Trip

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

<w:LsdException Locked="false" P

riority=”70″ SemiHidden=”false”
UnhideWhenUsed=”false” Name=”Dark List Accent 1″ />

<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6″ />

Have arrived back safely from my trip.

The mass of people stuns me when I walk around San Francisco. The atmosphere. The diversity. The way that everyone seems to be moving with such a purpose. The fact that each person that I pass has their own individual life story, full of ups and downs and love and hate and triumph and disappointment, and  that I have no knowledge of any of them. And how each of these stories have brought them all here, at this moment, in this city and this concept is just bizarrely overwhelming to me – that each of these people here in front of me are as alive as I am.

The city produces an incredible scene for my wide-eyed rural-Georgia eyes to comprehend. But the part of the scene I have the most trouble grasping – the part that I have the most trouble grasping whether I am in San Francisco, CA or Toomsborro, GA – is something that my eyes can’t see. It’s the fact that I am a part of the scene too.  That my actions impact the way the scene unfolds, that my brushstroke ultimately influences the outcome of the picture. And this is why sometimes when a waiter asks for my order or a bum asks for my change I have a brief look of incomprehension on my face – because I am being made aware that I am not just an observer of this scene, but a real part of it. And I can be as powerful of a part as I want to be.

I would give a list of all the tourist attractions I ventured through, but the list would be more limited than most people would probably expect and wouldn’t capture my experience in the city nearly as well as the first two paragraphs of this entry do. There is, however, another part to capture and that is the days I spent with Heather and how they were, as always, as powerfully felt as any of the days of my life.

Seeing Heather while I travel means I see her when I am most outside my element, since I am a creature of home and rural Georgia and traveling for most of my life has been comprised of two hour trips to other parts of Georgia. She laughs when I order dinner and try so hard to correctly pronounce the dish I’m ordering that it’s obvious I don’t really know what I’m doing. “You’re such a country bumpkin, Matt” she tells me. “You need to find you a good country bumpkin girl and marry her.”

And yet, despite the way she mocks me and that I am completely out of my element, it is still more a comfort than anything to see her again. There is no other person who has seen as many aspects of what comprises my being, both good and bad, strengths and weaknesses, and knowing it all, decided that she still loves me. I think the same is probably true for her too. And as much as I enjoy trekking through Chinatown by day and dancing in downtown San Francisco by night, it’s the quiet moments after it all that I treasure the most.

Of course, the nature of life insists that the trip was brief and over well before I was ready for it to be. As I prepared to leave, Heather took a shot at guessing the thoughts that were going through my mind: “I know what you’re thinking, ‘this could be the last time I see Heather, this could be the last time I hug her, this could be the last time I see her scratch her ass – you’re so dramatic!”

And it could be the last time. I’m guilty enough of thinking all of those things in the past and it’s still true enough. But I’ve finally made it to a point in my life where I am worrying less about my happiness tomorrow and enjoying whatever happiness I have today.

And, right now, I’m pretty happy.