Two Sleeps Left

I'm miserable. Totally, completely fucking miserable. I'm working on my second draft and it's going well. It's only lunchtime and I'm about a third through. I'll have to pick up the pace this afternoon, but it's going really well. Despite the fact that I'm miserable.

Tomorrow is my last day here. And it's not that I don't miss home. I do. Kind of. It's that this dream is suddenly ending in a feeling of abrupt amputation. My own momentum here is building. Connections being made. Work getting done. And in two days I get on a plane to suburban Calgary, Alberta and leave it all behind.

I don't know what's next. And I know that doesn't matter and I know I'm not leaving anything behind really, but this thing is ending and I can't see what's ahead. So it feels like nothing's there. And you'll all probably try to make me feel better, and I might even start making myself feel better. But right now I don't want that. I want to be miserable and I want to fucking vent about it.

It's cold and rainy today. Surly Manager at La Fourmi was in fine form, which is to say I practically had to get back there and make my own coffee this morning. Or travel to Columbia, pick the beans, roast them, grind them and add my own milk. "Service" was not on her agenda. Does she not realize that she'll never see me again? Did what we have mean nothing?

I sat there writing and two girls with huge backpacks wandered around trying to find their hostel. Their maps untattered and unused. They've just arrived and I hate them.

I have no candy in my apartment. The milk ran out this morning and there's no point in getting more. I'll be washing the sheets and towels tonight and taking my dead-body duffel bag up to Dana's.

Yesterday I spent the day with Dana talking about the ends of relationships. Sort of. The point of them. The ideal partner. Why it all matters. Not really sunny stuff. I realized that I put a deadline on everything I do.

Leaving for Paris was a deadline. As though everything in my life had to be perfectly defined and understood before I got on the plane or else it would never be clear and die of neglect in the 30 days I was gone. I made my boyfriend suffer. He's probably glad he's not here now. And I'm worried about what kind of shitstorm I'll unleash on him upon my arrival. Please God, let me be a nice girlfriend. A good, loving, caring one. Let me cover him with kisses and gifts, and not the wrath of my misery at this dream of dreams coming to a close.

My other deadline is children. My unborn children are right there, ticking timebombs in hand, saying in their sweet angelic voices, "Mommy...you only have a few years left. We're coming Mommy. We're coming." I've had the Age-35-Have-Kids deadline for awhile now. Only it's Age-33-Have-Kids because I like to be early with things. And I already feel late for some reason.

Last night, I lay there in my lumpy bed. Springs digging into my spine. And I tried to release the babies. I tried to let them go because it hasn't happened yet and it's getting me down.

My momentum is building. The creativity that's waited a decade to come out is here. It's here and it's strong and it's loud. It wants to work. It wants to kick ass. It's a heat-seeking missile. It's coming from my gut and from God and it's really flowing now. I remember reading about some now-famous someone who came to Paris to work. His journal said, "I no longer feel like an artist. I am." I understand that. I feel that.

I don't know why and maybe it's only an internal shift, but it's there. Perhaps it's the very fact that I did what I said I'd do. I came to Paris. I wrote a screenplay...and a one-woman show...and a large chunk of something that could very well be a memoir of a creative process. I've written well over 60,000 words, when I could have easily written nothing at all. I could have arrived here, seen the Eiffel Tower and said, 'Screw it. I just want a vacation.' That would have been great. No pressure. No fear. Just hanging out in Gay Paree. No one would have been surprised. Not really.

But I didn't do that. I wrote. I wrote a lot. I battled back fear and self-doubt, loneliness, culture shock. I sailed through epiphanies, productive days and moments of bliss.

And this is just another of those moments. Another signpost on the journey: I Don't Wanna Go Day. Very similar, in fact, to a day I had before I left. I don't wanna go. I didn't! I cried and complained. I asked Mark why I had to go tripping off all over the bloody world. Why I couldn't just be happy with a 9 to 5 life like everybody else. And he smiled at me and said, "Because you can't Mel. You just can't." And he was right.

He'd probably say something similar to me right now if he were here. He'd say, "Don't worry about that now. Just finish your work and you can figure the rest out later." And I'd make another cup of tea and sit back down at my computer. And I'd take a deep breath. And I'd begin again.