i am. at peace.

I started this entry a long time ago, in February 2007, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it was put on hold, worked on, put on hold, etc, a few times over - as over the past year I've felt many various shades of "at peace" (or not). I finally felt able to finish this during the holidays. Then I nearly wanted to burn it. And, now I feel ready to post it - I guess that's a tiny hint into my psyche, all in itself.

I'm convinced that drowning has to be one of the worst things that can happen - when you can't breath and you want to. Maybe suffocating is the same, but somehow the thought of gasping for a deep breath and turning up with a mouth (and nose) full of water instead has got to be the worst. Almost like that time when I was 5 and I had been so sneaky as to grab a huge gulp from the glass of soda that my mom had put in the fridge. It wasn't until my mouth was over-full with delicious soda that I realized it was not soda, but coffee she'd put in there to make iced coffee. And there was nothing I could do with it - but swallow. Drowning must be like that. Times a thousand.

There was a time when I used to feel like I was drowning all the time. When I was over come with anxiety about this or that. When being alone, and in silence, was perhaps the worst thing that could happen. When I couldn't dream of falling asleep without the TV to stop the panic that seemed to always be just below the surface ready to bubble over at any moment. Sometimes it was justified, or maybe explainable, panic. Sometimes it was more vague. I guess worry has always been a character trait of mine. It's always been there, but I learned to deal.

I've noticed a change in this past year [2006]. I can sleep without the TV. I can be alone, and silent. I can be inside my head without feeling like I am missing something. I can do what I want, when I want, without feeling lost or unjustified. I'll blame some of this growth on traveling by myself. When it started, it was terrifying. But there was a certain freedom and peace that comes from being completely on your own somewhere that no one knows you. Particularly if it's a place where you also don't speak the language. I can remember my flight home from Singapore - and while I had grown "home-sick" by the end of that three-and-a-half week trek around the world, I was also sad to come back. To rejoin the day-in-day-out, the social norms, the societal expectations.

And while I have a strong "home-body" tendency, those trips really forced me to embrace myself and what I was about. Making the decision to move to Texas for grad school - a player that popped up very late in the game - over staying in Boston was terrifying. It was compounded by the fact that it was something, deep-down, I felt I needed to do. It was precisely opposite to the choice I would have thought I would have made. It was exactly the opposite of how I would have thought I would feel. It was that opposition that was horrific. But I knew, perhaps from the first time it was mentioned, that this was the choice I needed to make. I felt I was finally ready.

What followed that decision was anything but peace. There was no relief, there was no acceptance, there was complete and total fear, denial, sadness, terror, depression. No where in there though, was there ever regret.

It's funny how some things that happened a long time ago seem so clear - and others that happened just yesterday are fuzzy. I was going through a drawer of papers, papers that were among the first to be unpacked, and the first to be forgotten about. It included a set of fortunes from some fortune cookies.

Right before I left Boston, my last night with AY. We shared chinese food takeout and some wine on the empty floor of my living room. I remember I didn't eat much. I remember I talked a lot. I remember it was some of the best girl talk we'd ever had, maybe because it was the last for a while. Things have a way of being better than ever when you know they are coming to an end. We each got two fortune cookies. One of mine made me laugh a bit

If your cookie is in two pieces, the answer is yes

I remember the conversation that followed. I feigned confusion, saying "I don't know what the question was" and AY, as usual, did not let me get away with it, "Yes, you do". Well, she was right. I did know the question, although it might not have been exactly what she was thinking, I'm sure at it's very core it was similar.

And, many months later, the answer is yes.