magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

i found myself looking through a box of old photos today. pictures from texas, california, china. things that i only remember as being parts of my life because i've told myself that they are parts of my life. because i have photos and journal entries. things of which my memories are no more clear, and of which i play little more part in, than my memories of films that i saw at the time, or of books that i read.

where has my life gone, when such significant events and people and places are so removed from it? that was someone else who went to china, who lived in fremont, in austin. it's scary, considering how unenthusiastic i am about my life right now, that these more exciting things don't really belong to me anymore. what effect did any of these things really have on the person that i am if their memories might as well have been someone else's recollections that i merely read in a book? i've got the photos, but what does that prove?

and the people, regardless of the role that they played in my life at the time, are by and large gone. a photo may spark a memory of their name, of something they once did or said. less likely, their voice, their favourite colour, their birthday.

are our lives really like this? a string of events that we barely own? a collection of people who are little more than caricatures of who they once might have been? it's depressing to think about in that way. and maybe it's simply out of a predisposition to depression that thoughts like these emerge. maybe when you enjoy where you are, it doesn't matter so much how clearly you remember where you've been.

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later, we took mom out to dinner for her birthday. japanese.

towards the end of the meal my stomach started hurting. the pain got worse. i hadn't been in pain like this since i was in the hospital in italy. having an idea of the possible cause, i tried to rehydrate myself, drink some of that awful fiber stuff, relax.

by about four in the morning the pain had subsided enough that i thought i might be able to get some sleep. which is not the way things went last november, so at least i wasn't headed back to the hospital.