Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Brooke is fervently running around the apartment trying to do “her part” of the packing. Sometimes when something seems unfair, if you unpack it, it’s actually quite equal. That’s not the case here. She’s been brutally busy with school, and I’ve been brutally busy dismantling this life we’ve built in Dover. I sold our washing machine (already broken) and the bottom of our ring-stained coffee table to the scrap yard for a whopping ten dollars. Sold our couch, our desk, our dining room table, all to various ‘friends’ on Facebook. And it was with great pleasure that I hurled our janky entrance table off the deck. Watching it smash into five distinct pieces on the concrete gave me the same amount of satisfaction I get from shedding all these material layers. As I write this now, the love of my life is giving me an eyeball that unmistakably says, “this is a time for helping, not writing,” so I must go…..for now.
Aaaand I’m back. Our apartment looks like a tornado whipped through it. Nothing has a home yet all needs one. Ironically, as I give these material items a place and a label, I shed mine entirely. Oh, it feels so good to be rid of these possessions. They bog me down like a weighted blanket.
The future is so uncertain. All that is certain is our direction - West. I feel like a settler. And in some respects I am. Looking for new opportunities. Ah, I can smell it. I can feel the sense of anything-is-possible coming on like a cold sweat. In soccer, or any game I suppose, there is a single, solitary moment before the opening whistle blows. All is still. You can hear your heart beating through your chest. The world is quiet. The air is as fragile and as thin sheet of ice. And when the referee, or whomever, blows the whistle, the ice shatters. And all hell breaks loose.
"Ironically, as I give these material items a place and a label, I shed mine entirely."
For now, the plan is, well, there is no plan. Isaac wants to go to DC. I could care less. I want to climb. I’ve been infected with a bug. A beautiful, viral thing now courses through my blood. I’m sure of it. I want to climb. I want to swing. I want to hang. I want to be uncomfortable. I want to walk up to something terrifying and conquer it with my hands and my feet and a bag of magnesium sulfate (chalk). However late it is, however far along my body has come, at least I’ve found this now. This beautiful thing I can sink my teeth into entirely, and let the juices of whatever crag I’m at flow down my chin and onto my chest. My bare chest. I want to feel like the first man that ever as aware of life.
Two days ago I went out drinking with the mates. It was all fun. Oh lord, it was fun, until it wasn’t. I’d made the mistake I’d made a dozen nights in my life. Too much alcohol, too quickly. I might as well have drank a potion of ayahuasca. By four am I was in a total black hole. Consciousness existed somewhere above. But my reality was dark and full of agony. My insides bubbled up like a rank stew, several times. So much in fact that at the time of writing, I can still feel a faint hollowness in the deep of my chest that is only ever there after a night of dry heaving. “I have nothing left,” I uttered to the bowels of my toilet. “Nothing left at all”.
“This is good,” she said. All I could do was look at her. With a face as pale of snow and a bead of drool descending to the floor, I must’ve looked like a rabid man. “Now, you won’t make this mistake again, and have to feel like this while on the road.” I nod in agreement.
“I’m never drinking again.” I confirm. But I know this isn’t true. As I’ve said, I’d been in this scenario before. And sure enough, I’ll be there again. If not from alcohol, then from some other agent of escape. Because that’s what it is. Just a way to escape. And I suppose that’s what this trip is, at it’s root. I’m escaping the reality of my failure. The reality of the cold, of the years spent head down working for something I’ve never taken the time to define.
With a sense of possibility, a little unease, and a fire in my belly, this journey begins. And with it blossoms this blog. My own little experiment. For with the blog comes accountability, with a youtube channel comes exposure. All in the hopes of expanding my experience beyond that of just the experience. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy.
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