Three thousand miles from home. Hawaii, somewhere north of Honolulu. That's all I really know about where I am. There's a beach a minute's walk away, past a nasty highway. I'm with friends, six of them. One has family here on the islands, they happen to owns this property.
Importantly, though, what am I doing here? So many answers, so varied in depth and actual truth. I feel too philosophical putting it that way. There are a few different answers and which one you get depends on who you are to me. Yet, you - dearest noder - are anonymous. Anonymity grants much.
I am here, lazing about in the beautiful land, to find something. An answer. Not from anything in particular, but from the lack of things familiar. Normal things, normal life, normality. Normality is my enemy right now. I had found my groove and was so entrenched in it that I lost objectivity. I threw myself at every day the same way, without heart or desire. Without wanting to even do that much. Things one ought to enjoy, I didn't. My beer collection has been growing and hell if I've drank anything particularly good in months. My bikes live silently astride my empty bed, awaiting the weekends. My computer lay unused, my dice unthrown, every aspect seemingly left to dust. My life was devoted to two things: Keeping myself in the good-enough graces of one professor and, for some reason, keeping myself alive.
The question occurs to me: Was I dead? I know the answer, it's easy: I was dead. Asleep at the mental wheel, I coasted, knowing only where to go, but not how to enjoy the sights or turn the wheel.
Just over four years ago, I met her. We've had a rocky road of a relationship since, yet we're not serious. Four years. We've been through hell, pulling for each other the whole way. We split ways numerous times, yet find our way back each time. I was an asshole for the first couple years. I didn't want her involved with my friends because she challenged my pathetic confidence. I changed - hell if I know how or why, but I did. We split, she went through a couple guys and we returned to each other. And for all the wrong reasons, we continue on with this charade.
Each of us desires other people. When we last seriously split, she knew who she wanted, while I did not. This time, I know who I want to be with, yet she does not. Yet I feel like the cowardly lion. Go back, little one, to what comfort you know - do not tempt fate to tread upon your fragile confidence.
Every missed opportunity to even strike up conversation with her - the one I want to know better - leaves me in mental pain from my own seeming stupidity. Daft. I've always been daft. That's not the point, though. The point is that I like her a hell of a lot. And maybe more of my point will be obvious tomorrow. For now, sleep.
slumber