I feel the most self-centered I've ever been. Maybe it has something to do with living alone. Everything about it seems so self-serving. I've never lived alone. I've lived with Mike for the past five years. I went grocery shopping last night and only bought things that I like to eat. When I was living with Mike and I used to go to the store I'd buy things I knew he liked or needed. I'd buy ingredients for dinners for two. I'd buy treats for him that I'd hide away in the back of the cupboards or the freezer, knowing that at some point in the week he'd say, "Oh, I wish we had..." and I'd smile and pretend to go into the kitchen for water, coming back instead with a pint of Haagen Daz Chocolate Chocolate Chip.

I cried yesterday for the first time in weeks. It wasn't over my father's death but rather the loss of Mike. I had gone all the way over to Hollywood to get my haircut because I wasn't in the mood to try out a new hairdresser just yet. When I left the salon, I drove the same way that I used to drive back to our old place, except at Vine I made a left instead of a right. I've lost so many people in my life but never by choice.

I know that I've disappeared these last couple of weeks. I really have in some ways just completely disappeared. I jumped feet first into this new life and only now am I looking back over my shoulder. Last night was the first night that I've just spent alone in my new apartment. Either I've gone out with friends or had friends here. I even had a friend from New York staying here with me for the last four days. I've had a million things to do everyday aside from going to the beach or going shopping or going out for drinks. I still haven't finished dealing with my email inbox, my stack of sympathy cards to reply to.

Last night I puttered around the house. I organized my boxes, I did laundry, I listened to KCRW all night and cooked dinner for myself. It was nice. I thought that I might be sad but it was in fact, quite relieving to be so silent.

In about a week I'm going to Macau. I can't even fathom what it will be like to be halfway across the world at this particular time in my life. I've never been to Asia and I've never been a girl without parents. I keep imagining that it will feel large and lonely to be so far away....far away from nothing really...that I'll be standing in some temple on the island of Taipa and I'll think, really, what do I have to return to? But then I look at pictures of Macau and I think how exciting it will be to be there, how thrilling to see a side of the world that I've never even been able to imagine. I think about all the friends I have to return to, even my disjointed and extended family. I think about how lovely it will be to come home to my little house in Venice Beach, a 25 year old woman who is just beginning her life.
11:11:04 AM     comment []