what a year it has been

it's my birthday tomorrow, and with that comes, as usual, a reflective frame of mind.

there hasn't been much headspace to think these past days: happiness, and sex, and booze, and dope, and the sun, do not spark great intellectual thoughts overall, i find. dirk and i have been together much of the time, too, so there has neither been time nor desire to sit down at the computer to create a moment for thinking and writing. - been too busy lying at the dreisam, talking and reading, too busy sitting on the balcony, too busy being busy with each other. he's been away now and there is time to think and write for me, while he is grass boarding with michi, coming over again sometime later today to be here when my birthday starts.
it's strange to realise 2003 is already halfway over, strange that it's my birthday, yet again, that i'm slowly heading from mid-twenties to late twenties, strange to realise that right now i am in a place completely different to the one i thought i would be in on my birthday one, two, three years ago. i always thought that by 25 i'd already be in australia, possibly married or about to get married to evan, long done with uni, working.

i am nowhere near any of that, and fucking hell, am i happy.

it surely has been an extraordinary year, this last one, and that's even more true for this first half of 2003, the last three months specifically. it's been choc full of change and thoughts and realisations, this 2003. as strange as it may sound, but with all the ass-kicking and hurt and fear and screaming and crying it has been treating me well, this year, waking me up, bringing me to life again, changing me, for the better.

no wonder i couldn't see myself where i am right now. - out of my mind happy. truly, madly, deeply in love with a man like dirk. pondering life, feeling like groundbreaking decisions are waiting just around the corner.

i don't blame myself: how could i have imagined any of this? it seemed set in stone (at least superficially, not deep down inside of myself) that life with evan in melbourne, marrying him, moving, having children, doing law for the rest of my life. anything but the plan with evan had turned into an non option, which, i guess, was the beginning of the end in a way for him and me anyway. no wonder i never even wondered whether there might be something better for me, something healthier, someone else, someone who truly wants me, someone i truly want, too.
strangely enough all those silly, silly plans i had made, what i thought our wedding should be like, what have you, now seem insane, and like nothing i could, would do. ever.

i felt strongly for evan. i loved him. it's strange to realise that that has changed, completely, and that it had for months, which i just didn't want to realise when it happened, which was obvious in my wondering "so this is it?" while in was in australia this past winter. we talked sometime this past week, evan and i, and it is gone, whatever i felt for him in the boyfriend/girlfriend category. i love him, still, somehow, as a friend, if you will, and there is no residual anger, no pain, no hurt from the break-up left. i feel love for him because of the time we spend together, these years. i talked about it with dirk yesterday, wanting to say that i still love evan in some way because we know each other so well, but i realised that would have been a lie. sure, we knew lots about each other, but i can't help but wonder how much of it was real. back then, my thought was i wish i could be who you wanted all the time, so i constructed a version of myself i thought he would love. sure, i know lots about him, little thing, big things, but considering how long it took him to be honest with me regarding his feeling about my move, i wonder how much i truly, deeply know about him. there are things i suspect right now, that i can't, won't post here, things i feel i know about him, that i wonder about, wonder whether they are accurate, and if they are, whether he knows them yet, will act about them, be honest to himself. it's a strange thing, knowing someone.
talking to evan briefly on thursday, i was mainly happy to hear his voice, happy to laugh with him, but very strongly felt that he might become a lifelong friend, but could have never ever been my life partner. i told him so. i wonder whether it freaked him out.

what i feel for dirk now is just so very very different on so many levels, that i have trouble expressing it without sounding like a lunatic or on the rebound. - and i am neither.

i wish evan could see me now, not because i want to hurt him or want him to see what he is missing out on. i want him to see me, because i think he should see me, the real me, just once. i want him to see the changed outside, make-up less, dressed down, skinny, long haired, tanned caro, and my changed inner me, this much more unsure about life, undepressed, completely and utterly happy in her own skin caro. the one who sleeps outside waiting for shooting stars, who swims topless in a lake, who loves yoga and reads the bhagavad gita, who is finally enlarging her circle of friends again, who feels like she needs little in life for happiness. i doubt he would recognise me.

i read in my old diaries today, about what i did and where i was on my birthday the last few years since moving here, and it makes me realise how changed i am, too. the 1998 birthday had a drinking session on my balcony with the two tinas and some frat boys at my old flat. in 1999, i had a big ass party with moritz at the frat place, a party that got really expensive because so much beer was consumed, and where half the people didn't even know it was my birthday. i remember being sad because didi didn't even call, and ogled arndt, who's getting married one of these weekends. in 2000, i had a party here at my place, as pictures from then tell me. 2001 was spend with michel and tina and britta, first on a hill near the schauinsland and later at fritz's party in denzlingen, which was fucking awesome. most people i spend those birthdays with are people i am not in touch with any longer, for a multitude of reasons. last year, i spend the day pretty much alone.

tomorrow, i will spend the day with dirk. - there will be partying with the yoga people on tuesday, at silke's birthday party, how convenient for me, and there is no one else i feel the need to party with. dirk and i, we will head to the health department in the morning, for free hiv testing (isn't that a great birthday date?). dieter asked us to come by the laundromat to have a bottle of bubbly to celebrate my birthday as well, so we'll do that afterwards. then we'll quite likely take the bikes and find a lake or a field or a hill to lie around on or next to, picknicking and spending the day together. big time cycling might be out of the question: it looks like it is going to be above 35° again tomorrow, just like today, and the heat is mind-numbing and tiring. it will, doubtlessly, be a lovely day, just like these last days have been lovely.

what a year it has been, this last one. what a year will it be, this coming one?
i can't wait for more of this change. time to leap into it.

chromatic i stand on the side of the road
watching for a car
a truck so I can go
i've got to get myself out of this nothing place
i've been running around with a tied shoe lace

what a year it has been
what a year it has been
lost my love
shed my skin
what a year it has been

there's a cheer leader squad on the side of the road
cheering the night now for somewhere to go
there's me on the corner
the corner is home
look at the controller
we're about to hit a new zone

flashing lights from up above
so close too close was crazy love
so gather up your broken brow
millions together will do it somehow
"what a year" ~alex lloyd~