There are nights that I seem to find myself staying up late, taking stock of my life.
Pausing in moments I've been through without really truly being in before.
I pause a moment on a step while walking downstairs.
I cover my legs in a blanket on the couch, listen to the nearby highways, the washing machine next door running at 2am, and set my tea aside.
I pause.
Not a sad pause, or one of hardship, not a happy one, or excitement.
But like a bystander.
A person watching my life from the outside, and giving it an honest look, no emotion attached.
Peaceful I guess.
Not worried about what the future will hold, or what the past has done, but able to see it in a linear fashion.
Things that have brought me here, to this moment where I pause.
To this moment, where I'm totally alive and aware, I can feel the blanket sitting on my legs,
I feel the presence of my roommates up the stairs, and I sit.
And I just am. 
I think about where I'm at now.
What's going on.
Where I want to be.
Where I have been.
Not fretting, but truly listening to my life speak.
Tonight, I paused.
I've been feeling the weight of the holiday season approaching rather acutely.
My heart has only ever wanted one thing: unconditional love.
I watch the movies, I see my roommate becoming engaged, and it's still eludes me.
Everyone talks about family, plans for the holiday, going home, traveling.
It's taken everything I have not to crumble into a heap of emotion grieving what I don't have this year.
So to take a moment. Just a moment. Breathe. Look at it objectively..
It's a beautiful thing.
I'm here in this home. Not 'home' by the emotional definition of the word. But by the technical definition.
And I wonder.
Am I good here? Is this where I need to, want to be?
Will being here get me closer to who I want to be?
And though I have the open mind space to wonder, I don't have the answers.
I sit here in the quiet, with the white noise of freeway in the background and I find no answers.
Nothing but quiet thinking, tea, and the neighbors laundry finishing.