Oh, me.

Well, it's normally, "Oh, you." Friends and family who obligingly listen to me prattle on about the latest idea, endeavor or scheme. V has something else up her sleeve, V has something else that she wants to do, somewhere else she wants to be.

Oh, me. Ever the optimist, ever determined, ever driven.

I can't keep still. Not in a fidgety, bounce-in-my-seat manner. More "relax? What is this concept you speak of?" I need to be doing, planning, seeing something so I, as a result, have something to look forward to. Something that will lift me out of whatever stasis I find myself in if I spend too much time looking around and not enough time looking forward.

I'm not an optimist, I'm a cynic. Because if I don't have something else I'm doing, there's not going to be anything around me to keep me from feeling as if I'm not getting anywhere and won't be anything.

Because that's what I'm convinced I'll realize if I don't focus on something else.

I couldn't sleep last night, despite the fact that my eyes felt so heavy that the fatigue burned behind my eyes as I stared up at the ceiling.

I thought of sitting, shivering on a cement stoop during a January night. It was cold; my coat wasn't cutting down on the chill as I waited for him to finish his thought. But I was fascinated by what might follow.

He paused to light another Marlboro Red, spinning on one heel as he inhaled. The bottom of his leather trench coat twirled around to heavily flap against his leg. He breathed out and regarded me through the thin wire-framed glasses he'd aquired sometime during the previous year.

"It's a little intimidating, actually. You know what you want and you're so focused on it that you block out any doubt or uncertainty. It feels like you're just checking off items on some list as you go along," he said. "But you're so happy as you're doing it that the intimidation doesn't register right away. You draw people to you, with that smile and joy. You really are one of those rays of sunshine."

I smiled and chuckled. It was sweet and I wasn't laughing at him, but I knew he was mistaken.

"I know it sounds cliched, but it's true! You don't realize it, do you?" He joined in my laughter before he crossed the walkway to stand next to my stoop seat. I looked up at him and didn't say anything.

He knew I didn't.

"Well, you are."

As I tried to fall asleep and quiet the frustrated rumbles of discontent in my mind, I wondered what's happened to him since.

Hell, I wondered what's happened to me.