i'm at work right now. my new job at the library. i'm at the front desk, leaned up against a wall. i love this job. to my right i can see down library isles and out the huge windows that circle the entire building. there's large, fluffy snowflakes falling down outside. they're pretty, but i'm really over winter already. i work with a lot of older women, and they're all so great. i'm listening to them talk right now, and one of them just said "this weather is hurting my hips!". it makes me realize how great it is to be young right now. embrace it, i will.

there's currently a boy asleep at one of the study tables in front of the desk. i love that people come here to nap. to my right there is a man reading a newspaper one one of our large reading chairs. another person is reading a book across from him. i think other people find peace here too. a different kind of peace than mine. there's something about sitting in a large, almost-empty building, that is so peaceful. not in complete silence though. never is complete silence ever peaceful for me. it is in certain silent moments... moments when i have things to try harder to listen for, or to see. the distant hum of an engine outside of the thick, cold brick walls my back is leaning up against... the low, calm voices of two older men talking down the hallway about the snow... the sounds of fingers typing away at another keyboard on the other side of the room... while i'm wondering what they could possibly be writing about at the exact moment in time as me. maybe they're just on facebook chat. maybe they're writing a new novel. maybe they're writing about themselves. maybe they're writing about you... about me... about the world. but i'll never know that, so i'll change my train of thought to something else. 

after this day is up, the countdown to my month-long europe trip is 12 days away. i can't believe it. i seriously can't believe i'm going to be in europe, with noah, in 12 days. it's been a long three months without him. i don't care what anybody says... "oh, that's not that bad"... "it could be worse"... "distance makes the heart grow stronger" (which i DO agree with)... it's still been really hard. what a great man he is. i'm so lucky, and i'm reminded of it every single day. he's my best friend, he's my chicken soup.

i'm not sure where my mind has been for the past week but it seems to have escaped my skull and found a home elsewhere. this usually wouldn't bother me... because my mind has a way of taking me places i'd rather not go, and overanalyzing situations, picking them apart, until there is nothing left to pick at. but this time it's different, and it's personal. when i usually feel disconnected from myself/mind, it's a self-inflicted disconnection. i pulled the cords apart myself. i decided to become dull on my own time. i took that break from the madness inside of my skull. i chose it. this time i didn't do this on my own. bad news and bad situations seem to keep popping up left and right and it's really wearing me paper thin. my mind must have just said "SCREW THIS" and pulled the plugs itself. either way, it's scary. i've always thought that my mind was the one thing in this world no one would have the ability or the power to take away from me, and yet here i am, scratching at walls, wondering why i can't grasp simple ideas and situations life throws at me, unable to analyze or accept them, because of negative situations and frustrations that are being thrown my way, some by particular sources, others by the mysterious. i've always prided myself in my ability to think things through... of seeing magic in things that some people just... don't. but here i am, with my heart in my hands and my mind at the bottom of the ocean. i'm ready for my grand escape to europe. my heart is going to be soaring.