I’m up at a little past seven, writing in my journal — I can’t remember the last time I did this. I guess it was sometime in August when we were still living in that hellishly small place on North Beacon. When I came downstairs this morning and closed the door that leads upstairs, I realized yet again that our downstairs area, just the living room and study, are about as big as that whole apartment — and I shuddered to think that we lived there for a whole year. We’ve only been here about a month and already I can’t imagine/remember what it was like to live in such a small place. Hopefully we’ll never have to live like that again.

Of course considering the thoughts I’ve been having of late, that might be something of a moot point. It’s insane the certainty with which I imagine going back to Lipnica sometimes. Yesterday, while walking home, I was sure I would come back and tell Chhavi, “I’m going back to Lipnica next year.” And while I woke up this morning thinking almost the very same thoughts, I still said nothing, last night or this morning.

Sunday morning my folks called. They’re going to try to come for a visit in about a month. In fact, they’ve tentatively planned to arrive a month from today. Anyway, for some reason Mom asked me, “What are your plans for after this year?” “Good question,” I said, and hemmed and hawed a bit about why I couldn’t answer it. That night in bed, though, I asked Chhavi what she saw us doing in a few years. Her final answer seemed to be, “You need to go to India before we can answer that question.” But coming home from work yesterday, I said to myself, almost out loud, “I need to go back to Lipnica before I go to India.”

In some ways I think I’m just trying to justify it — as if this is something I want to do for which I really don’t have a good reason, yet I want to legitimize it in some way. But it’s something I truly want to do, and as such, I don’t know that I have to legitimate it. The best analogy I can come up with has to do with Kathe: I remember when I was thinking we would break up, “I need to come up with an explanation why — and a good one, one that she’ll accept.” But that’s not the point — I needed to come up with a reason I would accept. Eventually I did — I realized that the desire to break up was enough to legitimate the break. And in some ways I see this situation as similar. But it’s more than that. I keep thinking that if I don’t go back and find out for sure once and for all, then this will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Time to get ready for work, I guess — and time to wake up Chhavi.