2004-01-25 - 8:39 p.m.

We sat right by the window and ate. What struck me the most was the gentle feeling of complacentness and this profound understanding of actions, pains and thoughts that have swept through my mind as of late. I sought comfort within myself and I found it. But I also found something that astounded me, I found the spirit that had escaped me, and a desire to live and to be happy. My life right now is wonderful, not perfect, but very close to it. Things that were said I took in stride, but I was wounded so badly that a part of me died. It was just like the hit that experienced when I felt the first lie, it hurt badly but the pain itself opened to me doors of understanding and possability. I have emerged stronger, more dependent on myself, more aware. But I also feel so much resentment, betrayal. Its almost as if somebody took the trust that I had inside and mutilated it. What is left is scarely what once was. I know what I must do, how I want to live, and it would be silly of me to assume that those words would not affect me deeply, for they already have.

I sat there for a little while looking out of the window so acutely aware of the suroundings and minute details. The enormity of the building across the street, the dullness of details that the wind created on the once crisply chiseled lion heads, the cracks in the stone. There was so much that I usually did not look for, so much simple things that stuck me. Why dont we have the time to see everything, to just sit quietly and observe the world around it, fully living and feeling? And in those moments while we sat in silence across from each other I realized that I am separate from him, still my individual self. I still have my thoughts, my aspirations, I still have outside sources of happiness. Of course, he adds wonderful color to my life, passion, and fills in the voids that other people will never be able to touch, but I have not become him. My happiness is not him, and thats is why I have been doing so well this past week.

That fight that we went through was essential to our relationship because without it there would not have been these long conversations, and I would have still believed that my relationship was being dominated by the physical. I have found the romance, I have found exactly what i was looking for-even walking through 20 degree weather and freezing to the point where it was hard to talk because your lips were frozen.

I have gotten myself back only to realize that I was never fully gone. I was focusing on the wrong aspects of my life, I was on my way to becoming pessimitic. But nobody can kill me. I have the desire to live, feel and to reach people.

I feel powerful, beautiful, and in love with the world. And I have the most amazing penguin.

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