Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Much Farther To Go

It is approaching midnight but for some reason I’m finding it difficult to sleep. I just spent the last ten minutes staring out my kitchen window, eating cornflakes from the bag and drinking milk from it’s carton. It is reasons such as these that cause me to abandon all hope of coming home a few pounds lighter than when I arrived. Oh well.

It is raining outside. Pouring, actually. Across from my building is another apartment building and I feel like I know the inhabitants because I often see them living their lives from the view from my window. The man on the end smokes out of his window often. One apartment never seems to turn their light out. I like to look at it when I get up for work in the morning and my roommates are still sleeping and I’m tired and cold and I know that my family and friends are ending their days, possibly unaware that a new day is beginning for me.

I feel like life is moving along so quickly. Perhaps sometimes I need sleepless nights to gaze out the window and watch the rain fall. I need time to allow myself to swallow reality…or at the very least, taste it. There are moments when I feel as if I hold the world in the palm of my hand. But tonight I feel like a little girl staring out her window, into a great big world. Strangely, I suspect both feelings hold their own level of truth and beauty.

4 comments:

andrea said...

I like this post. It's lovely.

Mom said...

I can picture you looking out your window, pondering your neighbors and the world. I think I have done that myself at times...just not in St Petersburg! And believe me when I tell you that when I go to bed at night, I always do the math and figure out what time it is over there and think that you are probably getting dressed or heading off to school! And I pray for you.

Elizabeth Joy said...

Thanks, Andrea.

And thank you, mom. Somehow that doesn't surprise me a bit :-)

kate said...

I think about you all the time when I head to bed.... because I want you to come online and talk to me before you leave for school!!

And if you're ever awake at midnight again - you know I'll be up!!