I was so ready Saturday night. Poisoned, intentionally mind you, talking to visions around the campfire, the men I most admire laughing with me, clapping me on the back mano el mano.
Shrooms in the woods, glowing orange cats and spiralling trees, blue licks of flame and hiding in Marc's armpit when it all got too much.
We'd brought a ghetto blaster, playing ambient bizarro stuff that Lucky had downloaded, the world was mine, and I was ready to scamper across it, aching to sign papers, renew my passport, rid myself of my belongings.
Then they put in a tragically hip album and "Scared" came on and suddenly I remembered the first time I'd heard that song in years, having downloaded it, thinking of the strange things just beginning to spread their leaves with David.
I remembered wanting to sing it to him, if I could sing, I remember wanting to grab him by his beautiful shoulders and scream in his ears how terrified I was.
Suddenly I was off and running, Lucky freaked at my sudden movement, watching the cherry of the roach in my fingers disappear with me along the river.
And Marc, my saviour always, announced "let her trip, man" and I was suddenly grounded, all too conscious.
I fell to my knees on a clump of roots that I couldn't find in the morning, and I cried.
I soaked the ground, heard the trees sobbing for me, real men don't cry and I sure as hell wasn't going to be loud about it.
I cried for David, so few men I'm capable of loving and screwing at the same time, and suddenly I was losing him, not to incompatibility, not to boredom, not to cheating or the fact that we'd grown tired of each other.
I'm losing him to adventure, and I can see every new scar I tear in him when he sees me and wonders "how many more times will we make love before you leave?".
Five in the morning and the sky suddenly lighter, I crawled back to the campfire and handed out brownies and laughed and laughed and my belly ached from the laughing we'd done that night.
Marc turned to me, across the pit of stones and ashes and announced, just a touch too vulnerably that "We're going to miss you, mama" and the tears were back and I was backing away, away from the sudden intimacy, white faces peering at me from all sides and we were all thinking the same thing.
I see them once a month now, less, but still, I'm leaving my family just to run away from my parents.
I went hiking in the morning, awake hours before the boys, returned with a shirtfull of raspberries, blackberries, and edible mushrooms. Read half a new Spider Robinson book courtesy of Steven, waiting for the coffee to brew.
The ride home I was suddenly exhausted, thirty six hours of adrenaline from the Starlight event to the overnight camping trip, to lugging my junk back up the stairs and when David came over, all my brilliant resolutions and epiphanies collapsed into tears and oaths that I would never take another man until the day he ordered me to forget him.
I signed the contract today. Who knows, it might still fall through, might still not work out, they have ninety days to find me a position that I'm willing to accept and from the day I sign it I have two weeks to
get rid of my car
car insurance
cell phone
furniture
books
comic books
find a roommate for my roommate
renew my passport
get an international driver's license
throw the biggest party this side of the universe
and not break down.
Computers, clutter, six years of living on my own and there's all this STUFF, my top hat collection, clothes I'll never be allowed to wear again, oh oh oh...
Last time I left I had nothing to lose. No friends, no family, a conjoint that I hated and a circle of acquaintances that were slowly killing me.
Suddenly... Oh I've known it all along really, how much I love my life, love them all, all the people I hug and throw stings at, every smile I've shared with someone Who Understood The Joke.
I love you so much...
Oh dear gods, I wished for this pain a million times, the chance to have it, just one shot at this much love, this much warmth, this much family.
Maybe it'll just be for a year.
In the meantime, I've got a backlog of e-mails to Mystie who's been so dilligent and who I've utterly ignored, I've got a million people to call, the party of a lifetime to plan.
First, though, I'm going to soak my pillow and call you in the morning.