I must marry...

It echoes in my head again and again from Two Is Lonely. I must marry. Not me personally. But every connotation it inspires in my mind is a surprise.

The book brought fear to the surface, not of lonelines as maybe you'd gauge from the above and from my last post. Having never experienced true isolation in the practical sense of the word it is not something I fear. Detachment and disconnection are different.

No, the fear rises in me every time I, gasping, finish that epilogue. Its perfection, its spot-onness. This time I am afraid and glad to be - comfortable, even. Each step I take around Tel Aviv feels as though it is bringing me closer to leaving when really it is just time that is doing that. So I am given to walking in circles.

Last week I was afraid of leaving but now it sits deeper. I know what to expect from homecoming. I know what to expect of myself and exploit the good and battle the bad. It will not be dramatic or anticlimatic, I don't think. So what is this headache, this, I will say it again, fear.

It's real root I cannot deny to myself. There is no point to be dishonest. If I am, the inevitable pattern will repeat itself, he will be lost to me and I to him upsetting us both inwardly and, in my case, beyond measure.

Away from him here I am safe. He never feels unsafe, I am sure of it. And he certainly wasn't part of the reason I came in the first place - that I can say with utter conviction. But things change, thoughts and their little repetitions and developing habits sneak up on your smug, centered calm when you least expect it.

And they don't disrupt. They just root themselves, a little bit like threadworms, and begin to itch inconveniently yet without much immediate or noticeable damage.

So I am afraid. Fearful of how when I go back and fail, for all the right reasons, to confront this problem in spite of this heroic, trivial micro-honesty, there will remain just one more lost cause to add to a drab little supply.

I must marry...