On Leaving

Dear FutureMe, So. I'm leaving DC. So far I've managed to do pretty much everything other than what I needed to do (didn't pay off credit cards, defer loans, pack things, sell things, get rid of things, etc.). I've managed to end one relationship in a fiery plane crash. It was only TWO MONTHS, how could that possibly elicit two different three hour crying sessions? All the while I started, maintained and fostered an empty relationship that looks the way it should but definitely doesn't feel that way. It doesn't feel like much of anything other than annoyance and vanity. Then I had sex with my ex-girlfriend out of the blue SIX MONTHS after I'd ended the relationship. It was the best sex you'd had in your entire life. What the hell does that mean? You dropped the L-bomb and you MEANT it, now you're leaving forever? Why fuck with her mind like that? Why fuck with your own mind like that? There are times when you love somebody and it's better for them not to know it. It was more than goodbye sex, it was "in another time and place we would've been together forever" sex. And now you have to live with that. This wasn't driven by a desire for sex, it was driven by a mutual desire to be close to one another, to feel that energy again. Sometimes love is like crack, you want it more than anything in the world and convince yourself that those brief glimpses at what a relationship can be are worth all of the other shit that comes along with it. Now I'm frantically scrambling to tie up all of my loose ends. I'm taking a trip to California right in the middle of it all because I love to indulge myself like that? Do I have the money for it? No. Do I have the time? No. Do I really give a shit? Not really. Then I come back and am faced with saying my goodbyes to all of the good friends I've made here. It's like I start fires with people and never bother to put them out. I have intense conversations, delve deeper into personal and emotional topics than most others do, and as a result I form real and lasting bonds with what were formerly complete strangers. The problem is that I do this with SO MANY PEOPLE. I am never content to have a group of close friends and have that be enough. I have my friends here, my friends, there, my ex-girlfriends that I never fully sever contact with, and everyone else that I've shared a bond with. Sometimes BONDS BREAK, simply because there isn't enough time in the day or real attention to be paid to make them worth keeping. The problem is that they're ALL worth keeping. How am I to decide who stays and who goes? There are a lot of shitty people in the world. There are also a lot of amazing people. I find an amazing person and I don't want to let them go. I want to surround myself with them, I want to be tied to them somehow so that I might continue to feed off of their energy and understand what their perspective on the world is so that I can enrich my own. I want to see where our paths take us and where they might cross so that I can have another intense conversation, another fruitful discussion. I want to learn and grow and see how other interesting people are doing the same. Then I go home to South Dakota. I see my high school friends. I've changed. A lot. Some of them haven't. Will they think that because I've changed we can no longer be friends? What parts of me have changed? What insights into myself will my old friends give me? It's hard for me to do the "let's have a few drinks and remember old times" chats. I want to have a real conversation with the person you are NOW, and I want you to do the same with me. It's worth it. It's emotionally and intellectually draining. Then I go to the Cities to visit my college friends. Same gig, different place. Do I really need to read so much into it? Will my friends even care that I've been away for so long? Will they be looking for changes? I've got more tattoos, I grew out my hair, I carry myself differently. These are the manifest physical changes - what of the others... Will they care enough to notice... Then I see a friend get married. And say goodbyes. Always saying goodbyes. Goodbye Mom, goodbye Dad. Goodbye sisters. Goodbye friends. Goodbye home. I'll miss you while I'm away. Then I ship off into the heart of darkness. Zambia. I have no idea what to expect. I think I've changed so much upon my entrance into the urban life, the working life, the east coast. What about a move to a culture so entirely different from your own that it's hardly recognizable as an American as a "real" life? I'll be working with the land, working with people, helping. Helping myself understand the way people used to live and how we hopefully still can: SUSTAINABLY. They may be starving for food in Zambia, but we're starving for meaning and FEELING here in the U.S. I will gain so many insights and experiences while I'm there, and I will surely continue to change. Markedly. Then I come home again and do it all over again. At what point does my life in South Dakota become meaningless except as a distant memory? When do my high school friendships become relics of a time passed? I want them to be living, to be real. I want them to grow with me and remind me that I was who I was but that doesn't mean that I've changed so completely that it isn't a part of who I am today. I always want it to be a living part of me. I strive for continuity. I strive for community. I strive for meaning. But in so doing I preserve and create connections between so many disparate events and people in my life that it becomes difficult to derive any of the three aforementioned qualities from any of it. It's simply a convoluted mess, devoid of any underlying pattern or structure. My life is my canvas. I've painted nearly a third of it (a quarter if I'm optimistic here at 23) and it's already so schizophrenically colorful, intricate, and dizzyingly amorphous that I can't imagine that it will come together as a single work of art that can be appreciated any more than those stupid fucking splatter paintings are. The answer: there is none. I can only continue to be me and do the best I can to make sure that I'm true to myself and continue to do those things that I believe will help me best realize and optimize my abilities so that I might effect positive change in some way. My life wasn't mean to be static, it wasn't meant to be easy. I truly believe that I was meant to be a semi-transient being, torturing myself with the emptiness that I feel while settling for nothing less. The comfort that I seek is an illusion, I would never be satisfied with a sedentary life. I am doomed to continue moving and seeking and building and growing and dying and destroying and stopping until I've tramped the globe and satisfied myself that there is no Truth, there is no Love, and there is no such fucking thing as Contentment. To be content is to stop searching for something greater, and until I either find or create that I will not rest. How fucking pretentious is that? What makes me think that I'm too good for an office job, that I'm too good to settle down. Why can't I just COMMIT to something and build my meaning and my truth around that? It's possible to find everything I'm looking for in a village without ever leaving. It's possible to find that by devoting yourself to a trade or study. Maybe it's a fear that if I do finally devote myself to one place or one hobby or one job that I will devote years and years of my life to it before failing. I would rather have tried everything and say, "Look, I failed, but damn did I have a lot of adventures on the way." I hate the idea of looking back on my life and thinking, "I was happy enough, but somewhere deep inside I just KNOW that the part of me that still remains empty today could have been filled had I looked a little harder." Maybe we all die with that empty feeling. We all build our lives. They are our fortresses. They are the things we point to and say, "See here? This is my LIFE, isn't it wonderful? Look at all the great people I've met, the passion I've felt, the things I've accomplished. That's my life and I'm so fucking happy that it's mine." I want the Sistene Chapel, not a ranch-style home in the suburbs. The question is, am I capable of building it or am I dooming myself to failure by not being satisfied with what I am capable of? One thing's for sure, I'm capable of rambling on and on and on and on and on and on and on