Exactly 10 years to the day. June 26, 2003- June 26th
2013. I lived every moment, lived by the joint mantras of no regrets and ‘when
was the last time you did something for the first time?’. I embraced the spontaneity and enigma of life
and learned to trust the world and my feet in front of me. I lived in Africa,
then Asia. I hiked active volcanoes in Indonesia, glaciers in Argentina, and
mountains in China. I jumped out of a plane and dove 30m beneath the ocean as a
Dive Master. I ran a marathon in Bangkok, Thailand and spent a week surfing in
Costa Rica. I did handsprings behind the Taj Mahal and spun and twirled on the
Great Wall of China. I planted rice in the mountain terraces of Vietnam and
laid in the grass by a llama at Machu Picchu. I cycled through the Canadian
Rockies drinking chocolate milk and whipped cream, started a Little 500 team at
IU and raced through Indiana. I learned
to spearfish in the Amazon and had jellyfish fights on the beach.
I worked two jobs simultaneously, started college, earned a
full scholarship and two degrees. I discovered international politics on a
bridge in Derry, Ireland, and voted absentee in two elections. I watched
Obama’s acceptance speech as the sun rose in Ghana and a new African nation
survive its first major party transition peacefully, setting an example for a continent.
I boated down the
Niger River on rippled metal and a prayer mat without food and only great
company to Timbuktu. I rode a camel and camped in the Sahara for 3 days. Slept
on the roof of mud houses scented by the juice of green onions in Mali. I
worked two summers in a vineyard and drank muscle wine on a broken boat in
Cambodia. I crawled in a Vietcong war
tunnel and an epically flooded cave in Indiana. I ate gelato in Rome, snake
heart and a shot of blood in Vietnam. Got used to goat skulls and chicken claws
in soup, sucked marrow from bones, ate alligator down south and what I’m still
fairly certain was grilled road kill off the street in Ghana. Rode a gondola in
Venice, had picnics under the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, and on escarpments over
the sea. I snuck across borders, edited visas, and bribed government officials.
I swam with sharks
and rays, had a sea lion pounce on my head and laughed as whales nudged the
boat in Argentina. I saw the unearthly blue water of Jiuzhuagou in China, felt
the whipping force of Wii Falls, swam in scalding hot springs and icy glacial
run off. Biked the Angkor temples in
Cambodia in 40 heat and saw the effects of mass genocide 35 years later. I
watched the Ramayana danced in Indonesia, Carmen in Flamenco in Madrid, and
Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. Celebrated New Year in Burkina Faso, Laos, and
in Ushuaia, the fin du monde. Attended Christmas mass in a tiny church in
Timbuktu, celebrated Songkran and Loy Krathong in Thailand, Feria in Spain, and
Holi in India. Dirt biked in Laos, tubed down the Mekong, motor biked through
storms and chaos incarnate in Saigon and through monsoon floods in Thailand.
Met an African juju priest and rode with him through muddy red streets holding
a rolled up cheetah skin, couch surfed with a Chinese astrologer in Beijing and
inconvenienced an irate Indiana guru in Jaipur.
I watched every
sunrise and sunset for a month. Took a hot air balloon ride and fell off a
cliff. I helped build a school in
southern Texas, volunteered in soup kitchens, Wonderlab, marine parks, IU
auditorium, and planted trees. Road tripped to Boulder, Colorado to rock climb,
upstate NY to visit my adopted family, Toronto to visit old friends, Delaware for a music festival, Mississippi,
South Carolina, New Orleans, and all
over the Midwest. I was in incredibly
loving relationships for 7 of those 10 years.
I’ve cycled, bussed, trained, planed, hitchhiked, walked,
ran, drove, and jumped all over the world and never slowed down. I went to wine
festivals and music festivals. I’ve met
incredible people from all over the world and seen the pure and untainted generosity,
kindness, and self-less ness. I’ve seen people much smarter and more talented
than anyone I’d met before who will never get the chance to share their talents
or succeed in life due to circumstances of birth. I’ve fallen in love in
seconds and let people leave scars on my soul. I appreciated raindrops in
puddles, the clean scent of the air, the coolness of blades of green grass, the
pleasure of a smile and the ability of a small compliment to turn someone’s day
or even life around. I learned to take the time to listen to everyone, no matter
how young, uneducated, rich, poor, hopeful, or depressed because everyone has a
story to tell and every person in the world knows something you don’t know. A
small child could tell you which type of caterpillar is the tastiest and you
would have to agree that their knowledge on the subject is more comprehensive
than your own. I made wishes and said prayers, learned languages and how to
communicate without them. I learned I don’t need anything in life but my skin
and good friends. Everything else is a
bonus.
I’ve fallen off a
cliff, broken a rib, foot, fibula, fingers, and toes. I had scarlet fever and
watched my skin peel off to my fingertips and palms of my hands. I threw up on
a Muslim in the back seat of a jeep and puked and shit until I blacked out in
Benin. I survived and smiled again. I pushed people to try new things and to
have confidence in themselves. I taught people how to let go of convention and
dance naked in the rain if that’s what they want to do, to embrace life and
love it because no one is watching them anyway. The audience is in their head.
I learned that if you
are happy in the moment you are in, every other moment had to have happened
exactly as it did, no matter how miserable or painful so you must be thankful
for those moments too. I learned that life circles and swoops and loops back on
itself until all loose ends are tied up and all endings become beginnings. That
all goodbyes are followed by hello’s. I discovered that you can be anything and
anyone you want to be and even become a paradox of obvious lies because most
people simply don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves- but when you find
those that do hold tight and give them everything because they are life’s
treasures and they will teach you who you are again.
I found that everyone
you meet leaks into your story and changes you by fractions invisible and
undetected, but molds your soul and sets the stage for future moments and
decisions to come. That everything you read and see and experience is stored in
an endless and tangled tapestry who’s single stitch is unidentifiable, yet
holds the other stiches in place. That you have changed the life of everyone
you’ve ever spoken too and many others simply through obscure mentions in
stories, half-truths, and parables at the dinner table. You have most likely
influenced and impacted the lives of hundreds of people- most who you would
never recognize and will never meet. Because it is human nature to talk and
embellish and emphasize and absorb. I learned that because of this tendency of
one life to influence many, that we should always be generous and kind and
smile and laugh, hug, and dance and sing and love because they are the best
aspects of life and human nature and spread like wildfire. Meet the eyes of one
random person, really look at them and smile, give them confidence and snap
them back into the world and out of their own heads, memories, and worries of
the future and maybe they will smile, shake their heads, admire the sky for the
first time today and maybe will smile at someone else, or walk with a bounce in
their step. Their bounce, smile, or appreciation of nature might catch
someone’s notice and snap them as well until the single smile, a single moment
blooms into hundreds and life shines brighter. I learned to squash negativity
because it does no good for anyone and how to be strong for others no matter
how weak I feel.
I learned to thank everyone who helps me and take the time
to explain to friends how much they mean to me the moment I realize it. When I
love someone I tell them because it makes both of us happy and does no good to
deny or belittle it. I write long letters and send countless postcards because
I know how happy these simple things make me to receive and it only takes a few
minutes to write something that will put a smile on someone’s face for a day,
or even minute. Some people save those simple words for a lifetime. I do.
I learned that life is long if you live every second of it.
That 3 days with someone you love can leave you with a lifetime of happiness
and a week , a whole week with a good friend is enough time to explore
countries, laugh, cry, scream, hug and watch as the complicated intricacies we
see in life give way to the most beautiful simplicity imaginable. When you live
every second in the present and appreciate it for what it is the seconds become
momentous and add up to minutes and hours that change your life. I learned to
never spend time dreading the future, it will come anyway and when you live
minute to minute everything comes and goes easily and hardships pass with
barely a bump. Before you know it you will have survived things that should
have broken you down without so much as a pause.
Everything comes in
its own time and way, every experience, every moment changes you and opens new
doors and pathways that were invisible yesterday but are irresistible today.
There is no predicting the future but you can have faith in the fact that
everyone you have met you will meet again and every moment is reflected in
another. All threads set down will be picked up to form a different pattern
later and there is no such thing as an ending.
June 26, 2013 I sat on the shore of Lake Ontario outside of
Toronto and held my best friend as she cried. I put my chin on her head and
stroked her hair and gazed at the stars, feeling once again that feeling that
been growing for months now, the feeling that something, some chapter is coming
to a close. Everything has been rocketing by for years and has kept speeding up
until it reached the point where I struggle to keep control. I told people I
was coming home for good, that I, for the first time want to settle down for a
while. No one believed me. Their doubt was pervasive and even I could barely
imagine slowing down, let alone stopping. I even accepted a job offer in
Columbia for August . But then I realized that no one knows me better than me
and no one has ever been able to tell me what I want or what I need to be
happy, so I turned down starting a new life in a new country. I decided to bike
across Iowa instead of the continental US and road trip up to Canada to see my
best friend in the world and my sole connection to my life in Asia. So we sat
on the rocks, tear stained and dry eyed, trying to appreciate all the
unsurpassable moments we’ve shared together and trust in the strength of our
friendship to survive this one last, currently indefinite separation. The
feeling that had been building up as I prepared for my big trip, that loomed
larger in China and Vietnam and swelled at the Canadian border as it occurred
to me to let my passport, already twice filled, lapse in the upcoming months
finally burst into the shocking yet solid and impregnable realization that this
is where it ends. The thing that felt like an ending wasn’t just Thailand or
couch surfing or travel but the entire incredible, exhausting, beautiful, and
epic life I’ve been leading for the past 10 years.
My earring, the metal loop that’s been in my upper ear for 8
years now, never once removed had started irritating me in China. I wondered
why I had never taken it out or changed it in all these years. Wondered if I
could get it out after 8yrs of salt water, diving, island living, Africa, South
America and Central America, Asia and Europe, deserts, mountains, and glaciers.
After all, it had survived the biting and nibbling of the boys, the rock
concerts and camping, skydiving and everything else. Suddenly sitting with Joy
on the rocks of Lake Ontario I knew I wanted it out. It had suddenly become a
symbol of a past life that I was leaving behind and I wanted all tokens of it
gone so I could begin again fresh. Joy helped me get it out and after a few
minutes of work I held a semi loop and a small ball with 2 indents. It wasn’t
even a full loop. That earring survived all of that precariously balanced between
2 ends of metal. I circled it in my palm for a while then stood up and sent it
spinning into the lake. Relief was instant and flooded through me. Instead of
crying I was laughing and felt free. Joy was confused but understood that this
was what I had kept mentioning in bits and pieces, confusing even me until this
moment. It felt perfect sharing the last moment of my old life with my best
friend who has become such an integral part of it in the last year and who
understands how my path has wound in upon itself lately. She has been my
receptacle for worries, tidbits of wisdom, lessons learned around the way and
is the first person I’ve trusted in six years. Feeling confidant and peaceful
and calm I walked with clear eyes back to the car with Joy and though we still
had more tears to cry the next morning it was okay.
I cut off my bracelet
given to me in October by a priest during the Vegetarian festival in Phuket,
the bracelet given to me by the H’mong woman I planted rice with in Vietnam, my
dive master watch, my compass that guided me through China, and the hair ties
that held my flip flops on during the Comino de Santiago. I packed my old
bumper stickered trunk with all my journals, tickets, concert stubs, love
letters, certifications, and photos and closed it.
Today I start fresh, begin a new chapter in life, carrying
through all that I’ve learned about living in the moment, appreciating the
small things, embracing friendship, treasuring friends, sharing smiles,
spreading joy, impacting the world through optimism, hope, and love. Listening
to everyone’s story, encouraging small steps and giant leaps, finding the
beauty in everything and exploring. It’s not that I’m stopping the adventure,
I’m just taking a step back to finally repay the world for all that it has
given me and share all that I’ve learned and begin to give back all the
kindness and generosity I’ve received. I’ve lived enough for lifetimes and now
I want to help others do the same, to help people realize that life is what you
make it and you always have the ability to change it and start again. That life
is something to be treasured, appreciated, respected, and LIVED.
