A year and a day ago.
Den Haag;
June 2006
Random glimpses of life:
Looking back on this year has been much like reading a review for a film I have already seen. In retrospect there are so many tiny details which I only now realize very much change my perception of the entire experience, which I now see could have been so very different, had I only taken notice of them sooner.
School has been over for almost a week now and I've spent most of that time alone, sometimes savoring my solitude and, others, feeling like it is suffocating me. In the past few days, I've spent hours wandering around the city, cycling on long, aimless trips to nowehere, and constructing elaborate meals which I eat sitting on my balcony and watching the tiny, obscure world in the courtyard spin around me. In all honesty, I can say that this has been one of the most difficult years which I have ever experienced. There has never been another time in my life in which I have undergone such a complete change of character, met such a mix of amazing and loathsome people, questioned myself and my ideals more fiercely, nor alternated between such intense peaks of eurphoria and bouts of pure disgust. Never have I known what it feels like to hate with such total adherence, love with such complete abandon, or hover uncertainly between an infuriatingly indecipherable mix of the two. Perhaps most perplexing is the way that my disdain for my surroundings has slowly absolved into a realization that this place does not fill me with repulsion as I though, but rather with a strange sense of emptiness. I know now that something inside of me changed profoundly when I came back from Barcelona and that these past twelve months and a day have been, for a large part, wasted on trying to reconstruct a life, a place, a state of mind that was only meant to exist then and there, and not to be prolonged or replicated. The concession that I left a piece of myself behind when I stepped on that plane and came back here to build, once again, from nothing, is an incredibly bittersweet one, which has taken me so very long to make, but one which I am happy for all the same. The absolute beauty and purity of my time there is something that I have not been able to forget, nor truly embrace. I have, instead, chosen to keep it hidden in the recesses of my mind and dilute with strict limits on contact with anything which reminds me of it. And yet, all the while, I have been vaguely aware that almost nothing has been able to live up to it, that everything I have done and said and wished for has been a half-hearted attempt to retain some of its magic.
In just two weeks I'll be leaving for Hawai'i with the boys and, to be completely honest, there is nothing in the world which I am looking forward to more. For the first time in two years I will be able to look my mother in the eyes, to hold my best friend's son in my arms, to live and feel and breathe the sights and smells and raw emotions which are so dismally absent here. I will be able to be myself, completely and absolutely, without giving the slightest thought to another's misinterpretation. I will have all the things within my reach which I envy those here who take them all so much for granted. I will be able to embrace all the wonderfully simple and beautifully complex things which are unique to the place I come from.
When I think about it, this year is not one I regret in the least. Quite the contrary, I am grateful that it has taught me so many valuable lessons. To be persistent in the search for beauty in the most unexpected of places, to see the difference between true friendship and sugar-coated malice, to be sincere and thorough in my dealings with everyone but only allow myself to be affected by those whom I truly care about. This year has brought me so much heartache, but also a handful of wonderful, unforgettable experiences and, above all, love as I have never known it before. The years to come have even more to offer, but right now I am happy to be alone and to reflect on this one in the peace and resolution which I have so long been searching for.