mahiwaga

Strange this. I came back to Southern California this past December utterly sick of the Midwest, exhausted and hurting with loneliness, feeling defeated by the darkness and the bitter cold.

But now that I realize that I might never get to go back out there for a long time, I can't help but feel sad.

Of course I guess it's natural. A lot of people don't like getting displaced, getting uprooted, even if where they are is not necessarily the best environment for them. Especially when I feel like I haven't said my proper goodbyes.

So I suppose a lot of my melancholy is simply the confusion of disorientation.

No matter how much I wax nostalgic, a part of me realistically understands that another winter out there just might kill me.

That, despite how familiar and home-like those city streets had become, no matter how at ease I felt wandering that land with no mountains, there is a reason that my journey begins again and heads out in another direction.

While time and again I might whine about not ever finding Home, about how I'm tired of being a vagabond aimlessly criscrossing the Paths of Life, I know that there is a part of me that is glad to be on the Road again.

The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say.

—from the The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien</cite> </blockquote>

I travel again to a new place, with some trepidation. I'm not sure if I can take another few months of isolation and alienation, of withstanding the darkness all alone again.

I grant that the winter nights won't be so long and dark where I'm going, but you can't escape the darkness.

I feel it lingering there beneath the surface, ready to snare me if I delve too deep.

This year has been all about crossroads.

As Ferris Bueller said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Four years from now, I have a feeling that I'll be staring at this screen, wondering where the hell all the time went.

Carpe diem, I suppose. Someday I'm just going to have to understand Sisyphus (and Camus) and finally learn how to live in the moment.

It doesn't ever end, does it?

When will I ever learn to value my own happiness?

When will I come up with a good reason for why I'm not doing what everyone keeps telling me I should do?

"I don't wanna" just doesn't seem to cut it, coming from a 27 year old man.

It's always a bad sign when I can't find any way at all to express how awfully frustrated I am these days.

Fuck.