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Leaving was very difficult.

During the flight, I picked up a book I've been reading. I have a new habit of reading a novel in 2-3 days, which can get costly. Maybe it's a bad habit. I just fall in love and have to, have to keep giong. I fall in love too easily.

So I'm reading Disgrace, and it's so beautiful, painfully beautiful in one passage that I have to contain myself in the little vessel. I had even forgotten I was flying for a moment, which is a very rare thing for me to do. As often happens to me in the face of miraculous art, my eyes burned with tears in marvel and awe and wonderment. Then I looked around at all of the college kids chattering and studying for finals, their excited voices at times piercing through the jet engine. And recomposed myself.

I read the passage again. It was truth that I was reading. Simply and plainly put by Coetzee. And I wanted it for myself. To write those artful words of honest elegance of the plight of human beings. Of the simultaneous depth and simplicity of human emotion.

I didn't want to come back to LA. Waiting to be picked up at the airport found me in a sullen mood of what was to come.

In a way it is like starting again. It is a good, but it is a scary thing, N says.

Especially because those people who dwell in my heart even when I am not with them will be so far away when I begin again.

There are many decision to make, each one depending on the next. But it is the first one that is heartbreaking. It is the first one that I must make again and again every moment. And tell myself, It is for the best. Space and perspective. Wait and see what comes of it. Let time handle it. You do not have control of anything.

Control and I struggle. Me, trying to control my life. As if I had a say in all things. An obsession with the idea that everything is in my power. Not controlling other people or friends. I'm happy for them just to be who they are and do as they like. But for myself. If only I could apply the same tolerance I have for them to myself. It is a torture. It is the perfectionism. Relinquishing control and power is freedom. Perfectionism and trying to control everything, controls me.

I woke up at 4 30 in the morning and panicked. A panic attack. It had been so long, but the next thing I knew I had popped out of bed, pacing, my heart pounding, sick. It is the drastic change. The pain of the break beginning to unfold. N, in his infinite patience, helped me back to bed, helped me calm down.

It soothed me. But then I was reminded that it would not always be like this. That it would not always be this simple anymore, and it is not a simple thing. And soon it would be only me. And then I did not sleep for quite some time. Uneasy.

It is necessary, I say. It is a good, but scary thing, I agree.
I am afraid.