Goodbye Haley.

Haley left yesterday. In one fell swoop I lost a lunch buddy, coworker, exercise companion, dinner friend, confidant, etc. In one fell swoop I lost every good thing about living in this country. She kept me sane, she listened to my problems, she talked to me in fluent English, and now she is gone. I can't live knowing that when the phone rings it won't be her on the other end (unless, of course, she is calling me from America). I will never see her (in China) again. I will never visit her apartment to have peanut butter sandwiches with one of her classes again (that happened once); I will never eat eggs & tomatoes with her at that one place with that one guy with really long finger nails again; and I will never curse her under my breath after she insists on running three miles in the Chinese countryside again (that happened once too). Every time I walk by her building, I look up at her apartment, sigh, and reflect that I will never see her live there again. Sometime in the near future, I will go to her apartment door, knock, and hope by some miracle she will open the door, but she won't; she is gone forever When she lived there, I went to that place for solace, as an escape from the country. Now, I consider it nothing but a shell, a memorial to all the good times we had together. Haley, in the words of the poet Fergie "I'm going to miss you like a child misses its blanket." The Backstreet Boys once sang "Show me the meaning of being lonely." You did just that, but that's ok, because you're in a much better place now...

See you in like eighteen days.

Now that Haley has left, I will face one of the greatest tests I have faced in my short life. For the next eighteen days, I will face one gargantuan demon: loneliness. I hate being alone; I live for talking to other people (who understand what I say). It's what I enjoy the most in life. In fact, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it now. I'm going to proclaim, to the entire world, that I, Jonathan D. Harrison, am an extrovert. There that feels good. I enjoyed idle time in high school, but since then (see blog post 57), I'm not sure what happened. Anyways, I don't like being alone. I will give you an example:

Someone told me a few weeks ago of a person who bought a plant, and I got jealous. Why? I was jealous of the companionship that person had with their plant. Yes the loneliness over here is that bad; it causes twenty-two year old young-men to covet flora (and they had a small plant too). That was before Haley left. Now she is gone and I've started talking to my furniture.

I don't know how I will survive until January 10. The next few weeks will be some of the longest weeks of my life. I don't know how I am going to do it. I really don't. This obstacle seems almost insurmountable.

But all I need to do is survive right? In order words, to survive the next eighteen days I have to not die. That seems pretty easy; I've been not dieing for a while now. In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't died a single time in my life. If I did die, chances are I couldn't avoid the situation, so you know, I don't have to put much effort into the whole not dieing thing. I'm not stressed about it. So I'm set right? In order to survive, I have to not die. Wow, it sounds simple when put that way. What am I afraid of? Am I losing my mind? I realize the stupidity of my statements, but I'm still dreading the next few weeks. What makes me dread them? Really! What! I've nothing to do for three weeks. Arggghhhhh. I am my own worst enemy Jonathan Harrison, I am my own worst enemy (Web Log of a Mad Man: The only blog where someone refers to themselves in both the first and third person in the same sentence.)

Despite all this, I do have a plan for survival. First of all, I'm avoiding loneliness. I've been making with plans with anybody that calls. I'm picking up the phone when it rings. Shocking I know. I have also resorted to computer games from past. Games that take up hours and hours of your time. I'm also writing more rambling blog posts. I'm also going to watch It's a Wonderful Life--my favorite movie--every day until the time I leave. I can hear myself now "WHY WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO LEAVE BEDFORD FALLS GEORGE BAILEY! WHY!? STAY IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY!"

Eighteen days and then I'm back in America. It's always darkest before the dawn I guess. In the next eighteen days I could find life or I could lose it. I could overcome all the darkness or not. I could come back a much wiser person, or I could come back changed for the worse. The next eighteen days will, as they say, make or break me. That is why I feel this way. I have a fear that it's going to be the latter. Honestly. Maybe I'm being overdramatic, but the next eighteen days I will face who I truly am, the worst parts about myself, without any assitance from another human being. It's going to be a test, a very difficult test.

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens."

p.s. One of my students just called and cancelled.

p.s.s. My week old speakers just died.

p.s.s.s. On Thursday a freshman girl showed me her camera phone. In the span of one class period she had taken 70 pictures, 67 of those pictures were of me.

p.s.s.s.s. I do have three other American friends in this town, and they will help me with my lonlieness. So I am thankful for that, but it won't be the same without Haley, she left some big shoes to fill.

p.s.s.s.s.s. I do own a plant that sits on the ledge on my back porch. Her name is Daisy. Here is a picture.