it is time for a change. i am already in it. the change is already in motion, it is just time for me to follow suit. it is time to not sit still and when i do sit still, to actually be still.

it is important every now and again to take inventory. what do you have. what have you lost. what do you hope to gain. who is present with you.

the last question is a tough one at these days. and i guess a refreshing one if i look at it in the right light at the right moment. it is a hard one because i am alone. and it is a refreshing one because i don't like stale air.

and yet i have been allowing stale air all around me. i have allowed my house to not be a home. i have allowed friends to speak ill of me or me ill of them. i have allowed my body to be at rest too much. i have allowed my life to be easy.

i have also allowed myself some successes. i have given my mother a smile i can't ever forget and have made my father proud. i have surpassed my own expectations in my career. i have decided to consider a challenge i recently did not believe i was capable of. i have cleaned out the kitchen cupboards.

i have also found myself recently having a change of heart. i'm not sure if i normally have this change of heart. maybe it's about the leaves and the prettiness of the trees. maybe it is the cottage and the woodstove. maybe it is the trails in the forest. but it feels like something different this time. of course, it is absolutely all of those things. but i think every season may bring those things this year. soon it will be the pretty white sign that spells noel in cursive with stars that hang from it sitting on the sideboard with tealights lit all around. it will be the way the sky gets purple on a mild evening and the way the moon is low in the sky just when you had forgotten to look for it. it will be the way the heat smells the first time you turn it on. it will be walking in snow shoes on the lake and the relief when the cottage finally gets warm. my heart would break. and then it will be the river breaking and the wind getting soft. it will be the first day the sun actually warms your back and you smile automatically. it would be bittersweet. and then of course, it would be the windows open, the water, the midnight summer storm through the windows of the cottage.. it would bring a deep longing..

i no longer want to be alone. i have wanted to be alone for so long. even when i didn't want to be alone, i wanted to be alone. and i wonder whether to trust the feeling, as i always seem to return to solitude. but it is just where i am most comfortable. it is where nobody grasps at me. it is where i am not saddened by how little i am understood and how little my partner actually feels like a partner. i have only truly experienced the difference once. and perhaps that is why i stand here, wanting sincerely someone near. not for a moment or a day. but for every day, in silence and in conversation and in happiness and sadness. i am perhaps finally getting over him. i am perhaps finally ready for what he taught me can exist.

i never used to have a pretty white sign that spelled noel in cursive letters with stars hanging from it. i was in the little store near the cottage yesterday and i saw it and just picked it up and bought it. and then i realized that i was nesting. i was creating a warm home for a man. i have this yearning to clear a space at the foot of my bed for his boots. to cook for him a warm meal.. i want to live in a way that would make him proud. it's been awhile since i've wanted to do that.

and so i have been making room. it's work but if ever i have the chance again to love the way i loved and to feel love the way i felt love, i want to be fertile ground for it.

oh, and i think i may travel. if my career takes a turn that it has possibility of taking, i would like to first travel. for at least a month. europe maybe. central america possibly. i think it's europe. it is no longer australia. for the first time in a few years now, it is not australia.