07.13.2001 - 5:15 p.m.

I finally got a PO box for myself today. I've been living for a month or so without any mail, which I've thoroughly enjoyed, but I guess it was getting on some people's nerves that I had no mailbox and therefore didn't exist. I do exist, though, it's not like freshman year in college when I never checked email, never noticed the stupid blinking light, and never slept in my room anyway (I had this really strange roommate, among other things...)

I'm fond of disappearing. It's a long-standing habit of mine to be somewhere else, to sort of forget to mention whatever I'm actually thinking.

Boyfriend: Want to get out the telescope?

Me: Sure.

(Repeat for three years)

Ex: You never really liked stargazing, did you.

Me: I like it fine. But you can see more without the telescope.

Again, I find myself in search of a nice cozy corner to stand in, where I can just watch everyone else. It's so much nicer to just watch, and not have to weigh anything. But unlike that first year of college, I know I can't live in the corners of my life.

I know it.

Because I live alone, or mostly alone. We all graduated, and I am more alone than I can remember ever being. It would be easy to disappear, I would love to disappear, but if I do there will be no one left to watch.

There is an interesting space between the person you mean to be and the person you are. This is not a revelation. (Life is just a spiral, and ya spin and ya spin until you're tired of seeing the same blur over and over and over again, but you're still spinning, dizzier down til you get to the center and then

There you are.)

And afterwards, when you open your eyes, you won't mind so much getting a box for the junkmail and phone bills and letters to "Boxholder" as if that was your real name. Because when someone asks you to help with a telescope, you say, "Sure, just as soon as I'm done stargazing."

So what I want to know is, since I know where I'm going, why can't I skip to the end of the ride?

-stonebridge

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