I have learned that I hate working. I really do. I can't stand my job. I can't take the stress of it all. I already have so much work with school and now I have another job. I swear if I didn't have to pay for things, I wouldn't work. And all the money that I did get from this lousy job will be going away to pay for my car. And for the rest of my life it will be like this. I will always have to have a job. This thought really scares the shit out of me.

It's the little things that hurt most.

I miss being able to tell you the trivia of my day, the inconsequential happenings and the fleeting thoughts. I could talk to you about the smallest things and not feel that I was boring you. Each day, I would store up the day’s happenings to share with you.

And I miss hearing the details of your life - what you had for dinner, the latest art project, what strangeness your neighbours are getting up to.

I wonder how long it will be before I stop having conversations with you in my head.

This valley is actually the crater of the ancient Waianae Volcano, its ruins barely recognizable except from the air - half of its rim collapsed into the ocean hundreds of thousands of years ago.

When you think of Hawai'i, you generally picture banyans and banana trees, not keawe and cactus. But I worked here for three years - tending and climbing fields of HF antennas in the Lualualei Valley, growing jalapenos and waking up to the crow of a rooster.

No air conditioning, no cable. Only the tradewinds sweeping down the mountains to cool us, the impossibly blue Pacific to entertain us.