I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yearsteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. — Beryl Markham
Thursday, July 26, 2012 (DAY 144)
Last night, I had a dream of the entirety of a path that my life could have been, a part of my life that I have now had to let go. Awaking confused and a bit heartbroken from what I knew I had to do, I know that there is a reason for doing this now rather than later, and yet, it still does not make it any easier letting this girl disappear from my life, my thoughts, in order to move forward. The connection I shared with this girl–this young woman–I somehow grew to love over a short period of time before leaving on this incredible journey has always been a part of my daily thoughts. I knew from the first time we shared with one another painful parts of our lives that we have never spoken of so freely, becoming vulnerable to one another beyond words, that there was a connection that went deeper than just a surface friendship. The almost daily adventurous trips to Starbucks where I saw the flicker of a smile for the first time from her that will be forever ingrained in my memory as she stood across the room from me and our eyes met through a small crowd, is just one of the thousands of small details I did not get a chance to share with her before I left. Singing and dancing to the tune of Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles, which ironically became “our song” over helplessly being forced to watch the cinematic genius of White Chicks that played as we sat confined, unable to move while at a plasma donation facility in Aurora, Colorado on a cold winter morning, I cannot help but smile whenever I hear that song. The countless lunches we shared, one of which that went to the degree that only her and I will share and all of the various informal types of communication that when the notification alert made me aware of her secret messages, it always gave me another reason to smile. The cheesy head bopping, singing to the top of our lungs, this, this is the person she should could so easily bring out of me daily, and for that I cannot thank her enough for her strength, for her friendship, for her ability to know me enough that she never asked me to stay, but could see how important this journey was for me in order to live out that which I continue to seek out with every day that I am living life to the fullest. You will always have a place in my heart. Shmurnt murnt.
Last night, I had a dream of the entirety of a path that my life could have been, a part of my life that I have now had to let go. Awaking confused and a bit heartbroken from what I knew I had to do, I know that there is a reason for doing this now rather than later, and yet, it still does not make it any easier letting this girl disappear from my life, my thoughts, in order to move forward. The connection I shared with this girl–this young woman–I somehow grew to love over a short period of time before leaving on this incredible journey has always been a part of my daily thoughts. I knew from the first time we shared with one another painful parts of our lives that we have never spoken of so freely, becoming vulnerable to one another beyond words, that there was a connection that went deeper than just a surface friendship. The almost daily adventurous trips to Starbucks where I saw the flicker of a smile for the first time from her that will be forever ingrained in my memory as she stood across the room from me and our eyes met through a small crowd, is just one of the thousands of small details I did not get a chance to share with her before I left. Singing and dancing to the tune of Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles, which ironically became “our song” over helplessly being forced to watch the cinematic genius of White Chicks that played as we sat confined, unable to move while at a plasma donation facility in Aurora, Colorado on a cold winter morning, I cannot help but smile whenever I hear that song. The countless lunches we shared, one of which that went to the degree that only her and I will share and all of the various informal types of communication that when the notification alert made me aware of her secret messages, it always gave me another reason to smile. The cheesy head bopping, singing to the top of our lungs, this, this is the person she should could so easily bring out of me daily, and for that I cannot thank her enough for her strength, for her friendship, for her ability to know me enough that she never asked me to stay, but could see how important this journey was for me in order to live out that which I continue to seek out with every day that I am living life to the fullest. You will always have a place in my heart. Shmurnt murnt.
Still carrying around the sadness of the previous nights dream, I feel an uncanny sense of the last strong connection to back home severed, and after a long awaited period I am given confirmation and permission to begin volunteering next week with the Nicaragua Children’s Foundation at the local special needs school. It is high noon and Marc and I are walking down the hill towards the center of town. Cars and trucks race past us on the single lane road as we attempt to cling to the nonexistent sidewalk. The heat and the humidity are beginning to become unbearable as we are both covered in sweat in search of a meal, famished and most certainly dehydrated, we make it back to the hostel with appreciative feelings of accomplishing the morning’s task. Melting in the heat, we decide to indulge in the most popular amenity The Surfing Donkey has to offer, the glorious pool. Standing on the edge, overlooking Marc, Alix, and Stephen who have already made it into the refreshing water. I muster up my loud and authoritative voice, “ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention. I've just been handed an urgent and horrifying news story. I need all of you, to stop what you're doing and listen…Cannonball!" Water is splashing out over the edges and onto the broken pieces of concrete that surround the pool, as we feel as though we are all twelve years old again, taking turns and simultaneously performing cannonballs into the water. Our immature fun of an adolescent behavior has been a great distraction from the girl that has now been let go. In spite of taking this very difficult step in order to move forward, I still have faith as I always have, that if specific people are meant to return to your life in ways that are stronger than even we can acknowledge, than, that is what I can hope for, but I cannot let it be the strong underlying notion that can ultimately become a consuming thought.
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