don't look for me in chicago

on ani difranco's new album, she writes:

"new as you are, really, to the idea that
even after you've long since gotten used to the parameters
they can all change
while you're out one night having a drink with a friend
some big hand may be turning a big dial
switching channels on your dreams
until you find yourself lost in them
and watching your daily life with the sound off
and of course having cautiously turned down the flame under your eyes
there are more shadows around everything
your vision a dim flashlight that you have to shake all the way to the outhouse
your solitude elevating itself like the spirit of the dead
presiding over your supposed repose
not really sleep at all just a sleeping position and a series of suspicious sounds"

in my smug married-ness, i suppose, i took these lyrics with a grain of salt. things don't change in an instant, i thought, you can always see it coming.

but you don't. saturday morning i had a boyfriend and a home and a cat named sascha. now it's monday morning and all three are gone. i don't have a home anymore; i have an apartment filled with a mix-up of belongings, his and mine, which i will have to sort out and box up, and put into storage, or sell, or throw away. i can no longer pack my life into a suitcase and run away. adult life doesn't just mean that you have to pay your own car insurance and figure out where the rent's coming from; it also means that you suddenly own a couch and a bed (but not a mattress, because that was his).

everything can change in an instant; that big, unseen hand really is turning that big dial while you aren't looking. and you find yourself waking up from sleep that came only after three beers and a valium and two sleeping pills, not knowing where you are. then, slowly, sadly, you realize that the bed you assumed was yours, and the man you assumed you'd roll over and find, or hear making pancakes in the next room, is gone.