Wednesday:
The sunshine girl is gone. A part of my soul is wounded, I feel it in the upper right side of my heart - a hollow place that seems will never be full again. I was a few thousand miles away, bustling around the busy streets of Sofia. I called home to say I had good news - why not take a month off and visit home in time to see all my seven siblings reunited for a week of summer fun? That's when I found out my father was sick. At least I got the chance to tell him I loved him. I raced home, but not in time to say goodbye in person, got that week of sibling reunion, but one filled with sadness and heartache. My brother once told me that when people die, we're sad not for them, but for ourselves. I feel like a selfish person right now, engulfed in my sorrow. I have to find a way to grieve.

Friday:
I saved a honeybee; maybe I'm a fool. Riding the city public transport, I watched him repeatedly try to fly through solid glass, never making it to the window that was open just above his head. Despite the odd looks from the glum faces surrounding me, I poked him into my near-empty pack of smokes and took him for a walk. An opening in the trees and whoosh, he was gone. I hope he doesn't sting anybody and isn't too far from home.

Sunday: Sleep used to be my saviour, my lover, my comrade. Now it eludes me like an indebted friend. I have nightmares too, bad ones full of stress and anxiety where I speak foreign languages in strange situations and can't solve outrageous problems. I'm a mess, I'm stressed, I'm ridiculous. When will I be able to get this all worked out? I have a punching bag in the States that I'm hoping will be the answer to some of my problems. My dad was going to set it up for me so I didn't cave in the roof…

Tuesday:
I'm not religious, or at least I haven't found a label to stick on my heart and claim to be the righteous path. These lyrics to a Flaming Lips song are helping:

Do You Realise - that everyone you know someday will die/But instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know/You realise that life goes fast/It's hard to make the good things last/You realise the sun doesn't go down/It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Friday: Are we being watched? If so, then by who? The spirit realm, God, Big Brother, the New World Order…. Do you look over your shoulder and wonder if you're being followed? Do you look up at the sky and wonder if anything is looking back at you? Are you waiting on a moment that never seems to come? We're not wasting away; we're not doing this for nothing, that much I'm sure of. Anything further than that, your guess is as good as mine.

I'm going home. It seems all I can do. This way I can be strong and emotionally supportive for my family, hoping it will get me through as well. What the future holds no one can ever know. But I do know that the lessons I have learned along the way will get me through to the end, whatever that will be; only time will tell. Either way it will be an interesting experience.

Saturday:
Why won't it rain? I want thunder, lightning, torrents of water falling from the sky. Then at least I'd have an excuse for staying inside and switching off my phone. Then maybe I'd feel like the world is crying with me. But no, there is no rain, there is no powerful storm coming in from the south. Life moves on, the trees still grow, the babies still cry, and the robots continue their work. Reality and my feelings, a solid mish mash of nonsense.