August 31, 2014
“You have to really like yourself
in a place like this.” I remember when I wanted to live in a tent, and I sat at
the oversized kitchen table covered in strange plants and a small TV with a
robot antenna contraption in my uncle’s kitchen. He told me austerely, “You have
to like yourself. You’ll know what I mean.” I know what he meant. Being alone
and unfamiliar with this whirlwind, a person dialogues with herself. It’s like
talking to your reflection in a mirror. The person you’re becoming might disagree
with the person that you were and you talk about it inside. If you know how to
be honest with yourself, the learning process goes a little faster but if
you’re insecure or ashamed, and you hide from the true you inside that’s always
trying to be let out, the process will be like the futile effort of a fly
buzzing at the window towards what he sees to be freedom.
I think I
like myself. I wake up in the morning to the sun shining through the slatted
window shade that won’t close. I check my phone; it’s growing more and more
disappointing at the lack of correspondence I have with humanity. But then I’ll
have one good conversation and be socially exhausted for the next four hours.
So I put the phone down and get off the couch. I have no idea what I do after
that. That’s just the way it is. I could no sooner tell you what I’m doing
tomorrow as you could tell me what you’ll be doing six months from today. I’m
not sure if I’ll go to work tomorrow, or if I’ll stay home. I don’t know if
I’ll sleep at the apartment tomorrow, or on the boat. I don’t know. That’s my
life. I’m not going to pretend it’s not exhausting and lonely as hell. It’s
hard to grow roots when the wind blows you so much. I just have to find a place
with the right soil and sunlight. I think I’ve found it. Now I just have to sit
and watch the grass grow. It might not look like it’s growing, but it’s
growing. Friends will come, work will come, the arbitrary passage of life will
come.
Right
now, though, this is the way it is. I’m alone. I have four conversations in
three days. That’s okay. Is it really okay, you ask? Yes, it is. I am here. I
am alive. I am in the city of my dreams, and it’s more than simply thinking
myself to be on track for success. I know
I am. I feel it in my heart that where I am right now is exactly where I need to be right now.
That means if I was somewhere else with friends and things to do, I wouldn’t be
where I need to be. It’s like… you can go off the path so many times, but every
time you cross it again, you get a fresh start. It doesn’t matter where you’ve
been; what matters is that you’re here now and you can only move forward. You
have a fresh start. It’s like getting yourself out of debt. It doesn’t matter
how much you’ve owed before; you’ve broken even, and now you can start over.
I’m here. I made it back onto this path. Maybe I lost it before; maybe I
didn’t. But all that matters is I’m here now, and that makes the empty days
worth it.
To be
honest, I don’t want to rush it either. Moments like these are beautiful.
They’re so rare. Some people go through life without ever having an opportunity
to start fresh and new. I had it in college, and the first semester of freshman
year was the hardest, most beautiful time of my life, because I was so close to
God and I learned and grew so much, despite feeling so alone. I’m facing the
same challenge again, three years later. I know nobody, and this time I don’t
have a set agenda of classes or work to do (thank God). And as much as I like
to tell myself otherwise when I’m sulking, I know that this will pass very
quickly. Like the leaves changing from summer to fall, so will pass these
moments of hardship until one day, I will wake up in a bed in an apartment that
I can call my own, with friends blowing up my phone to the point of annoyance,
and a job portfolio worth a steady salary. It will happen like the way the sun
rises. It’s dark until suddenly it is light. There’s never a point where the
world goes from nighttime to daytime; it happens within you, at the moment you
notice the world around you illuminated. Such will be the way life passes here.
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