Worlds Collide

I'm supposed to be packing for Charlotte. But I have a terrible cold, and thus, medicine head. And I don't feel like it.

My plane takes off in ten hours...and I'd really like to get some sleep between now and then. This doesn't seem likely @ this point. Also, as always, there is too much on my mind to be able to focus on menial tasks like packing.

I spoke with MGM today-- the first time in five months. Nothing to report. But it is strange, the way that speaking with or thinking about someone from my past can change my mood entirely. I'm not sure if it's a product of having lived so many places in such a short amount of time, or if it's just a matter of lacking any sense of semblance in my life, but I can't manage to properly relate my current life with the aspects of "lives past." This could go hand in hand with the not being able to let go thing. I keep everyone and everything in their own separate compartment in my brain. Charlotte has its own, Philly has its own, Gannon has its own, and Pittsburgh, New York and so on. Places aren't supposed to spill over. Friends from different places aren't supposed to intermingle. (Though I sometimes long for friendships to develop between my compartmentalized friends, I'm not sure how I'd go about that.)

Anyway, it seems usually to be the times that one of my worlds is sailing along beautifully that I choose to revisit another. This, of course, drudges up memories of days gone by, songs I used to listen to there, things I did, people I knew. And it hurts. That's when my missing happens. Not right after I leave someplace, but much later. When life is rolling along comfortably and I get smacked in the face with a life from my past. And usually, I've brought it upon myself.

I was very excited to go back to Charlotte. It took me a year to want to do it, but I was feeling comfortable and excited about the trip, when with the death of Alayna, everything in Pittsburgh changed. I was ripped out of my life here for six days, and when thrust back into it, my mood had notably changed. I thought coming back would be terrible. But it wasn't. I'm sad, yes. But my coworkers have been supportive, my friends are understanding and fantastic, and I have someone here who despite my constantly challenging this in him...actually seems to like me. And now I can't remember ever wanting to go to Charlotte again.

I'll be back in four days. I assume with stories of both how it has changed and how everything is as it always has been. I'll have to readjust once more to my life in New York as I now know it, and leave the people behind in North Carolina that remain there with my memories.