i'm afraid of leaving. again, still. time looms intractable and unavoidable and huge, and for all the things i want: to return to school, to be near you again; for all that i am looking forward to: independence, a room of my own; i am still afraid of leaving. it haunts me. i am happy here. i have found people and things and work that are satisfying and nurturing to me. there is the water, and the trees, and the fog and the sky. i drink tea and write and have long talks with my mother about polyfidelity and social justice. i am sometimes solitary and lonely but usually in a charmingly poetic sort of way, and more often connected and joyful. the crux: i'm afraid of losing that joy. i will almost certainly qualify for the monterey slam team, and i want to be here for the west coast championship. with a little more time i think i could be a manager at work, and i want to be here for my sister's senior year and another winter coming through the hills. but then comes my brother's senior year, and another winter, something else, i will always want to be here. i want another year, but what happens at the end of that one? i'm afraid of never going back to school now that i'm so comfortable out of it. at kickboxing last week i spoke with a girl who graduated the year before me about how the expense of college almost negates the supposed salary benefits of the education you now have to pay off. oh, but i want it, i want the learning, knowledge, the swirling of ideas, i do. i'm just afraid of change, it seems. i know joy is not so fragile, but i am loathe to leave it now that it has been found, and unconfident in the fact that it resides inside me and will travel with me whereever i go. (but where was it in the city? or what part of me was missing so that it could escape?)


there is also that i feel like i am unfolding here, learning new aspects of myself, and i'm afraid that i will lose them if i leave. like this place and these people are some careful laboratory condition and if it changes all that has been found will slip back into the void of unconcerned ignorance. at least i've got my melodrama.