and panel by panel and piece by piece this all fits together but its not what you think

where have i been?

no "new years resolution" post? no reflection on where i was a year ago, as 2007, a year that was the rockiest of roads, finally came to a close? no thoughts on how 2008 had panned out, how it peaked mid-year like a heartbeat after something of an across-the-board flatlining (how wonderfully melodramatic! i'll explain why in a moment) before what was unfortunately a total heart attack in the second half of the year? (really? yeah, maybe a little bit) no thoughts on what 2009 could bring? (because it's gonna be a really interesting year, i can tell you that)

i guess not.

well, to sum it up, i was in new york last year thinking, "i don't know how much more of this i can bear," but with nowhere to go, i just threw myself into my vices and managed to distract myself a little bit longer. this year, i was in australia thinking, "i don't know how much more of this i can bear," and secretly, i knew that in fact i was going somewhere else soon. as for those vices...well, other than a couple civilized glasses of champagne, they were nowhere to be found.

okay, maybe that's not fair to australia. let me cut to the chase, and then explain: i'm leaving. it's official. and as i had flirted with originally, i'll be leaving on february 15th. (i'm very particular about dates.) i know maybe this should be announced with a bit more fanfare, but the fact of the matter is, i'm torn on how i should act about it. to set the record straight, this is not because i can't bear to be in australia anymore. it's the opposite. i want to be back in new york. six of one, half a dozen of the other? not so much.

there's a certain guilt, there's always been a certain guilt, about volleying between australia and new york. when i was leaving last year, i was excited to come over and reconnect with old friends, make new ones, experience a whole other version of my own life, etc. and so forth. but by choosing australia, i was not choosing to stay in new york, to stay with the friends i'd made, the life i'd created, the possibilities of my future there at that time. the day i told my boss i was quitting, i remembered recently, was the same day she was broaching the topic of "where do you want to go from here?" and what my next steps would be in the company. our conversation essentially went like this:

"where do you want to go from here?"
"i'm leaving."
"oh."

and we've been through it all before, the scores of fantastic people i had to say goodbye to, the way the glue in my life had finally dried and everything had really, truly, come together, all the romance of july. going to australia went from the easiest rabbit hole to slip down to a sort of obstacle course to the other side.

so leaving australia means i'm choosing new york again. and i'll admit, i'm entirely excited about going back. going home. i've missed new york since the day i got here, which is like a dirty little secret, i know, but i think you can miss one thing and still experience another fully. but it's hard to be so outwardly excited here, when it feels like you're dumping everyone and saying, "it's not you, it's me. and it's a little bit you. but it's mostly me with you."

anyway, i'm trying to lighten up a little, because i know things can get heavy sometimes on this blog (i have been told directly, this is not just me judging me), but that's been slightly hampered by my latest endeavor in reading, elizabeth wurtzel's "prozac nation," a memoir about, as she puts it, being "young and depressed in america." it's basically like the beginning of "eat, pray, love," where liz gilbert loses her shit over and over and can not pull it together no matter what she does or who she fucks, except, so far, halfway through the book, there is no petition, no food fest in italy, yoga in india, or may-december canoodling with a hot brazilian sugar daddy in bali. the book literally starts with her crying on the bathroom floor, but unlike liz gilbert, she never gets up.

now, those who know me, or even read this blog every once in a while (even just skimming the paragraphs for anything interesting to jump in on) know that i love crying on the bathroom floor, crying in the supermarket, crying on public transportation, crying just about anywhere. not me literally--i can't cry in front of people--but i love reading about it, watching it in a movie, hearing a story about it. i take heart that oscar-nominee julianne moore (the nom gives her street cred, y'know?), in an interview about a classic "women losing their shit" movie, "the hours," said something along the lines of, "i hate having to cry in movies. but i'll run to a movie with women crying in it." amen, jules.

but lizzy wurtzel needs to get her shit together.

i am only halfway through, but this is already the singlemost melodramatic book i have ever read. she doesn't just cry in this book; she wails, sobs, bawls, heaves on the floor in great, aching distress. her sobs can crescendo into screams; in one key scene, a fight with her mother descends into something that would put greek tragedy to shame for not reaching the trenches of despair that these two women hit. the book is crying scene after crying scene, often accompanied by cheap booze, hard drugs, and terrible decisions made the night before, but really, anything can make this girl cry.

it amazes me that anyone would call "eat, pray, love" self-indulgent. liz gilbert may spend night after night crying on the bathroom floor, but she manages to step back and say, "okay, i know, i'm totally losing my shit, it's kind of bananas, but bear with me, okay?" she has a sense of humor about it all. once again, i think she and i are the same woman, because we both have a habit of romanticizing the past, even if it was pretty terrible.

but ms. wurtzel is a mess, and if elizabeth gilbert and i had a tree house, we would not let her in.

the point of all this, other than that i just wanted to talk about "prozac nation" for a while, and will probably continue to do so in future posts, is that i'm making efforts these days to not be that mordant. in fact, that was my new year's resolution, in case you were wondering. it came to me only minutes before midnight, as i sipped champagne and thought, "yeesh, i can't believe i don't have a resolution. not even to lose weight!" i stopped trying to think of one, actually, gave in and thought, "ah, fuck it, i don't need a promise i won't keep." it slid into my mind quite gently, though, and i said, "well, okay, that i could do."

my resolution picked me.

"be happier."

i think going back to new york on february 15th is a big step towards that resolution. i think australia revealed to me to a lot of ways in which i'm not happier, in which i don't pursue my happiness more. of course, these revelations, in and of themselves, were somewhat unhappy, but totally invaluable. michael said recently, "i haven't been keeping up with your blog. it's just been all 'i don't like melbourne' lately." and i thought, "yeesh, maybe, yeah."

well, let it be known, i don't hate melbourne. i just fucking love new york. and when you know you've got true love, you don't let 10,000 measly miles stand in your way of being together. you do what you have to do to be happy.

to be happier.