Off Kilter

I met a friend in Dupont Circle last night. As I rode the escalator upwards from the Metro, lost in thoughts I was meeting the friend in order to escape, I suddenly realized that I was off balance and needed to shift position. I was leaning on one arm on an escalator in which the handrail moves slightly faster than the treads. My hand had gradually moved farther and farther from my body until finally I was jolted into awareness that I was in danger of falling over if I didn't readjust my position.

It made me start thinking (again) about the last few months. Recently I've been happy and content in a way that seems almost too good to be true in retrospect. I'd found companionship, intimacy, and fun in the same person, and the seductive promise of ongoing happiness hovered within reaching distance.

It was a dangerous sort of happiness, though, given what I knew about the challenges we faced. Heedless, I opened my mind to new visions of what the future might hold. With this person, I willingly embraced new possibilities and redefined my expectations.

Now things have ended, and I'm left with my changed ideas about what I want from life and without him to make them into reality. I feel adrift, off-balance, oddly not myself without him. My new dreams for the future don't fit my current reality anymore, and I'm not sure how to adjust. I'm forced to shift positions in order to find my balance again, but I'm not doing it as easily or as gracefully as I'd like.