HERE WE GO AGAIN...

Well, it took about twenty-four hours to land back where I came from. Less, really, if you count the surge of certainty right before "lights out". Maybe that's why I slept eight hours for the first time in I don't know how long...

Actually, I am not quite back where I came from, because It has become less of a constant throbbing ache and more a mere presence -- there has been a "lifting" of the whole thing since the freedom of yesterday which is, well, uplifting. This is probably not going to last, as nothing else so far has found anything resembling a steady state, but I am sure enjoying la difference while I may. [5 pm: it's REALLY back. OhmyGod...]

I once dated someone who wanted to know how I could possibly not have slept with anyone in four years -- this was the '70s, after all; she asked me if I just didn't have feelings like other people. I was able to tell her that I was quite capable of longing for someone enough to cry over it for days at a time, which mollified her until I added that it had been a guy.

I am still deeply grateful to that guy, the only man I have ever told that I was in love with him who, even though he could not reciprocate, steadfastly refused to cut me loose. He came to my parents' place for Thanksgiving well after that, since he had come East from Very Far Away, and it was the fact that he slept in his rather unappealing underwear that cured me, literally overnight. This is the Gym Socks factor to which I believe I have alluded before, somewhere. I realize there are people to whom the white briefs involved, regardless of their state, are the whole story, but they are not me.

There is apparently a part of me that just refuses to give up the dream image until reality knuckles down and just rubs my nose in it. This does not bode well under the current circumstances, I know, but maybe I have grown up in the interim. I am after all, over thirty years older, you would think I'd picked up SOMEthing along the way.

Fat chance.

Fifty-six days...