My cell phone woke me up this morning at 8am, the Liszt ring tone floating light, peaceful notes into the REM stage of my sleep cycle.

"Morning, baby!" chirped my little gray Nokia. It was B, calling from Brooklyn. I opened my eyes, blinking at the sun's reflection on the bright white walls in my bedroom. After putting myself into a sugar coma last night, weeping desperately into the t-shirt B left behind, I felt oddly refreshed. I sat straight up in my bed; my face wasn't swollen from the tears, my body didn't ache of saccharine and I was almost myself again. I didn't have a training session this morning, and I was planning on going into work late since I would be staying late editing our January issue. The day seemed like my oyster and Hope worked her little devilish way back into my heart.

Albeit, it's already late in the evening, and I didn't actually eat my oyster of a day, springing into full productivity, but I did relish the sunlight. I did not feel like jumping into a crying hole. And the pain from yesterday is already subsiding. Call it the Glenda-bestowed, self-protective gift of apathy; call it my inevitable optimism. Whatever it was, it's already easier to breathe. To be on my own again. To un-pause that sometimes wretched China-life I have so cleverly created. And so the cycle goes.

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