My past couple days have been filled with procrastination, catching up on sleep, reading ever more, and general laziness. I can say without any doubt that these days have accomplished what I came to Oregon to do. Not to find a job and start a new life, but to discover myself so that I can accept my old life and understand the ways to change it for better.
I started this trip (the emotional journey, not the physical one,) several months ago. I was aware that I wasn’t happy. Depressed. For a time I wondered whether I shouldn’t find myself in an institution to stay in. As some of my friends have heard me say, I came home every day surprised to find that my bed had not turned into a potato. Life was so crazy, so confusing, that craziness and senselessness was normal.
The easiest question came first. So did the easiest answer. Why am I unhappy? Because I do not have what I want. The answer is agonizingly vague. It spawns another question. And the answer to that one spawns another. Each answer brought a new, harder, question. What do I want? I can only know if I know who I am. Who am I? I could only know if I understood who and what has shaped me over the years.
I think for the moment I’ve satisfied myself on all these questions. What did I want? To grow up. Am I happy? Yes. I think so. Life is always full of ups and downs, so I’m sure I will find myself at low points in the future. I pray to whoever or whatever has control that the lows will not be so low as the one I’ve been climbing out of. That the highs will go higher than they did before.
Time will tell.
For the moment, I have my old life to go back to. I am more prepared to face what it brings me. The good and the bad things that happen in the course of every day. The good and the bad people who cause the daily happenings. Many of those who are close to me seem to think that this is me running home the moment ‘shit got real’ so to speak. That is entirely not the case – I needed 1300 miles to understand what I had still waiting for me at home. I needed to push on my comfort zone, but not to burst through.
I’m not ready to say goodbye. Not just yet.
Nate Knows Everything 