Lana feels

Off to New York on Sunday. It grows increasingly less clear to me why I do this. And then even less clear why I wouldn't want to, but... Too much mixing of worlds, I suppose. I have so many worlds. I left Pelham-world behind, and in large part, I've left the girl I was when I lived in that world there. She had her merits, but I've changed. My entire life has changed. I like those changes. I don't hit people anymore. I'm kinder and more thoughtful, more outgoing and less... I don't know. Less unstable, though I wouldn't necessarily say more stable. Which makes no sense, I realize, but it's how I feel. I'm just less shaky, less on-the-edge, less explosive. Calmer. Somehow when I go back there, I feel like I should go back to her. Despite the fact that all of them have changed as well, Lada especially. The entire place gives me the creeps and I don't know what to expect from anyone when I'm there, them or myself. And then there's the fact that last year went... badly. To say the least. Yes, this year it's a shorter time and there's no Lila and all should go better. But I'm still on edge about the entire affair.

Shuffling back and forth from world to world, never really permanent anywhere. CRMS is fluid, always in motion, changing, shifting. People coming and going, students and teachers. Wonderful place, but never the same when I come back in the fall as it was when I left in the spring. Chicago still doesn't feel like home - I only this year really moved into my room here. Even the year I lived here and went to school here, I was still living out of boxes and suitcases. When I emptied the suitcases I was just living out of the laundry basket. I never really set up shelves or drawers or storage space. I was always unpacking something. It's not quite done yet, but I know where everything is this summer. So for the first two weeks, I felt a little bit of stability. I established a routine. Got up in the morning, went biking, got my muffin and coffee at Caribou. Did nothing for the rest of the day, generally. Experimented with vegetarian cooking. Nothing truly interesting, but it was a routine. Then I went off to University. Which was stable in a very temporary sort of way. Zoomed by. Certainly wasn't home.

I saw Cesca the day after the end of the UofC program. It's odd that she should be such a point of stability in my life, all things considered, but she is. I know she loves me. She is quite possibly the only person I would've possibly felt okay about surprising the way I did - I knew she would be happy to see me, no matter what was going on. I knew I would get a hug and a smile and security, if only for a couple days. I'm going to miss her like hell when she goes away next year but I'm hoping I can manage not to let her see too much of that. I want her to be happy. So very, very much, I want her to be happy. I want her to find her niche and let herself grow and blossom, as cliche as that all is. I don't want to lose her. The thought of not seeing her every day, not being able to find her in the Hogan or the kitchen and drag her out to the hammock or just collapse near her and bask in knowing that I'm loved, that I have a best friend who knows the parts of me that I don't like to think about and who loves me anyway... It rips my heart out. Cliches again, but truth. But I'll see her, I know I will, and if she will be happy at Yampa then anything is worth it. Besides, whatever happens. I've had a best friend, of whom I have seen many angles, as many as she'd allow, and who I loved despite and because of each and every one of them, and who has done the same for me.

I just wish I didn't have to lose both of them. I still haven't had the nerve to call Mandy again. I tried her, one afternoon at the University, three or four times. Turns out the area code for Arizona changed. So I got the new area code and now I'm scared. Too scared. I got up the nerve once and then I couldn't get through and half of me was determined that now that I had decided to do it nothing could stop me. The other half was relieved. I'd tried - look! Couldn't do it, too bad, my last duties to her are fulfilled. My mother's philosophy on life. I've done all that can be expected of me, now let me be. But that's not my way. So I have her number. I've folded and unfolded and crumpled and smoothed and stared at it for a week now. Every time it catches my eye I mentally slap myself. Call her! But what if somebody else answers. What if her mom didn't get home in time. What if she's in hospital. What if they won't let me talk to her. What if I just stir the whole mess up again. What if she won't talk to me. For that matter, what if she will talk to me?! What would I say to her? Um, yeah, I know it's been a month since your incident but I'm a great big chicken and hey, for that matter, I know we weren't speaking, but I miss you and it seemed like maybe... and why did you call Megan and Cesca and not me or Jessica? And why? Just, in general, why? And, goddess, I love you, and I'm sorry, for that and anything else for which I need to be sorry, and wait. I'm not sorry for loving you, and I'm not sorry for making you love me, though I am sorry for the tumult that it caused in your life. If it did. If you did. Oh. And now that I've called, where do we go from here? I mean, how was your summer?! Well, you tried to kill yourself and I'm assuming it didn't get much better from there. Or maybe it did, who knows! I don't know. I don't know anything. I just had to call, had to try something, because... Well. I don't know. Because I had to, that's all!

And yet I can't. I don't know what I would say to her mother. I don't know what she has said to her mother, about me. I don't know what her mother can be thinking about all this. I kind of get the feeling it's much the same thing I feel/think when it comes to Manda. A long, drawn-out, exhausted sigh.

And why does everything I write come back to her?! Goddamnit, I just want my head back! Is that so much to ask?!