EXCERPTS FROM A FORGOTTEN JOURNAL

She woke up as usual. Usual means not being particularly overwhelmed or overjoyed to enter into yet another dreary boring day. So she lingered in the bed without wanting to get out wishing the dream did not end. What dream she did not remember, even a nightmare would do, because it is more interesting than having to wake up and start everything all over again.

Basically, what was boring was not getting up or having to everything all over again, because she could always change the routine so it does not become a habit. She detested habits or routine even though she was well aware of the psychological benefits of good habits. It seems that some people are not satisfied with life on repeat. 

There are some perks in a single morning. You get to see the new day being born if you wake up early enough. But sometimes it all loses its flavour, all that enchantment with nature and beautiful sunsets. What seems to keep her going are simple things like a warm cup of black coffee or sitting in peace with no thoughts in her head. There is comfort in repeating things and knowing that they will be there the next day. There is comfort in sameness albeit dreary. There is comfort in knowing we will wake up again. There is a strange comfort in knowing that someday we will not wake up again. Or there isn`t.

She knew very well what was the reason for her morning reluctance to get up. It was a lack of love. A lack of someone to wake up next to. That was it. That`s why her morning friends were a cup of strong coffee and a shot of single malt. Had anyone told her years ago that this would be her morning routine she would laugh it off. These two things were supposed to be for someone else, for some other people, and she was supposed to have a family, raise kids and do whatever ordinary people do.

She forgot one simple thing. She looked ordinary. Everything about her on the outside was simple and nothing special, as she was used to thinking about herself and sometimes even saying it out loud when there was no one to hear. Black hair, brown eyes, going out in simple unattractive clothes. Inobtrusive and simple was her way of trying to live her life. No bright colours, maybe a maroon or pink clothes here and there, or a blood-red lipstick and some mascara at times.

Everything needed to be simple, ordinary and inconspicuous. Which just lowered her chances for attracting the attention of men. Men, or human beings in general like their attention to be attracted to something novel, interesting, unusual, sprightly, entertaining, like colourful plumage some birds are adorned with. Unfortunately, everything in this new world is transient and of low value. The similar attracts the similar, that`s what they say. But for her, this and such platitudes held no meaning nor significance and so those were the times of long waiting. Empty and insecure times. Empty of love but filled with all types of spirits.

***

She woke up, as usual, tossing from left to right in her bed. 

The sunlight is brighter at 5 than it is at 9 a.m. Those were her thoughts. 

I don`t want to get up yet. I never want to get up. I want to stay like this forever. 

No worries, no thoughts just a feeling of an everlasting innocence. Morning is innocence or the innocence of a new morning she just could not decide. It was innocence though, but not her own. 

There was no euphoria with which she greeted every new day when she had to wash her face, brush her teeth run a comb through her hair in a rush for work, for fear of being late. 

Fear. 

What a natural but highly strange emotion for the every-morning setting. Fear of being late for work; what a silly irrational emotion coming from some strange depths of her unconscious being. 

This emotion was probably a sibling of another irrational fear of being late for school. Anyway, this late morning hour of not getting up generated some kind of peace. However, this peaceful hour failed to bring her true peace because morning hours and their momentum usually do not bring true peace because this peace is so transient and is usually gone very soon giving way to the recycled old thoughts that slowly start to creep in stealthily. The thoughts and feelings of dejection come again. 

I guess it the proof I am a grown-up now. And growing up was not the first thing on her life`s to-do list.

Why did she feel dejected? 

Because she lacked the one whom she thought was her other half or whatever you want to call that phenomenon. 

Imperfect, but definitely her other half or a missing part or whatever you want to call that phenomenon.

****

She woke up as usual tossing and turning again. Guilt-ridden. The reason for the guilt is she failed to get up with the morning sun. As if that is of such utmost importance to waking up early. It is not. It is just a part of trying to be productive, doing something of importance and shaking off that feeling of wasting time. Another cold-ish morning, the wind is trying to rip out the trees and all that vegetation. She just cannot understand where he is or what is he doing. No frigging message on the phone. What to expect from a long-distance thing? There is nothing substantial there. A figment of imagination, a ghost of something that might be but will never. Everything is misplaced, wrong. Why is that so, she does not know.

The other part of herself was 5000 nautical miles away across the oceans. There is nothing but a disconnect. No joy nor sorrow, only bleakness. Does anybody care? Everything seems bleak, or bleached. The day is greenish or it just seems to be so. She does not know. 

It is the white noise of nothingness. How can nothing feel so real? How can nothing be missed so badly? How can nothing leave a void? How can nothing ache?

Always here for you, Philip Glass

The rational part of her brain tells her that long-distance things are a stupid, really, a pointless nothing. But how can nothing leave her feeling so full and yet so empty? She is not full of herself. On the contrary. She is carrying some other part of herself in her heart. Is that love? She does not know. This thing with such a gravitational pull that makes her feel starved and alone cannot be real. But it is real.  How can nothing ache when there is nothing to cause pain? If it is nothing, how can it ache? She does not know the answer to that. There is no hope that she will ever find the answer.