She is Gone

So I am once again alone in a house built for more than just me. The New Years party I never intended to have can't come soon enough for me, if only so that I can be surrounded by loved ones - however briefly. It is so difficult to say goodbye to someone you love. She worked for and won herself the first ever sebbatical leave from a job that doesn't allow that kind of thing. She chose to spend a year of her life away from everything she knows, just to see if this crazy thing with a boy from California might work out to be more than either of us ever thought possible.

And I thank her for that. She will never know the depth my gratitude runs, it is the single most trusting, selfless, and beautiful gift anyone has ever given me. We had a crazy time this year, it was a year of discovery for both of us. From seeing the national highlights of 4 states inside of two weeks, to purchasing black market documents in the interests of continuing education, Katja and I had more fun, adventure, strife, love, and epiphanical awakening than I thought possible for people our age.

2004 is a year for the books as far as I am concerned.

I don't know what is coming, or where I'm going, or where any one person I know will be even a week from now... nor do I know what familiar face out of my past will walk by me on the street (as has happened an uncanny number of times this week...), but i Know, wherever I go and what-so-ever I do in this world, I have a partner that time, distance and hardship cannot break from me -- nor I from her.