it's 3am, and i have to wake up by 5am for a flight, followed by a full workday. If I let myself think about everything on my mind, I would be sobbing, but life is too short and I can't summon up the energy to actually cry. Instead I have generalized anxiety/insomnia exacerbated by buzzing (please: not malaria-carrying) mosquitoes whining around my ears waking me up every 10 minutes, and the vague discomfort of slightly unclean bedding.

Life is not light right now.

* * *
i am stewing over a series of attacking (even bullying?) work emails directly aimed at me. I feel like there has been a misunderstanding that escalated faster than i could have predicted. I am shell-shocked and hurt and over my head.

***
I spent 11 hours at the airport on monday, waiting to come to this small city where i am now. Bad weather, delayed flights. I made it here eventually, and as we drove into town, I saw the silhouette of a camel high on a ridge in the glow of early evening light. It is one brief beautiful image that I have been returning to in my mind to reassure myself that there is a reason i am here (in this country, doing difficult work, far from home. Am I done yet? can i go home and open a coffeeshop now?).

I tried to catch a domestic flight out this evening, but after 5 hours at the airport, they cancelled the flight. Fog. I'm hoping i'll be able to get back to the capital tomorrow morning because i'm fleeing this country on friday night.

I had a hellish hour this evening. After abandoning the hope of the flight to the capital and squeezing into a minibus with a hundred ppl back into town, I realized I had barely enough money for my unexpectedly prolonged stay. I checked myself into a pretty shabby hotel and hoped for the best re: bedbugs. Along the way i somehow stuck my still-somewhat-ajar water bottle back into my bag and liberally doused my computer with water (i have lost one laptop in this manner already but apparently i never learn to store those two things separately). In my grungy hotel room, I laid all the pieces out to dry, and indulged in a fair amount of self-directed derision.

Without my computer I couldn't do any work, although I am desperately behind
(hence the nasty emails, in part). I've even lost my pen. I descended into officially feeling a Fucking Mess, thoughts swirling incoherently through my head, and . Furthermore, I discovered (belatedly, sorry whoever comes here tomorrow) that the toilet has no water. Instead of productive anything (reflection, work, yoga, walk, whatever), I gave up, watched GI Jane on tv and tried to play "how could this be worse" whenever my subconscious got the better of me.

A very very tiny, slowly-emerging part of me feels a bit freed...Either it's part of me that always expected I'd get called out for the fake I suspect I am, or it's a part of me that says, "run the fuck away from this life, this is not who you want to be when you grow up". I'm trying to figure all this out, and fast, because maybe this is beginning of the end and actually, maybe it will work out for the best. I am girding myself for tomorrow, which should contain some kind of Don't Be Nasty To ME, THESE ARE THE FACTS type of rebuttal email, of the kind i never engage in. I am not the "reply all" type.

But the computer didn't short out when I plugged it in to check for new waves of nasty emails. I have killed at least one mosquito. Going to try again with the sleeping. Did I mention i need to be at the airport in 2.5 hours?

11:04 p.m. - 2010-07-22