The Companion
My friend Joseph needed to get home. So I got myself to San Francisco and we drove across the country to Pittsburgh. Afterward, I headed to NYC for the first time. To return home a week later by plane. It was a chance to challenge myself, escape routine, and take risks. I succeeded.
While in New York I met a woman. She’s different. My first impression was that she was immature and superficial, yet intelligent and cunning. Her bubbly, yet strong, “I’m a princess, worship me” routine was completely unattractive and lost on me. Yet, I saw something else within her. As if all that was some sort of a façade. So, after indulging her a bit, mainly because she was just so quirky, self-confident, and interesting, I had to choose whether or not to continue my trip with her as a companion.
I did, and I didn’t regret it. She is definitely an odd person, but thankfully, those are my favorite types. She is probably one of the more social people I have ever met, a true socialite. Her charisma and charm were unabashedly on display everywhere we went. I began to realize, some of what I perceived as ‘fakeness’ was actually her personality being so foreign. I later understood that she was alone and probably lonely in a lot of ways. She seeks companions as she travels the world almost as accessories. It made me wonder, how she felt about me. Was she just using me?
Her strangeness and forwardness kept me suspicious, I could not shake the feeling of being manipulated. However, I have seen a glimmer of vulnerability, of a real person beyond this persona she wears. I trust her in some way I cannot describe, and I don’t know if that is because I want, no, need, to trust someone, to let someone in. She is delightful. And I eventually felt I could let my guard down, be myself. I didn’t really care about charming her, so I was carefree and uncensored. She seemed to gravitate towards that. At one point, on the way to Central Park, I was a bit loopy, she was a little goofy. We were laughing and playing off each other, enjoying the moment to its fullest. And then we began to hold hands.
01-14-16
I write this from Holladay, Utah.
I’m couch surfing with my friend Joseph. We are driving across the country to Pittsburgh and then I’m headed solo to NYC for the first time. I’ll chat more about this in my 365 entry at the end of the year.
My priority recently is dating. And turning 39 stung, as I’m really for the first time feeling like my age, and this number like my body…feels old.
So, this time last year, I wasn’t happy. The relationship I was in eventually ended. She, like a few before, believed I was giving up on us too soon. I cannot fully disagree. But I have to trust myself or go mad buried under an avalanche of regret.
I wished to remain friends, I felt she was an awesome, beautiful woman, and did not want to lose her from my life. But I hurt her, and so she turned bitter and spiteful. I was privy to a small bit of the online trash-talking that occurred. She knew how to hurt me back. Still, I made efforts to be friends. And almost a year later, we are! She even paypal’ed me money to buy me a drink on my trip. She is a super thoughtful lady. And I love her. She’s moved on to dating a shared acquaintance. Not sure if it’s a good thing. But she seems happy and that’s all I want for her.
The rest of the year was filled with a lot of fantastic times and close encounters of the relationship kind. But I was never fully abducted. In fact, rejection was the ship I was on most of this year, sometimes with me at the helm, other times not. It all weighs heavily. And as I attempt to bear it, I understand that this is how the world works. How people work. Know that it is undoubtedly in my future.
But all that aside, I am on this wonderfully amazing trip right now. Where anything can happen. Free from my house prison. Excited to see how it all turns out, the experiences, conversations, potential new friends, and whatever else that will emerge. It feels all too much like…living. 🙂
fickle memories
The fickle memories sneak, evading the ponderer.
Most survive unscathed, eventually caught, examined, released.
Yet some linger under the light too long.
Those prolonged glances back—cut deep,
bleeding, wounded,
that happiness,
that elation,
that love of past,
begins to rot.
To save it, the only ruling is exile.
The Long and Winding Road
Life is only now. How we spend our lives is minute to minute. What do we desire from it? A living reality or a conceptualized one?
We derive meaning from life from being present. But there are things that distract us. We’ve created and perpetuated a society where we self-identify through these things. Now the things I’ve lost, my important things, were more memories, thoughts, and words. But I was not diminished, nor lessened. I have the joy of being, of growing into the one that is this me in this moment. And unto the next.
I’ve been on many first dates, chatted with thousands of people, and lived with close to forty strangers drifting in and out of my life. I’ve encountered many diverse people as I’ve floated through a slue of different groups of friends, always open, listening, morphing. I have gotten to know so many people. The good, the bad, the strange, and the stranger. I listen to them, judgments subdued, engaging, all have awakened me in some way. Shifted my paradigm. I love them for that, and treasure every single experience.
Still. I desire more. I love being in flux, not ever knowing who I’ll become. Knowing that the next interaction I have, whether it be with a long-time friend or a new stranger, it will alter my path in ways I could never predict.
And this is why I’m leaving. A little green to travel, I’m looking for new connections, new ways to challenge myself, and to continue my journey of growth.
The goal is three significant trips, depending on time, life circumstances and, of course, money. First a quick sprint across the United States in January, a week-long quest to bring my friend back home to Pittsburgh. Then a month or two long solo adventure where I explore the US at my own pace where ever it may lead. Next up is a foreign excursion, perhaps Europe, South America, New Zealand… Then, permitted, near the end of the year, exploring a few Southern California cities in day or weekend-long trips.
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
This entry refers to my Project 365 – Year-long projects that challenge my status quo
vaka
amidst the chaos,
amongst the shared vibrance,
whilst searching for resonance,
there is little peace.
grabbing in complacence,
slipping unabashed,
resilience paints the fall.
time erodes and deposits,
low may be,
higher than all before.