Fear

Funny when you're surprised by life, and realize that you've come to expect to be disappointed.  After so many of your fears come true, you start bracing yourself. 

I always wonder if by expecting it, I make it come true.  A self-fulfilled prophecy.

So the other night I was expecting an ending; unwelcome, but necessary.  I was expecting, yet again, to have my heart bruised, and was trying to steady myself, ready myself, for the blow.  I like to see it coming if I can.

But I was surprised.  I got what I wanted.  And it occurred to me, that maybe sometimes things can work out.  Maybe I could be happy.  

But still, in my secret places, I worry and lie in wait.  I always think people are going to leave me, because they usually do.  I try to tell myself to just enjoy the time I do have, rather than fear when it will end.  I've never been good at protecting my heart either way, so might as well jump in I guess.  But I can't ever silence that little voice telling me, this won't last.  Someday you'll get hurt by the one who makes you happy now.  And I wait for it.

Fall

October is always a month of endings for me.  This may be appropriate; purging my life of what is dead and unworkable, before the turning of the year.  

Fall begins for me with a crackling, crisp feeling in the air, almost like static electricity but it feels more internal.  This brings an accompanying feeling of both anticipation, and dread; fear and exhilaration; nausea, and longing.  Again, the turning of the year, the line between the living and the dead at its thinnest.

I miss the midwest in the Fall.  In this perpetually hot California summer I feel like a caged animal, taken out of my natural environment, my instincts askew.  

My thoughts are turning to costumes, and then to reinvention of the self.  Could it really be as easy as dressing up as someone else?  For some reason I am strongly drawn to masks this time.  Feathery, fancy, mysterious masks that confuse the identity.  Slide.