Iowa

Tired. Tired. So tired.

Mom called yesterday and reminded me that normal people my age (with normal jobs) do not get up at 5.45 am seven days a week, for like, well forever, and asked me if I was doing okay.

The thing is, Mom, when I have ever been happy being a "normal person my age"? Hmmm? I know you'd like me to be. I know you'd like me to settle down and get married and get a nice office job that doesn't involve coffee beans and freezing to death in the snow listening to crazy people's views on how we shouldn't have income tax. You know what, part of me would like that too.

But I don't know if you will every understand how it feels to have been given this second chance at life.

I don't want to waste life anymore. Not one second of it. And if that means getting a little less sleep for a while...

Still, I'm tired.

Tired of all those buses and planes and meetings and late nights and early mornings and then all the smiling and nodding and intent listening and all the happy smilingness required to keep believing we can win, to keep wanting us to win.

Where's the buzz of that first campaign? Why do I feel like my heart is not in this? Not like it was? Is it just that I'm older and more jaded?

Tired, tired, so tired of fighting with Josh, fighting against him, tired of all these conflicting emotions that I don't have the time or the energy to analyse...

I miss him.

He's just there. Just the other side of this door. It's so pathetic that I want him to knock. But I don't want him to at the same time. It's weird and it's horrible and I miss the old Josh, the gather-your-rosebuds Josh, I miss us being us.

What I wouldn't give for one of his hugs. You know, from the old days, when we were Josh and Donna. When we were, let's be honest, "will-they-won't-they" - and not "well, I guess they haven't, and they won't, and that's that".

Or even before that, before I really realised how I felt. That hug from that second Christmas. That's the kind of hug I need. It's the kind of friend I need.

I'm so tired...