, I did mention to A., the fact that I have a BF. I know me and A. could be friends. It was the first time I have seen him serious with me too. But ended it with a joke, a stupid joke in which I broke any kind of intimacy and slapped him on the shoulder and hated myself for it, a joke about gays (he calls everything gay like a teenager, then he said that he doesn’t have a problem with gays). There is definitely a gay guy in our class, who has a relationship with “a person” in Amsterdam. The only one who didn’t mention the gender of the person, and spoke in a very soft voice. That must be hard. So hard. But no harder than mijn geheim [my secret], which is a theme, these gossip magazines we mentioned in our first class, the topic of which was nosiness, when under the pretext of criticizing our fellow classmates' nosiness we satisfied both their nosiness and our own curiosity. And is curiosity about others such a bad thing? My mum (or the intensely private representation of her I internalized) would say yes. And my dad. They would turn their noses at the vulgarity, the lack of borders (coming from Israeli society in particular, it is essential to maintain borders with other people, else you might be swept away and lose control and sight of yourself. P.’s society defines him like that also. He is stretching his wings against it, struggling, and in this essence we are all gay. None of us are fully integrated, except the bullies in bullying societies like the Taliban and other extreme cases from human history – which always unsurprisingly resulted in something awful, but then so did extreme isolation, which is one of the worst risk factors for depression and all other diseases, as David Servan-Shreiber (writer!) points out in his wonderful self-help book Without Freud, Without Prozac, that I just finished. So I must remember that P. will always rebel a little bit against his assigned role, because that’s how he is, unable to commit, yet not willing to disappoint, he will get attached, but only so much and so far, and if I want to ‘tame’ him, I have to accept that. And it’s not true what I said, I could find someone else I’d be interested in, easily, I relate even better to people in the real world than he does, but I don’t want to, and that is the nesting instinct. I want to find a nest where I can lay down and rest, but also spread my wings freely.
I think I will ask my teacher to read his book, and that will be my first book in Dutch, and also break the ice with him. I think it’s time to relate to individuals at eye level, and not be so afraid anymore, as I have been my whole life. And stop saying sorry to P. all the time, and feel bad when I am tired/bloated with food/don’t look good/not perfect at all (for didn’t my mum teach me that you need to maintain perfection to keep a man? And didn’t every message around me reinforce that teaching?).

Yes, we all tag people. Because P. told me my new Dutch teacher is a great guy, that reinforced the image I had previously formed of him beforehand (but admittedly, I did have my own image, and didn’t come there prejudiced). The only thing I didn’t like is him mocking the accents of one American girl. I don’t think this is a good technique in teaching, and it is often lost on that person anyway, and if it isn’t will just serve to make them insecure about speaking up. Although it looks like he is aware of class dynamics, and he will let everyone speak up, and that also he is aware of the importance of teaching us basic communication, which P. says, at this level isn’t an emphasis of the curriculum at all. Maybe if I feel that he isn’t, I will dare approach him and ask for that, because that is why I am taking that class after all.

Dare

My grandma used to tell me not to wish for anything, not to hope because I’d get disappointed. My doctors told me not to tell anyone I have HIV, especially at work. The two doctors who cut out the small tumor in my leg told me not to shower for fear of infection, when I broke my arm I was told not to go to the gym 2 weeks later. And I disobeyed. I guess I have been doing something right all these years, not just something wrong. I guess I can accept advice that come from good intention, consider it, and act on my own gut instinct. Like now, going for a job before I go to work, coming into work late and leaving early to rest and lunch at home. Because that’s the way I want to do it, because I have my own way, and I can sense, feel, how I personally work.

Volver

I am supposed to go with P. and see it again, and am thinking of asking R. & Y my work roommate to come along(I understood why R. dislikes Y., although he never said explicitly that he dislikes her. It is because she always has to pretend that things are funny even when they are sad, and she is apologetic when she isn’t, and I know her life sucks as badly as mine, or worse, but she pretends it’s all good, and that cheerful robust pretense can be very tiring; but what I discovered is that through my interaction with people I can get what I want out of them, not by playing a role but by staying true to my inner feelings, to my heart which is different with my bosses than, say, with A. from Dutch class. It’s only when I struggle and let myself be led rather than bring my real self into the interaction that I am “out of tune”. And I think that’s why R. dislikes Y., as he himself says that she tries to please too much. Anyway, I have already seen the new Almodovar, Volver, but I knew I wanted to see it again with P. (of course, my Spanish isn’t sufficient and neither is my Dutch to understand it just based on the subtitles for the first time). Volver, to return. I cried in this movie (although I hid it from my mum), and I think that’s why I want to go with P. again too, asides from this being a masterpiece and Almodovar my ultimate hero, because isn’t it what we all want, to return, to start over, to correct our mistakes, to redeem ourselves?

I discovered the first crease around my mouth, just in the dent under my nose where the two halves of my top lip meet, and it was shocking. I mean, how vain can I be, I know people out there struggle with facial disfigurement, whether because of lipoatrohpy or because they’d been in an accident or a bombing (I always told myself I would kill myself if something like this happened to me; and I resent my sister in law’s denial of her fear or again, her refusal to admit that she will age and her insistence that aging and even death, certainly disease, can be prevented). I know besides that I am nearing my mid-thirties, that my skin does not look more aged that that of the majority of people my age, that I have been through a lot in the past year which must have taken a toll, and I have years and years of harsh sun exposure behind me (and I still go to the beach even on my last home visit in August!), and that I smoked quite a bit this year which wreaks havoc on the skin. I know also that I don’t have a beauty regime, that I don’t use any expensive or older skin crèmes at all, and wash my face with whatever detergent lies around the sink, I know all that, so what do I expect?! My first thought, especially since it came on top of R.’s remark from yesterday, was 'I am going to get collagen, botox, whatever!', in panic! But now I realize what he says, there is nothing wrong with looking my age, and if any “emergency action” should be taken, it’s basing myself as soon as possible on what I am rather than what I look like. P. himself wouldn’t notice, and not that he doesn’t look his age (he has a pot belly and wrinkles and unlike me he doesn’t dye his hair so it is streaked with gray, and he is absolutely adorable, and I expect him to disappoint me tonight, mainly because I don’t dare to wish otherwise, I don’t dare to perceive reality as it is with its dents and imperfections and joys and beauty, yet, but I love him anyway, or because of his imperfections [and I would be put off by an idol with a six pack anyway]. I do).

Noontime: We can’t go back but we can go forward

So despite what I said yesterday, I decide to cook for P. tonight, if only because I have so much food, and also because the isolation… the retreat into myself (which I let my work roommate sense) just isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, and always leads to more and more isolation. But let’s be honest here, I invite R. to the movie (and am tempted to invite him for dinner, it’s just that with him I have to set dates and with P. I can be spontaneous), but not N., who surely would love it, because she will show up with her hot tall upright body and niceness and great mood. Which is completely stupid and vain. I might invite her, but only after I get some sleep, though knowing her, she probably has other plans already… just like that glamour-girl, Y.’s friend.
The best thing would be to invite both him and N. for dinner, so that the pressure would be off, and also I would be surrounded by friends and warmth and happiness and light, not just me me me and my alone time. No wonder that gorgeous girl stayed away, she could probably sense my distance. I am the opposite of her, she is even more glamorous than N. we are all addicted to loneliness (I mean the Ynet forum people), and to setting restraints on our relationships with people, and to not having people see us as we really are.I invited her, but just to the movie. It is easy to confront my envy head-on that succumb to the loneliness and separation, and I trust in God. I mean, there is a side of me that is afraid that P. as any normal man would find her more appealing than me, but I refuse to give in to this fear, even while I acknowledge it. I guess it is a scar left by my cheating BF.
[N. didn't come last night after all but went home to crash, which just goes to show, even perfect looking people need their rest, and aren't perfect at all; and as for men being predictable, both P. & R. said that Penelope Cruz didn't do it to them - what?! - and both of them, seperately, said I look great. But I don't feel that I look great as I sit here with my unwashed unruly hair and glasses and wrinkles wearing a bathrobe at 13.30 on the 13/9 and having tucked into 4 or 5 bowles of disgusting Special K conrflakes and eaten 2 small icecream cones and yoghurts and "kwark" with choclate syrop, not at all].

P. isn’t a planner, and for sure isn’t able to plan something like his work or future next year, especially when it involves me. And I don’t ask, don’t pressure, don’t push, of course not, how would I dare, seeing as we are only several months together, seeing practically each and every couple around me carries the same burden, so many long-distance relationships going on, and just because I don't feel that I am strong enough, or want to do this, is no reason, and just because I was foolish enough to infect myself with HIV, it doesn't mean that other aspects of my life will be easier to accomodate that. Not at all…

The virus accelerates the aging process, and the drugs add their bit. As I was told when I was diagnosed and prescribed the medication: if you feel like it is destroying you, just think that it is also destroys the virus. So I feel as though I am at the same time aging and getting pimples, getting fat and soft in some bits and scrawny in others, and this is just 9 months into the meds. I fear this so much. It is hard not to obsess about it. I am (still) a young woman, and I am single, and here I am surrounded by seemingly carefree beautiful people much younger than myself. Truth be told, nobody pays as much attention to me as I think, nor do people pay attention to each other. So if I feel that my former 20 year old Indonesian housemate looks at me funny when she bumps at me on the street, it could be just my hypersensitivity to these issues and my need to control. And the more I try to control, the less control I have.
And if I feel like I need to prove something to P. – usually more than one thing, and several contradictory things at once, that I can take care of him, that I am independent and not needy, that his actions have consequences, that I am carefree, that I have a future to consider – I get even more anxious and stressed.

Believe
That what you need, not want, you will get when you need it.

This morning: drowsy and disoriented
Everything in life happens for a reason, and everything has a price. You leave your country, and you risk destitution. You wake up early to write and exercise, your work performance suffers. You clean your house, it takes time. You don’t, it overruns with silverfish and dust. You shower while disregarding your incision, you run the risk of infection. You take the trouble to cover it up and tilt your body in strange ways, you enjoy your showers a lot less. You socialize, you have company but lose the quality time with yourself and your books. You don’t, you might be lonely. Keep in touch with your friends, that means hours on the computer. Give them up, and you will feel friendships slipping away. You fall in love, you risk having your heart broken, or you lose your freedom. You lie in, the day passes you by. You get up, and spend the day in a haze of fatigue. You smoke, you age (at best). You have unprotected sex, you risk contracting HIV and other diseases. You try to get love, you risk that becoming an obsession. You stop working out 2 hours a day, your body gets flabbier. You save on face creams, your skin becomes less radiant and supple. You take a holiday, you find it hard to get back to work. You don’t take a holiday, you miss out on life. You have a family, you are bond(ag)ed. You don’t have one, you are lonely. You have lots of social ties, they steal your time. You don’t have them, you feel alone. You leave your parents, they age without you. You don’t leave them, you don’t come into your own. You fall in love with someone who is afraid of commitment, you might be left behind. You speak your mind, people get hurt, or scared, or back off, or strangers talk and gossip and point if you write your mind. You don’t, they never know. Everything, everything has a price.

I cried last night in P.’s arms but I don’t think he noticed. I cried because I will miss him terribly when he leaves. He had the meeting with his bosses, and they set him a 9 month deadline. He didn’t, as far as I know, mention the possibility of staying on here. He said, after he “volunteered” to sleep in my apartment, because I “needed” him (only because I had revealed a bit of my inner workings). We returned from the Almodovar movie and a beer in town on one of the last summer nights with R., an evening during which among a lot of laughter and teasing as is imminent to spending time with two boys, I said openly why I was so vain about my looks, I mean I revealed my anxiety (and no woman likes to age I think especially when we are surrounded by so much beauty, but for me how I look is crucial like air to breathe at the moment). And so I seemed weak. And I also told him openly, working from the heart and not from the mind, that I am scared of him leaving. Then we made out in bed, it was way too late for both of us, and dramatic in a way that our relationship shouldn’t be I think, I mean nothing needs to be decided now, but it’s hard when it’s late and you’re sad and horny to be rational. I mean, we (and I) were torn between spending the night together or apart, and I am not sure that I am pleased that we spent it together. For one thing, I felt a loss of control. But he insisted. And of course there was the needy side of me that needed that, although I told him not to stay with me because I need something, only because he wants to, but he said he has the two struggling sides also, he is torn between wanting to stay and thinking about his work. But that’s how he is, easily distracted. I mean, R. asked him to join a cooking class on Sat. and he agreed immediately without thinking even, whereas I reluctantly half-agreed, and I don’t think I will go. This has no implications for my friendship with R., which is important to me, and I do like cooking, but I have other priorities now, and I would rather spend my time on other things. So in bed, we were making out so passionately that I said I love you, I always say that and it kind of slips out. And there was the inevitable silence that follows when I say it, and he said that he is still scared, and I said I am scared to lose him, and (I am so scared now, it is difficult to recall) he said for the first time maybe he is just generally scared of commitment. I didn’t tell him, and now I wish I did, that someone on the Ynet forum once told me that when he is scheduled to leave, that will probably coincide with him wanting/needing to be alone, as those things happen. But that someone is always skeptical and quite level headed, often harsh, and love is making the leap of faith… I am still so afraid that when I open my heart to him, he’ll just say I am tired of the whole thing and leave me, but like I said, everything comes with a price, and when you open your heart, if that is the reason to leave, then let him. But I am tired of always being on the side of the love confessions, I am tired of being the weak one and I don’t want to be the needy/yearning/hopeful one who needs comforting. Well, he said, if you didn’t say you loved me, don’t you think it would be obvious, and I said, no more obvious than it is that you love me, and after a minute's silence taking in the truth I just uttered, we resumed to devoure each other, and had the closest sex. And then when we fell asleep I had the very realistic Stocrin-induced vision dream in which we didn’t manage to fall asleep, were just lying quietly next to each other too tired even to toss and turn, and he got up finally after two hours or so and said I am going home, and I wept silently because I was too tired to defend myself and I knew that being honest, that revealing my heart, was costing me this price, and that I was to blame for speaking too much and too soon and he couldn't take it (but you see I am getting honest with everyone now, just like I am showing my love more. I am revealing my feelings to R. and to other people, and risking the consequences, just as I am showing affection more). It had felt so real, in my dream, and it was such a relief to be jolted out of it and see him just lying there, asleep. I woke up several minutes before his alarm clock, which shows that my body is getting in sync with his somehow, which is natural, the emotional-affective connection that Dr. Servan-Schrieber talks about in his book, which is so basic to us all, and I realize that if he leaves and leaves me behind, just severing that connection will leave his heart broken, too.

Tonight (hasn't happened yet, but this is what I planned):

Re-reading what I wrote in the last 24 hours, and especially about my interactions with various classmates and workmates, as well as P. & R., I realize that I tap into sides of people that echo myself, and when I catalogue someone as insecure, it is me I am talking about, and when I fear P. abandoning me, it might be just the other way around. I am tired of the emotional rollercoaster, and until I see someone from the hospital to talk with, my priority right now is taking it easy, not continuing to rush breathlessly along. Apart from my meeting with my boss later today and Dutch class, I have nothing secduled. P.'s chaotic-ness (he is in his last year) is affecting me, as is R.'s depression and Y.'s chatty nervousness. But I have to zone in, refocus myself while keeping in contact with and caring about all these people. I can't keep being flung unto the rocks like this, my heart needs stablilzing, my body needs calm. So I am going back to bed, with an article to put my back to sleep, and to work late and have an easy day. And if anyone wants to join me they are welcome, but I will let others do the worrying for a bit. P. can sit and fret and plan the future, or not. I refuse to do it, and I refuse to play the role he assigned me (which admittedly I took on myself). Nope. I am going to sit down and breathe, and watch, right now.