The difficulties of a life well-lived

I guess I have to put this in here, why, because it's real. It's stupid and silly and idiotic and I feel dumb, but none of these change the fact...it's real. I'm poised on the edge trying to make a big decision here. It's something I've been kind of torn about all week...excited, yet full of trepidation. Why's it stupid? Because a) it's not a big decision, and b) why the hell should I be scared?

I guess the truth is I know why I should be scared. And I am. I consider myself a generally fearless person, but I won't lie, there is one thing that can usually get me more than anything else if anything is going to. The past. I. LOVE. My past. And as such, it can be very hard to move on. Oh I can do it; fortunately one of the attributes I acquired in my development was adaptability and well-adjustedness...but it only helps so far. I guess one of my other qualities/curses was a deeply ingrained sense of passion and love. A curse, you say? How so, a curse, to love, to be passionate?

You haven't been listening to my last diatribes, have you?

Yes, I embrace the past, present, and future as a trinity more holy to me than any so-named Deity...but I lament each equally as well. I'm a Libra, these things happen. I must be balanced at all costs, to a fault, even against my own conscious will.

What am I on about?

I want to go to Flagstaff. I mean, I AM going to Flagstaff...I'm pretty much positive about it now. I took a half hour to soul-search even after my initial plans fell through and put it in a spin (for being supposedly so balanced, you have to understand, it's a tricky balance, and I can be easily thrown off...but fortunately it's never long before I can rebalance my tipped scales, you see). I decided yes I do want to go still. But yes, I don't want to go every bit as much as I do want to.

I want to go to Casa Bonita, to the Thai place that good god I can't even remember its name now, to north campus, to the Union, to Wilson, to the Com building, to the language building. I want to go downtown and to Uptown Billiards and to the pedway and the bookstore and the mailboxes. But I don't want to. Because I can feel it from here, and it's wrenching. It's the same but it's not the same. It's my life but it's not my life. I'm like a ghost walking through there and I know it already and I hate hate hate hate hate that. YES I've moved on and YES I've done great things and YES I enjoyed it fully WHILE I was there and YES I'm happy now and YES I've got bigger things than EVER just over my horizon...but...I am a ghost who can travel through time, but have not grasped yet how to bring the others with me. I can walk on those same footsteps that were mine, and theirs, and I can already from Tucson feel them, but where are they? Sjoerd, Tina, AJ, Erika, Angie, Jenny, Mark, Laura, Kathryn, John, Keith, Cammy, Mary, Peter, Joseph, Brad...all scattered to the wind. Even those who are still there are not Mine, not as they were. The Scott who remains has evolved in my life just as everything else. Even when we hang out and drink beer together on the river 6 years later and time and interaction must dictate by now that we're true friends...he's still my boss. In my heart, he'll always be my boss. Sjoerd, god, more than across the world...so far away from my LIFE. It's not so bad, mostly, I know that everything went as it should and as it could, but down here it's not so bad...there, it's as if he's in my arms again...I can feel our imprints in the ground. It's an interesting thing, to be able to time-travel interdimensionally, it is, and I guess I'm glad I can do it...but GOD!!

AJ and I walked that pedway, in a different time. Talk about an alternate universe...talk about nothing but a faded memory.

I have to stop. I've cried my way through this post more than I've cried about anything for a very long time. It's getting late and I want to get up there early. I want to be there sucking up every ounce of it I can, for as long as I can. I know it's only torture...but it's a necessary evil for me. It's not closure, I'll never have that so long as I can walk the halls of memory, not with place and not with people. But it's more than nostalgia too, it's necessity. I guess to keep myself connected. It's been a long time since I've felt emotion...I guess it's to keep myself connected to myself.