I wrote this on the plane; there's no title; I reserve the right of the unending edit

And how many jokes I laugh at without even realizing: becuase I do have an auto-pilot; a standard of being; a way to interact with the world, without actually being in it.

It was good to see Jessa yesterday. It was good to be back at my old temptation, knowing it's no longer the way, yet enjoying it just the same. I told a friend on the phone today that the new woman was mentioned--my face couldn't hide her--then the subject quickly changed. She seemed angry at my lack of time, my silence; she simply doesn't realize it's on my own behalf. I love Jessa because it is so simple to change the subject, to get her to speak of herself, to hide who I am, to rest on her unending vision of her own life: changing, exciting, important. I get tired of defining myself and Jessa doesn't realize others even have definitions; not in a mean or cruel way, not from my standpoint, just in a younger-than-she'd-ever-admit-to way. Yes, in a patronizing way, because I do have it figured out. Why go back? Because it's so simple, so easy. In a world where I gave myself to another in love, and lost, Jessa's was a world where I didn't have to be anything other than a planet in her orbit. I existed only in relation to her, and I see now how it's sad, how she missed out on me when we could have shared so much together, but then I was only lost in space. At the ends, when I had my own sky and stars and moon, it was wrong of her to not see my beauty, my world, my own bright light shining and reflecting, but at the beginning I had none of that. Jessa gave me a beginning: A solar system to which I could belong if only I stayed on her predetermined course. I could watch and rotate, observe what planets lived and thrived; which became frozen, harsh and barren; which burned away or fell off their axes, never to be seen again. I had a model for the way a world could work, could exist and be it's own. In comparison, in contrast and distinction, I started to see this shell of a planet I was becoming. I could see my own subtle and unique features, looking inward and not ahead, as I could rely on her gravitational pull to guide my lost path. I could follow her skyward rotations while learning how to move forward in space, eventually to discover a system of stars all my own.
It's nice to go back there. To go back to a sun, no matter how fiery or all-consuming, and know there is nothing more for me to do than circle, and soak up her light, until I'm again ready to shine my own.