“I am learning, as I make my way through my first continent, that it is remarkably easy to do things, and much more frightening to contemplate them.” –Ted Simon, Jupiter’s Travels
I think, through my journey along these first independent paths of mine, I’m learning that being alone is surprisingly easier than being in a relationship, which is much more difficult because all of my considerations have been multiplied by two.
When I am alone, I don’t have fear of losing anything.
We talk amongst each other, in small tones so that no one else can listen or penetrate the special bubble we create when we’re close. Discussions of living together, being together, spending immense amounts of time together is always the center of subjects. How much we love, how high we feel. It is all there.
Am I giving in to something? When I know there is no end, will it be just as thrilling?
Or, if I continued to wait and let the months pass by with the thousands of miles in distance still present, will I wonder why I waited when the moment finally came, and regret that I missed years of a life together?
And I have so many questions, now that the planning is upon me. I could find a job next month, interview in early December and be back on the east coast by the end of January, living in a comfortable studio with a bed and a table… and the BG.
My life hasn’t stopped since last year. I have little routine, I have no normalcy. And I don’t want it. Each day is so drastically different. Between plans that sneak up on me, people I am meeting, the ideas I keep having. I have learned to feel the happiness in solitude that I always wanted to feel. I glow sometimes, feeling so euphoric about beginning to find a sense of purpose.
And I also know how full and happy I feel when we are together.
If we lived with one another, will I feel this each day? Will I continue to appreciate all the exciting things that make him so special to me? Or will it all become something of a byproduct of a fantasy I once knew?
I feel restless. Impatient. Confused and scared. I want to do the right thing at the right time. I am not one of those people who can easily just sit and wait for things.
I have committed to this person. We have made monumental plans for us, as a team, that span the next ten years, at least. Our lives are going to be exciting, colorful, new all the time and, loving, honest and continually open because that is what we’ve mutually chosen to believe. (It is the only way.) I don’t want anything to change, in that regard.
When people asked me (and still do) why I was moving across the country, I had a hard time answering. I dread the question still. Sometimes I make something up. The reason people ask is because everyone (including me) romanticizes such risky feats. I don’t even really think moving across the country is that exciting. It’s the solitude of it all that is the thrilling part for me. But I learned that uprooting my life to be on my own is something that is so incredibly *easy* to do. The question of whether something people find so difficult to achieve, while breaking down all the inherent fears I’ve grown up to learn, could be done with exponential rewards, needed to be answered.
And it has, indeed, been answered.
Now I want more. And I don’t feel like waiting.
There is a part of me that is already bored with my life in Portland. I am ready for the next thing: I want out of this country. I want to feel the African sands on my fingers, volunteer my time to help the people there understand that we’re not much different, and attempt to further comprehend my place in the universe. I have been fantasizing for two weeks now about leaving for the Peace Corps. And I’ve been reading about short term volunteer opportunities abroad. (They come with great cost.) I want to be moving toward something again. I mean to say, now I feel a little stagnant. I *should* relax and enjoy myself, but the struggles of working toward something are where I find the most joy.
Although I feel I have achieved so much by moving here, I have a thousand goals on my list and only one of them, apparently, was dependent on residing in Oregon. The dream that I had given up on for so long, was finding someone so incredibly honest and loving, someone I could bear my soul to. Someone who would never judge me, accept me completely and find me incredibly appealing, despite (and because of) all my dark secrets. I believed this was not possible for me. I either did not deserve it, or was too good for it. I was an outsider looking in, disgusted that I had somehow missed the boat.
Now everything is different. Through the journey I gained my independence, and upon destination I found my soulmate.
I want to be accomplishing *more*. When should I take the next step? What will that be and what are my motivations?
Clearly all the daydreaming can’t answer these questions. My objective has been to learn by doing. Guess I should stop asking the questions, then, and make some decisions.
The other side’s grass can’t forever be greener, eh?
It is time to make a plan.
