On leaving Baltimore
It seems weird that I can honestly say that this has been one of the most amazing summers of my life. So much about it has gone wrong. So many things changed in ways that I didn't want them to, and now as I head off to Portland in the exact situation I did not want to be heading toward, it seems that collecting my thoughts is in order. Sometimes when everything else is impossible, the only thing you can do is write.
I wrote a lot while I was traveling in Italy, though it was the old-fashioned sort of writing, and, pretentiously enough, I had a moleskine for it. It is sitting among my things to be packed right now, but I am terrified to read it because I know that the person who wrote in it those weeks ago would be terribly disappointed in me for being where I am right now. And where am I? Heading back to Portland, into a situation that might range from terribly awkward to just plain terrible and heartbreakingly sad. I'm set to spend the next year of my life contending with it, and at this point there just doesn't seem to be a way around that fact. I don't blame myself honestly. I gave everything that I could conceivably give while still remaining true to myself, and I suppose that sometimes these things just don't work out, and when I think about it logically, I really don't think it should right now anyway. Really, I'll just accept anything I can tell myself to make it stop hurting like it does right now, because regardless of how logically I should take it, it isn't going to make any difference: it still hurts. There's more I can say, but that will have to wait either until I get back to Portland, or forever, because there isn't much to be gained by saying the things I want to. I've always been more able to hurt people than I was willing to do it. But sometimes I sort of feel like it would be damned nice.
I'm about to fly back to LA, and then take a three day roadtrip up the California coast. First, Pacifica for a day, then camping in a redwood forest, then up to Canon beach, and finally back to Portland on Tuesday, where I then get to rejoin a life that I am convinced will not be what I want it to be. It's hard enough to break up with someone you've lived with and loved for nearly three years. Even harder to share friends and space at a small school and have to deal with all the negative circumstances that you can imagine arise from that sort of situation. I won't go into details, but trust me, I have always been quite imaginative, and do no have a whole lot of faith that much is going to be done to help how difficult it will be, knowing what I know.
I'm sort of fixated on this at the moment, so I apologize to everyone reading who doesn't actually care, but I think it's fair that I get a few hours of being pathetic and sad and worried before I have to push it all down below the surface and pretend not to be bothered no matter what I see or hear.
But despite all this, this has still been an incredible summer. Three weeks of traveling in Italy on my own, weeks of quality time spent with my best friends in the world. Concerts, parties, music festivals, new people I've met who I have no doubt have or will completely change my life. I'm hopeful in some ways despite being terrified in others. The fear has more to do with losing those things that I thought would be constant in my life rather than with my inability to deal with that change. I adapt. I'm good at it. I move on easily, and I only look back sometimes, but usually from a distance, and usually knowing that I'm only doing it for nostalgia and not an actual desire to go back. I'm strong and I always have been, and I know what I need to do now, even if I know that doing it will probably prove to be harder than even I can conceive of.
Whatever happens, I'll deal. Sometimes I'll feel like I do right now, and sometimes I'll wonder how I ever could feel like I do right now, and then I'll have moved on and be alright. I believe that, even if I'm not quite there yet. I'm stopping now, because this is going to be somewhat private. Maybe I'll go write more for real in a place where you can't find it.
good night, sweetdreams, goodbye
I wrote a lot while I was traveling in Italy, though it was the old-fashioned sort of writing, and, pretentiously enough, I had a moleskine for it. It is sitting among my things to be packed right now, but I am terrified to read it because I know that the person who wrote in it those weeks ago would be terribly disappointed in me for being where I am right now. And where am I? Heading back to Portland, into a situation that might range from terribly awkward to just plain terrible and heartbreakingly sad. I'm set to spend the next year of my life contending with it, and at this point there just doesn't seem to be a way around that fact. I don't blame myself honestly. I gave everything that I could conceivably give while still remaining true to myself, and I suppose that sometimes these things just don't work out, and when I think about it logically, I really don't think it should right now anyway. Really, I'll just accept anything I can tell myself to make it stop hurting like it does right now, because regardless of how logically I should take it, it isn't going to make any difference: it still hurts. There's more I can say, but that will have to wait either until I get back to Portland, or forever, because there isn't much to be gained by saying the things I want to. I've always been more able to hurt people than I was willing to do it. But sometimes I sort of feel like it would be damned nice.
I'm about to fly back to LA, and then take a three day roadtrip up the California coast. First, Pacifica for a day, then camping in a redwood forest, then up to Canon beach, and finally back to Portland on Tuesday, where I then get to rejoin a life that I am convinced will not be what I want it to be. It's hard enough to break up with someone you've lived with and loved for nearly three years. Even harder to share friends and space at a small school and have to deal with all the negative circumstances that you can imagine arise from that sort of situation. I won't go into details, but trust me, I have always been quite imaginative, and do no have a whole lot of faith that much is going to be done to help how difficult it will be, knowing what I know.
I'm sort of fixated on this at the moment, so I apologize to everyone reading who doesn't actually care, but I think it's fair that I get a few hours of being pathetic and sad and worried before I have to push it all down below the surface and pretend not to be bothered no matter what I see or hear.
But despite all this, this has still been an incredible summer. Three weeks of traveling in Italy on my own, weeks of quality time spent with my best friends in the world. Concerts, parties, music festivals, new people I've met who I have no doubt have or will completely change my life. I'm hopeful in some ways despite being terrified in others. The fear has more to do with losing those things that I thought would be constant in my life rather than with my inability to deal with that change. I adapt. I'm good at it. I move on easily, and I only look back sometimes, but usually from a distance, and usually knowing that I'm only doing it for nostalgia and not an actual desire to go back. I'm strong and I always have been, and I know what I need to do now, even if I know that doing it will probably prove to be harder than even I can conceive of.
Whatever happens, I'll deal. Sometimes I'll feel like I do right now, and sometimes I'll wonder how I ever could feel like I do right now, and then I'll have moved on and be alright. I believe that, even if I'm not quite there yet. I'm stopping now, because this is going to be somewhat private. Maybe I'll go write more for real in a place where you can't find it.
good night, sweetdreams, goodbye