Travelling to Niue - this time tomorrow where will I be?

This time tomorrow where will I be?
On a sailship somewhere sailing across an empty sea? (The Kinks)

In 7 days time I will be at Niue. Well technically speaking 8 days.

On Friday I fly to Auckland. On Saturday I fly to Niue (from Auckland). But I arrive on Niue on Friday. The flight will take about 3 - 5 hours.

Time travel. Guess why? :) Work it out its not too hard.

I'm going there in the peak season to swim with the migrating humpback whales (and resident dolphins).

Its going to be a blast.

Then suddenly I realize. I'm going alone. And suddenly that singular truth really bit me hard for some reason - like a climber at Mt Everest who upon reaching a crucial peak sitting his hand out for his partner who is bringing the rest of the rope and grasping empty space. 

I'm traveling all the way there to a remarkable place- staying in this bungalow - alone. I'm going to experience all this amazing shit. And I'm going back and staring at a wall - most likely. I'll read my books. Watch some DVDs. Write my journals. Fucking alone. Its tearing me apart like swallowing razor blades. No. Why?

Somehow seriously WTF that upset me today. I feel like I got hit by a brick or baseball bat in the stomach.

I tend to be a bit introvert sometimes. And I often just shut up like a clam. Overwhelming shyness in the face of strangers. Sometimes I say the most stupidest things. I'm just tense.

I don't drink, smoke, take drugs, I've even cut back on junk food. Skip my breakfasts too often though. Spend too long in bed sometimes.

I go for these trips - mainly scuba diving - partly because you don't need to talk underwater. You just observe and move along.

But you still have to get back onto the boat (or go back to resort). I don't know... I just have sometimes nothing at all to add to my fellow traveler's conversations.

And it doesn't help me they were all already firm friends or part of a clique (or a Secret Society of Strangers which I didn't know about).

I've been asking friends to come along for this trip for over a year or more. No one seems to be in the least bit interested. Nada. Then I met this girl in Singapore and I liked her a lot. It wasn't a once off - it was a feeling that stayed with me and grew. I invited her on this trip. And she was extremely excited about it and we booked the tickets and everything was set!!!! Woohoo!!! Alright!!! I came back to Australia - we communicated a bit and unfortunately I said things to her which I shouldn't have.

I think I conveyed to her the sense that I was a bit of a fuckwit, an imbecile.  Gosh I can be so so stupid sometimes.

I apologized and refrained from the unspeakable dialogue.

But she didn't give me any indication she was thinking of bailing or even apprehensive about the trip. Then suddenly today, she msg me and said she's not coming. Why? Everything was ready to go. Only a day ago she was telling me she really was excited about the trip.

Then suddenly... "I can't make the trip sweetie. Sorry." End of message.

How bizarre is that?

Am I still going for the trip? Yeah of course. Am I going to be sad that she's not coming? Yes. Of course!!! But I don't understand why. When did she decide not to come? Did I say something wrong? (Of course I DID!!!)

Initially I felt I trusted her and she let me down. But later upon reflection I realized I must have conveyed a rather unpleasant view of myself when I texted her all that garbage.

But guess what? I fall down but I get up again.  I wish her all the best.

Postscript- after a couple of days. I had time to reflect on the past month. And I think I probably unnerved her and she couldn't get over it. I mean we barely know each other - and here I am telling her foolish things about myself.

I messaged her and told her I'm sad that she's not coming and I hold myself accountable for her abrupt decision. I behaved like a fool.

I'll just read this poem now by TS Eliot.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats	5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….	10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,	15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,	20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;	25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;	30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go	35
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—	40
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare	45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,	50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—	55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?	60
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress	65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin? .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets	70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!	75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?	80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,	85
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,	90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—	95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,	100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:	105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.” .      .      .      .      .      .      .      .	110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,	115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …	120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.	125
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown	130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.