hundred-and-ten

20:57:10

I’m sleepless in Beirut.

I just woke up from an ill-placed nap. I should already be getting dressed. I grab his shirt and wrap it around to trap the warmth of sleep against my nakedness.

The weight of wanting to stay home pulls my every move backwards. Fidgety fingers slide over the sheets to find the ice-cold smooth screen and the home button and the white light illuminates the entire room.

“Awake?” I text my +1, on whom I’ve placed a heavy bid to drag me out the door, and hopefully have me come with him in his car, because mine is so sweetly parked just below the entrance to my building. I like to keep it there for days, even though it attracts every dust speck from the nearby construction site. I like to keep it there, away from parking tickets and side-view mirror thieves.

He tells me he’s awake, but unable to go out, as he has to be on call for work. A continuous influx of Syrian refugees is expected on the northern border and he might be needed at any moment. We became friends through foursquare, so I don’t really know what he does, or how seriously he can affect this influx, but I know enough to not ask any more questions and leave him be.

“Too bad.”

“I know.”

The pull to scroll down and text my usual Friday night’s company is growing. How did I become so attached to him?

Tomorrow will be our 9^th month milestone. I have never dated anyone this long. Partly it is because I don’t date anyway. I fall into immediate tightness of being. And because of this instantaneous intimacy, my need for space and fresh air sucks me out before being becomes dwelling. I would rarely dwell on anyone.

But this time, it’s different.

So different, that ever since the story of him and I began, I couldn’t put a word down to describe it. I was blocked and scared to package it into concise sentences and paragraphs for fear that I might jinx it all. But now, awake and hungry for an excuse to stay in and do something that would one, keep me home for a good reason – and self-expression is always the best reason – and two, keep me from texting him, but keep my mind on him, I remembered Sleepless in Beirut – the blog that saved me.

The gap between my last story and today is beyond wide. My life has been transformed so greatly, that it looks like a before and after diptych for a plastic surgery procedure. I’ve had a spirit lift, a heart lift, a sex lift, a lifestyle lift, and a smile lift. I have never been so happy.

However, for the past week, the high I have been feeling without end seems to be losing its momentum. And maybe that is why I’m turning to Sleepless in Beirut for guidance, hoping that it will walk me through this rough patch as it did before.

I do not want to promise a dear diarrhea of writing, but I do feel like I owe Sleepless in Beirut its happy ending and the After Me a clear beginning. So without further ado, I’d like to serve you the in-between – the stuffing for my absence, the ending to Sleepless, lonely nights and the clearing of the table for a new chapter.