Change

Becoming an adult is a curious mixture of happy and sad events, mundane accumulation of experience and dramatic accumulation of experiences. In a way I've grown from winter camping in Norway, from canyoning in Spain, from mastering the German public transit system like any native. And I've grown from the day to day tasks of paying rent, and filling prescriptions, and studying, and balancing, and I'm actually looking forward in a way to staying in this summer and working and saving. And in a way I've grown from graduation, from that beautiful 17th of May, from standing underneath the Miyajima gate, from watching the Missouri river freeze. And I've grown from fights and heartbreaks and what's going on right now.

And then there are moments, checkpoints where you realize things have changed a lot, and you make real choices for yourself beyond what you could have imagined before. When you 'casually' book a last minute plane flight no one told you you needed to take, which won't be easy and won't be fun, but it's the right thing to do and in a way, it's where you need to be.

And you realize things have changed quite a lot. And half of you says its good, and half of you says its bad but it really doesn't matter, it's just inevitable. Because childhood had its charms but also its chains, and we can't just live in a fairy land of fjords and fjells and fantasy forever. The process is painful. But there are always beautiful moments. To think only of the good or the bad is a mistake. Don't forget, you had sad days, even in paradise. Don't forget there was joy, even in the darkness. There will always be people to be there for you, and there will always be people who let you down. Sometimes, usually even, they are the same people. With some of them I'd like to say that I passed the love, passed the pain, passed the poison and now I see it all clearly, but we always think we see clearly from the place we're standing, don't we? And you see, they don't realize how inconsistent they're being, because they are, all of them, consumed by their own infinite complexity - just as I am. It's a weird sentient thing.

And choices are still ahead, and they stretch wider and wider as all the old structures, restrictions, safety nets are all breaking down. Funny how its the same things in life that hold us close, keep us safe, keep us down. And when they start to break down, wear out, fall away you start to see the world in that sort of terrible beauty they always called sublime, and realize that, really, all that's stopping you is the frailty of your body and the inflexibility of your mind.

Driftwood

Everything is open
Nothing is set in stone
Rivers turn to ocean
Oceans tide you home

Home is where your heart is
But your heart had to roam
Drifting over bridges
Never to return
Watching bridges burn

And you really didn't think it would happen
But it really is the end of the line
So I'm sorry that you turned to driftwood
But you've been drifting for a long long time


- Driftwood, Travis