Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. -John Lennon

I've never actually tried to imagine heaven. I've just taken on the everyday and tried to ignore the hell that's more generally put before us. Sometimes, we truly can make a heaven of hell, especially when it's the world. I think of it like a handful of clay, ready for me to mould into whatever I like. The world squeezes through my fingers and dirties me like the earth in my backyard. But getting dirty is also fun and all of this would be boring without it.

The year is over and I've given away a lot of myself and gotten pieces back in return. For the first time, people have equalled the ones who saved me, because, I suppose, they save me over and over again. They have let me know I can stand on my own, without anyone but myself; but also, that I don't need to. I told Kat the other day that I fall in love with my friends. All of them. Sometimes the love is deeper and we each become a part of each other, showing each other the intricacies and idiosyncracies of the many sides of who we are.

Two people this year have told me I've saved them, so I suppose I've saved them back. Because of the past, I hang waiting to be let down, but hope nevertheless for the mutual tension on that rope, so that neither of us will fall. And because I'm prepared for whatever life throws at me, because I'm never surprised but allow myself to feel anyway, although not as much, I'm surprisingly stable, as James said.

In less than a week I'll be on the road going south. George will be with me, so we'll each take a bit of what we've made of heaven back with us: he on his adventure and I on my flight home. I have another home now, though. Many homes, I guess. Home is where you make it. No matter how cliche that sounds. Home is where the people you love are, and where the people are who love you right back.

I wish I could share all of this with you, this other home that's about to be scattered the world over for a while. But you're home, too. Remember that. You're home, too.