Hopes.

I heard somewhere that where you align yourself in bed says something about you and the way you perceive yourself. If you sleep on either the left or right side of the bed, you are supposedly, on a subconscious level, waiting for an as-yet absent person to come into your life. If you sleep on the center, you're fine with being on your own. (If this is the case, please stop reading at this point because the wanton neediness might offend your incredible sense of self.)

So I looked at my own bed at home, which is a twin, then did a quick mental review of the hotel beds I've slept on during my recent out-of-town gigs. I realize that I always sleep on one side, because, more than anything, I'd be reading or doing something on the laptop, so then I could just toss whatever it is on one side. But rarely, if at all, do I sleep at dead center.

Not to take these things too seriously, but after breaking off my last relationship two years ago, I felt a nagging certainty that I'd be on my own for a very long time. The realization, while sad in hindsight, didn't come with any attendant sadness, or opposition. "It is what it is." It is not resignation per se, but a calm acceptance (except on restless nights when the bed is just too big and the space too tangible, when some radio station suddenly plays "Send in the Clowns" or "A Case of You"). Two and a half years hence, it's still true, and I'm none the, well, sadder.

But I admit: the sighs that now punctuate every remembrance that I'm on my own have grown longer and more pronounced, the air exhaled more forcefully. I don't want to call it urgency, because I'm 25, and I enjoy it, I think, but sometimes I wonder how I'm going to look back at this stage of my life 10, 20 years hence. Or when I'm 60. Will I feel sorry for all the time wasted alone, or will I think, as I do now, that my time will come, and if not, then there is no shame in it. There is no shame.

PS. This is just about as (emotionally) naked as I can get. Let's quickly shrug it off, shall we.
PPS. A quick look-up on more sleep-related psycho stuff reveals that I normally sleep in a "yearner" position, which supposedly means I am "cynical" and "suspicious." O God, could it be true?