This Time Last Year...

July 30, 2005

I am flying over the Atlantic Ocean right now. I am flying over my family, who are somewhere down below. I am circling.

My eight AM flight from LGA to MIA was cut short en route to the Bahamas due to a slightly terrifying leak of fuel. The plane was brought down sixty minutes earlier than expected in Jacksonville, Florida where the enormous amount of passengers were kept (caged) and fed only junk pizza and nachos - for over eight hours.

We touched down a little before 11 AM in Jacksonville. It is now well after 8 PM and we have just gotten back into the air. I will not be joining my family tonight in Treasure Cay. I will be sleeping alone in an airport hotel.

The cabin is beautiful right now. Mine seems to be the only light on - and mine only because it absolutely has to be. Outside the clouds glow pale blue and navy and there is a sliver of fire pink sunset slicing through the distance.

Inside, the overhead NO SMOKING signs seem to light up the heavens like stars. And I sit, not even a Bradshaw at my feet, circling, with my family unit held tight together somewhere below. I feel like I have been circling my entire life. I'm not content flying high above but am too unsure or too afraid to nest anywhere below.

I want to be with my family tonight and also I don't want to be. I don't want to be with Matt. I don't want to be alone. I am loved, what I've needed since birth. And I am still lost.

The depression is back. I can call it that now. I've felt it for some time. Its signs are identifiable. Moving in, over my eyes. Not blinding but blurring me - like clouds. I just looked out the window and the fire pink sunset has moved onto someplace else. Now the distance holds only ominous unspecific industrial lighting. A city no doubt. Miami I suppose. Progress I had nothing to do with.

I am terrified that Matt isn't enough. Like his name, Matt, so short and blah - I've known a million Matt's in my lifetime. The name "Matt" does not fill the enormity of his purpose, his amazing necessariness in my existence. Elongating the syllables, filling out the blankness to "Matthew" does little to do him justice. Matt is everything I need. And Matt is not enough. Clouds sweeping in.

Last night I could barely fall asleep. Having looked forward to this trip for months I laid next to this man and felt filled with dull, unexplainable, empty fear. I told myself I was just nervous about flying. I told myself it was because I felt I didn't deserve a vacation. I told myself that to go to the trouble of traveling was too sad in that I would just be leaving my family again in no time anyway.

I thought Matt was enough, my answer, my ending. But he is not. Something is missing inside of myself. Not a puzzle piece but a chunk, like a flank of raw tuna. Sometimes it's in my head, sometimes my stomach or my heart. Sometimes it's everywhere.

I want to call Matt right now and tell him I miss him. And yet despite how many times I've missed him in the past I know that he alone can not be the answer to what's missing from inside. I miss happiness. Which comes and goes like smoke.