hey lloyd, i'm ready to be heartbroken

this is not to say there's any current heartbreak to be had in australia, but in the spirit of gratitude (inspired partially by my horoscope today--you know my feelings!) i think it's worth taking on this new life with an open heart. there will be uncertainties, there will be questions, there will be challenges. there will be blood? no, there will not be any blood.

but it's important to be ready for it all as if it were what you came here for in the first place.

which in some ways, is true.

***

things happen. your money gets temporarily frozen in the states. you play a veritable hot potato with places to live, you maybe do foolish things with boys sooner than you can say, "oh, wait, i thought i vowed to stop doing this?" because you're just looking to land somewhere for an evening. and not necessarily a bed, just a situation, an experience that grounds you in existence in this place. you're not just wandering around with a dumb look on your face, you're doing something, something that's happened here, like a piece of evidence, albeit somewhat intangible, that you were here, you existed. you're not the man who wasn't there.

if that makes any sense.

it's been a week and a half. that's it. a fistful of days that could have passed by in new york with hardly as much recognition for the minutiae of life, the seconds in a minute in an hour in a day that hold so much potential for life, for change, for growth. i am so terribly aware of the time i waste, and let's be honest, in the last week and a half, i've wasted a lot of fucking time. i am trying my hardest to judge that--or rather, some seemingly uncontrollable faction of myself, the ministry of judgment in my mind, is trying its hardest--and coming up with only half-assed efforts.

little by little, i'm able to stop caring.

and not that i'm not doing things. meeting up with old friends--picking up where we left off like it was two minutes ago--and making new friends, establishing this sense of familiarity i hardly believe. and despite the vastly unpredictable and largely miserable weather of a melbourne winter, trying to get out and about for a wander, which inevitably leads to getting lost in neighborhoods i don't recognize and waiting for the pieces to come together. i'm doing something every day, big or small, and for the sake of self-reporting (something to look back on at a higher, wiser point), i never feel like i'm doing enough. it's like i'm being hounded by some "seize the day" bumper sticker, and i just want to say, "yes, i know, i agree, but i'm tired today!"

i talked to sonam online for a bit last night, and it was probably exactly what i needed to hear, as only a few months earlier she moved back to india. funny how, in the early trials of my time in new york and now during the great adjustment in my time in melbourne, sonam has been right there. i was saying last night, "i want to tell everyone i'm having a great time, but i'm not sure i'm there yet," and she said, "the first month kind of gets lost in the haze. we'll talk about how much fun you're having in a month."

we also talked about when all the pieces come together, and you have that moment when you realize you've made exactly the right choice, that you're just where you're supposed to be. "i promise, that will happen for you soon," she said. i remember how it happened in new york--i don't know if i could pinpoint the moment exactly, but it was towards the end, of course. the feeling is so entirely palpable and authentic. i think it happened towards the end of my time in new york so i'd be sure to remember it when it happens here in australia.

i also talked to jay yesterday, of course just picking up as we do like it's no effort at all, because it's not. i feel like we both change so much when we're apart; i can't help but wonder why big, exciting, fun life changes can't happen when we're in the same room. it seems in the last year we were present for each other's crappier moments more than the good, but maybe that's intentional of the time.

though, as per usual, he cut through all my bs, and pointed out these cycles i go through of habitual behavior, which i think kicked in quite automatically when i got back here. all the things i did in australia that i wasn't keen on seemed to show up around the corner one day, and we recognized each other very quickly. but i'm actually quite grateful for that. i love that i have something to work on.

"don't give up on it," jay said. "you moved half a world away, and that's as good a place as any to be happy."

maybe that's part of the challenge i am taking on here. i walked away from so much of what made me happy, towards what could make me happy, and now i've got to do the work of converting "could" to "does."

i imagine that is the more interesting part of this journey, anyway. i don't particularly care--and i can't be sure you will--about too much of the actual journey. because if you want the mundane, i've got (a) i need to go clothes shopping, two of the pairs of jeans i brought are too big, (b) i love how sushi rolls here are handheld, seaweed-wrapped rolls, and they come with little plastic fish with screw nozzles holding the soy sauce so you can apply as needed, and (c) i forgot how much i missed oporto, solo, continental noodles, and of course, passion pop.

just so you don't think all i do here is have deep and meaningful considerations of my life while laying on the bathroom floor.

i do go out and eat as well.