(w)hole:
For Ryan : )

It occurred to me first on Sunday, as we were packing up to leave, that I'd rather end the converation with the empathically-inclined changeling-esque fellow talking to me than listen to his speech. Granted, it was close to 6PM and J and I still had to drive for 6 hours to get home-- but I can remember a time when I would have killed to talk to someone this feeling, this real. I was tired, yes, and I was hot, but I was also feeling old. I didn't want to stand another minute and listen to this man, who was so interested in talking about my life, tire me with his spiritual enthusiasm. Have I had this conversation before? Many times, maybe, maybe not at all. I shut it out, locked it down, and walked away. I went home.

Sure, I talked over the next few days, about occurrences, about family, about purchases, about food, about games, about exercise. But did I talk about anything that matters? Anything besides technicalities and obligations? Eh.

I found myself sitting at the stoplight on Willamette in front of Poppi's Anatolia looking through the window of the restaurant and watching a woman in a hooded cloak drain the rest of the liquid off her tilted plate into her mouth. I thought I used to love this, people watching, I used to love to be here. There was a time when my eyes were open to this city and to this life. There was a time when I walked the streets in places like Seattle and Eugene and reveled in the strange and wonderful nature of human beings. There was a time when I contemplated religion, philosophy, love, soul, birds, ants, earth. Now I take the places, the things and the essenses all for granted. They're simply here to occupy my time as I climb one ladder to another tier. I look down with some satisfaction and some resent and up always with hope. Where I am now is a place where I am both empty and full, happy and sad. I have a contented life, a grateful existence, a spiritual void.

There are two "Mes." One who is here and happy, the other, the Seeker, who is elsewhere and lusting after a forgotten dream. I've always held the Seeker, the malcontent, as more important. I still do, but she has been ignored. We don't talk anymore, not about religion or politics or dreams or emotions or anything real. I'm laughing now because I can recall a time when I said I wanted to find the "real world" and I forsook these things in lieu of chasing what I thought was real. Now I'm parched where before I was full and full where before I was parched. The yin and the yang. The pull of two opposing forces. The scales. There can never be anything else for me. I can have one or the other but never both. If I had both I might die.

I told this to A as we were walking. I noticed how his eyes watched the lark as mine did, how he notices the silhouette of a tree against the sunset sky. How he is all art and dreams and intangibilities. He knows how to converse with the Seeker. In fact, he's the only person (of my peers, I know many "older" people) who can. It's always personal, it's always Real. With others there's a discourse but not connection. Details but no meaning. Concept but no practice. Empty.

But I'm an economist now. I've learned to measure things in checks and balances. Safety. Security. Love. The dimensions of these things are outside the confines of my Ideals. Where I find myself safe, however, I find myself lacking.

Do you know what I want? I want PASSION. I want phone calls for no reason and I want to sit in the sun and not think about finances. I want ME and I want to people watch without being distracted by appointments and demeaning thoughts. I want life without the Internet. I want FUCKING and MAKING LOVE and WAKING UP AT THREE AM TO TALK ABOUT GOD. I want to feel like I'm still looking for the meaning of life.

Is this growing up?

I'm not depressed: I'm actually quite happy. I'm unsated. I'm sitting here in quiet. I'm not alone but I'm lonely. I'm conflicted. I'm missing something.

And I know what I'm missing-- which is why I'm going a-looking for it. I'm missing the spark that comes with discourse. I'm missing that in 90% of my life. I suppose I should value the 10% that I have, expcept that it's hard because it's not where it's suppsosed to be. I should be able to let go with the other people I find. I should be able to nurture that spark without constant discourse. I should be able to be an artist without being in a commune.

Look, I'll be straightforward here. I spend every day waffling about my life. I want this spiritual intercourse from my partner. I want a good, hard-core intellectual fucking from Justin, but I've given up on making that click! because I always just feel like a fool. Does that mean I can't make it work with him? Nooooo. Does that mean I don't love him insanely? Noooooo. But it does mean I'm always falling apart a little bit, always cheating a little bit, always a little bit elsewhere. Is that wrong? No, but I don't like it.

So what to do? It's not like it's his fault that I'm feeling empty. We've already talked about all this. I need my OWN spark. I need to be able to sit on a twilight bench and watch the river and feel full on my OWN again before I can open up. But I'm so mired in all those little nit-picky details about life (you know, the ones that anal-retentives like me so thrive on picking over, like SCABS I say!) that I can't let go. I can't fucking orgasm. I can't scream my head off at the night sky. I can't sleep. Can't enjoy the people, can't taste the food. And you know what else? It's all boiling up under the surface and waiting to explode. It's all there, like some up-against-the-wall fantasy. It's all waiting.

I'm going to cry like hell when I leave. I haven't really yet, even though I wake up in the mornings and look over at him and I feel so full and happy and so sad and sick at the same time. What am I doing? What are you doing, Kat? Where are you going? FUCK. You're doing it. You're going. More than that, you're Going. You're going Looking. It still doesn't feel real though. Only 22 days until I don't see A until next July. But I won't "lose" him. Not after this last year. But what about J and I? Can I stand the pain? When the 10th rolls around and I leave for Seattle, will I spend the night before dosed up on cocktails at my going-away party, telling everyone I love them, puking off the balcony, kissing people? Will I spend it alone and sullen? Will I feel anything when he holds me? Or will I "wake up" two weeks later and spend one morning curled over the toilet in my host family's house purging myself of everything but FREEDOM?

God, I love you all. I love you all so f-ing much. I love some of you so much I'm giving myself up for you. It isn't right. And so.

I'm going. But it's not about Japan. It's about the journey. It's about adventure. It's about looking for that lost something. That spark. That kiss. That thing that fills the void with wonder about the living earth. Where is it? Where?

In the moment between an awkward silence and a rant with A, I thought about where I'm going and I realized that I'm not ashamed. Not about any of it. Not about the lies and the being happy. Nor about the sadness and the sex. I've never done a thing wrong in my life except this closing of myself to other people. Someday soon I'll remember how to give myself permission to have fun again.

It's there beyond the boarding-gate. It's there beyond the chikatetsu and the conjugal visits. It's there in summer, in spring, and in fall. It's even there in Winter. It's not Here. It's not in Japan. It's not in him. Or in Him. It's out there. I'll find it. I'm looking.