my sister came and left. i will not see her again for many months. i hugged that little stringbean for a very long time, and not just because the new toothpaste tube in the bathroom proves that the world still operates according to my master plan.

I'm on the waitlist to leave on Thursday. I can feel myself shifting into travel mode. It gets easier and easier to put on that self-reliance shell. I know I will get off that plane and go through customs. Find my bag. Emerge into a swelteringly humid evening. Blink at the chaos of 10 000 taxi drivers vying for my fare. And at the back of my head, over and over:

i am the only one here. i can only count on myself. home is 5000 miles away. i'm going to be fine .

It was funny (the odd kind) to feel myself getting emotional with friends here. Teary in a coffee shop? I close that stuff off in India.

I just spent an hour on the phone with a woman i lived with in Guyana, and was that really four years ago? We spoke of lessons learned. I never get to relive that place because the regulars in my life were not there with me, but it turns out that i'm carrying little pieces around in my heart. I'm never sure that things don't just vanish into a vacuum when they've gone. [And then what's the point?]

When we went, she was a well-seasoned 29, and I had just turned 20 and had bravely set out to save the world. Our conversations are so different now. I am so much... harder than I used to be. Not much of an idealist at all, and impatient with knee-jerk leftists. [cynic or realist?]

Looking through my journal entries from 2000 is like watching a car crash set to a bad soundtrack.

*

I am gorging on croissants, chocolate, filter coffee, grapefruit, cheese, milk, and sushi. I strongly resemble a bear preparing for hibernation.

12:23 a.m. - 2004-02-10