You Set Up Your Place in My Thoughts / Moved In and Made My Thinking Crowded

This morning I counted I have at least a dozen kinds of chocolate in my flat, ranging from Noir Quinoa (haven't tried it yet – think it may be the grown up, French version of a Nestle's Crunch) and Montezuma to a leftover Snickers bar from my army exercises and M&S milk chocolate Easter eggs I was never particularly interested in eating (guess I should throw them out.)

I also have two kinds of biscuits, and when I opened one box yesterday I was amused to note how pleased I was that inside, the 16 biscuits were divided into 2 sealed bags. "Oh, that's good," I thought. "I won't have to eat them for every snack for the next couple of days to keep them from going off."

Me! The person who – if there's a calorie count on an item in the shop -- still can't help calculating how much damage I'd do if I ate the whole box/bag/etc.

It all feels especially sweet when I remember that barely 10 days ago, I feared I would never ever be able to stop bingeing again. Lest I give myself too much credit, I should point out that I very rarely if ever binge at home, though there was certainly a point when I'm not sure any of those items would have made it intact from the shop to my flat in the first place (or if they did, lasted more than a day).

***

So, a magazine in New York I really like came a-callin' with a job last week. It's the same magazine that approached me about a job last summer, and this job actually sounds like a better one than that one. (And last year's sounded pretty good, frankly.)

I don't know all the details about it yet – only that even though the job is better than last year's, it is not the job of my dreams. This is because it is primarily an editing job, not a writing job. It would require moving to New York, the editor wrote, adding: "I am ever hopeful you can be tempted." (Ah, flattery!)

I won't know more until tomorrow, but the uncertainty and the fear and the nostalgia for a city I have not (and may not) leave is overwhelming. Ah, it would be so much easier to eat to blot it all out, but so far I haven't.

It's been awfully tough to live my life in the present over the past few days, and to make even the smallest decision. Should I buy that box of cereal? Well, if I'm moving I should use up what's in my flat. My dad was here yesterday and – in a fit of London checking-off-the-list -- I dragged him to St Pauls Cathedral, whose audio tour has been on my list of things to do since a friend said it was the best one she's ever heard. Inside, I remembered going to hear Handel's Messiah there my first Christmas in London in 2002 (and sneaking out to binge and bumping into the man who would later become my boss, but never mind about that). And last night, my path took me through some particularly lovely north London neighborhoods I've barely explored, and now wonder if I will. I thought of all the people I'd quite literally never see again if I moved -- all the people who are not good enough friends to stay in touch with, but are part of the fabric of my life here, and the handful of people I wonder about but would lose the chance even of bumping into.

Six months ago I might well have leaped at any job that came my way, but lately I've been cautiously optimistic about Beth Inc., aka freelancing. July was a record month for me, although (a) that's not very hard when you consider just how poorly I was doing, and (b) I still have to collect the money, which I've discovered is no mean feat. I am slowly, slowly feeling possibility again -- something that has been mostly absent in my life thanks to the crushing weight of financial distress -- and now, suddenly, there is this particular possibility.

It's been making me think a lot about what I'm doing in London and why I live here. Some of the reasons are long-held romantic dreams that are out of my control to make come true. Just as when you procrastinate, sometimes it is a relief to just decide not to do something at all, I wonder if it would be a relief to give up some dreams. The question is: Can I?