Monday, July 16, 2007

i'm terrible at this. but really this time, i'm trying to write more -- hopefully it'll make it easier to keep everyone up to date on my adventures in eastern europe.

i'm starting to feel the creep of sadness about leaving -- most days it still seems too far away to be real, but things are starting to happen to bring it into focus. plane tickets, payments. passport in the mail. it's not so much that i'm afraid to go, it's more that i'm afraid of what i'm leaving. either they'll be too much to come back to or nothing. both options are equally terrifying.

sometimes i think i'm attempting to run away from my problems... or to avoid having to do some work to achieve something in my life. i should have taken this year to write, but i didn't. my fear of failing paralyzed that muscle. i'm still not who i want to be -- just when i think i'm making progress, I meet a random middle-aged Canadian gentleman at the airport bar who tells me he can see straight through what I thought was a confident exterior. apparently you drink a few glasses of jack and you're suddenly dr. phil. i feel like i've done so much, and i don't know what else to do. there is nothing else i can do. maybe i'm looking for a clean slate but i know that's not what i'll be getting.

someone said to me a few months ago "are you just doing this so you can have something to say you're doing next?" i don't think that's true. i want to live abroad and i want this experience, i want to learn another language and become better at English and meet someone who has no clue who the Steelers are and walk on stones in the street that older than everything manmade in this country.

but am i done with this city? i remember things that seem like they're from another lifetime. there's no connectivity, no common thread lacing together the parts of my life. i look back on things and the memories seem like things that happened to someone else. different lives entirely. the stupidest things will trigger it -- the other day i lost myself staring at a flourescent heineken sign at the bar. i watched the inclines move up and down for ten minutes, thinking... how can i leave this. am i really done with this life.

i suppose it's not worth wasting time with what-ifs, but i can't help but think that if my dad were still alive, i wouldn't even be doing this. almost certainly not. it makes me hate myself. this whole life i've been living since December 2003 seems like a trade off. i want him to see this person i've become, that i'm still becoming, but if he could see it then i wouldn't be this person. imagine that.