lately.

Lately I have been living on California time and I need to remember that the morning still happens and a lot of people even see it.

Lately I have felt like hiding and people keep finding me anyway. I know this is a good thing, but sometimes I cannot tell you what I am planning. I do not know how long I will be blonde and I do not know what I will be doing in September. I know that one is more important than the other, though, so I suppose we could discuss priorities, if you’d like.

Lately I have worn shorts that are short and a sweatshirt that is big and the act of constantly pulling one down and the other up is tedious at best and I think that I shall wear clothes that actually fit me tomorrow, if that’s alright with you.

Lately I have felt different. And my thoughts, they are saying some ridiculous things. I wonder what people think of me, especially those who knew me before this past November. I wonder if I am that poor girl and even as I write this I know that I am not. I am not pitiable. I am rich. Like my name, Jessica; which means wealthy one. This always embarrassed me as a kid, because I thought it must just mean that I have money or something. And money is nice, but it’s so very general that it’s boring. It passes through the hands of every person; it’s spent and earned all in the same day and you can never pick up a dollar and know that it’s mine just by looking at it.

But, wealth. I think it’s mine because of the way that the world interests me all the time. There’s so much of it and even when I feel down, I cannot help but listen to the sound of water rushing by and, for a moment at least, forget about what it was that made me walk in the dark in the first place. And then there’s autonomy and the way I can choose to embrace this life. That’s a gift; that’s wealth, too.

Lately I have been telling myself that I don’t need a man. Or rather, have been told that quite a bit. And it’s true. I am fine. I have so much to do. So many words to write and people to listen to and a story all my own that needs to be spelled out one way or another. But then there is the fact that these people who tell me this–they all go home to someone and it is, I guess, okay for them to need that someone, but me? I was broken. And there is broken and then there is the hard work of recovery and then there is the abruptness of it all. The way you had a man, or at least you were led to believe you did, and how suddenly the door slammed like someone suddenly telling you NO! but you weren’t even asking permission–you didn’t even know it was a possibility–but there it was, a resounding NO! anyway. And now you don’t need a man. Now you can’t need a man. Now you are fine and you are fine and you are crying but tears are easily wiped away anyway, because you are fine.

Lately I have been laughing because life is nothing if not hilarious. And there is nothing so tiring as contrived laughter, but there is nothing so freeing as laughter that comes from some deep place inside of you that glows with familiarity at the sound of humor because you feel like you’ve come home again. And you don’t think about it, per se, but you know that something, at least, can be so right that it’s dangerously close to being perfect, and wouldn’t it be tragic to have missed the way you and your friend are laughing so hard that simply breathing becomes the goal because that hasn’t happened in a while now?