"There is no Naomi in view..."

"And my emptiness is swollen shut
Always a wretch I have become
So empty
And please, please don't leave me here."

Some of you have been asking where I've been and it warms the cockles of my cold, cold heart to know that I have been missed.

To tell you the truth, I'm doing well. I'm in a period of transition.

I love my new job. I really do. It's not like it's anything spectacular, but it's the normalcy of it that makes me happy. I don't dread getting up in the morning. I don't shake and cringe when my boss calls or stops by. No panic attacks. No tears.

I have been meeting a lot of new people and shedding cracks of light on parts of myself that have been hiding.

I have been taking stock. There are things I'm unhappy with and want to change, and I'm figuring out how to go about that.

I want to purge it all. I want all the weight of the things I've been carrying off of my shoulders.

A perfect example: In the closet of my office I have a bag of stuffed animals that I have been collecting since I was 16 years old. They're animals given to me by Chris or ones that we acquired together. I've loved them dearly for so many reasons--because they represented young love and hope and innocence to name a few. I haven't been able to look at them, but I haven't been able to get rid of them either.

The past is weighing me down.

When Nannette gently suggested it might be time to get rid of them, I welled up immediately. I think it's time for them to go.

I'm looking around all the signs of light and hope in my bedroom--a room which I've adorned with the things I love: lanterns, paper cranes, collage, words--and trying to pull out inspiration and the forms in which it comes.

I have two definitions written on my wall. One is for the word "desiderium": a yearning, specifically for a thing one once had, but has no more. The other is for the word "balter": to dance clumsily.

I'm ready for less desiderium and more balter.

Not so long ago, I mourned to a friend that the people who have loved me most and best are gone, and I don't know how to be. If I continue to lament this and to live in the past, then it will always be this way.

Part of the reason I stayed away from blogging, also, is because some of my thoughts on the things I need to let go of have the capacity to hurt other people--the last thing I want to do. As much as I love having readers, sometimes it's also a curse to have them. I've chosen to keep my thoughts private.

"She comes and goes most afternoons
One billion lovers wave and lover her now
They could love her now
And so could I..."