sometimes motion is the only thing that keeps us alive

so, while i am here, i am mostly just relaxing. certainly not exploring, and it is dragging on a bit. i have been making some headway in contacting people that i knew in the past and want to at least see again, but my nervous fear oftentimes overtakes me and i am left with a number of ways of contacting a person, and not doing it. ah, well, so much for confidence.

on saturday my mom requested my attendance to some gathering of people from her family. technically they would be family as well, except i havent seen most of them for over a decade and their names and reasons for relation sometimes escape me. i didnt want to go, but i didnt really have anything better to do and it was a good excuse for not getting on to talking to the people i actually want to see.

anyway, i had to get up very early to meet my mom and sister at my moms house, because (again for some unknown reason) we had to be the very first people there. and, from this, i have discovered the source of one of my neuroses.

something that i want to overcome is my interpretation of time. and being on it. see, i am a very on time person, so much that i would consider ten minutes early being right on time, being somewhere right at the time specified would be late, and to show up after a specified time would be a heinous offense. i never really knew why i was like that, i have just always been and i dont even really like it, but i am anxious about it.

part of it is that i like to get to a place early and get a feel for the layout that i will be operating in, when i rode my bike it was becasue i wanted to have time to cool down once i arrived, when i drove my truck it was so i would have time to deal with any unforeseen problems. when i was working, it was to the point that i arrived up to a half hour early and just sat in my truck. it was bad. towards the end i think i was just trying to get outside of my home life and into the world for something to happen, but nothing ever really did.

anyway, my mom is the same way, and since i have only seen her rarely over the last ten years of my life i have to assume that i got this condition from her and not the other way around. i joked with my mom about wanting to be the first people there, i asked her why she felt compelled towards that distinction and she had no viable answer, but i didnt explain my reasons, or that i am the same way. i dont recall if i wanted too, but the conversation never drifted that way. anyway, i think now that i know the source, it will be easier to overcome it. also, my sister is the same way.

i rode to jack and tish's house with my sister, my mom drove ahead of us with her dad and aunt and husband. we arrived about 10:30 in the morning, and were the very first people there. we sat outside in a little corner and talked. about an hour later some other folks started showing up, at least one of which hadnt seen me since i was a tyke and many of which i never even knew. by the time my uncle showed up and confessed to not knowing who is was, becky said it was time to leave. fine by me, but we didnt have anything else going on, so she dropped me at my truck and i went back to my dads house.

later in the evening i went with my dad to a birthday party. it was for my cousin abby, turning 5 or 6 years old. she is the daughter of my stepmoms sister and i know this side of the family much better and was excited to see some of them. we went to a pizza place and hung out there for awhile, with my aunts and their kids and some other people. it was a nice time.

the next day was a lost day, there have been a number of them. however, in the evening i got in touch with alex and we went to see some movies. we went to see inglourious basterds, and i stayed on to see district 9. they were both good films and it was nice to be out and about again, even if it was just to the movies. afterwards i convinced alex to go barhopping with me.

the bars were the ones that i figured people that i went to high school with or that i knew from growing up here would frequent, but it was a sunday evening and many of them were dead. the barhopping wasnt very fun but i like hanging out with alex. we didnt see anyone that we were looking for and i feel it is time to give up on my dream scenario. i painted it for alex: that i would walk into a bar and it would be packed with everyone i ever knew from my life and i could just ask them anything i ever wanted to know and they would tell me the truth, but wouldnt remember anything and i would remember everything.

some of that i just made up now, but i dont think any of it will ever really happen. so much for dreams.

on monday i went into the town of valparaiso and walked around. it was almost like being back on the road, which is something that i am craving. my premise for being there was looking at apartments. i was doing this for my brother, but it was actually pretty interesting. i may use it when i am in different cities, you know, as a way to get good pictures or see different things or gain access to a place that i want to be inside of, etc.

i only looked at two places and made an appointment for a third. then i rushed home expecting the mail that would set my trip for the next six months. my registration papers from emily. the mail had come but they didnt leave the express mail, and i couldnt pick it up until the next morning. what a waste of $18! why couldnt they just leave it in the mailbox, or make it available at the post office the same day i was unhappy, but got over it pretty quickly.

the next day came and i got together everything i needed. i had a package full of books to send back west, $350 to pay my insurance for the next six months, and all the things necessary to send back my registration. i went to the post office and got that shit done! i also had to pay $54 for registration, which i wasnt expecting, so i took a hit of $400 in one day. but, i havent been spending very much money the last two weeks or so and i should be able to recoup at least half of it before i actually set off again. still, that is a big dent in my savings.

i was on a high from that and some good news rolled in. a phone number for a person that i have been trying to reach. i figured that i had no more excuses for putting things off and got into the build-up-the-courage-to-call mode. that lasted a couple of hours and i never actually built it up. it is strange too, because i had a phone number for this person and called that already. there is so much truth it this line "actions come easy its the moments just before that are hard." for me, the hours just before, whatever.

instead of finding it in myself to call this person, someone else called me. and i was extremely happy for it. her name is abbie and i knew her for a couple months when i was 17 or 18 years old. strangely i dont think any of my others friends from that time knew her and certainly do not remember her in the same way i do. for some reason, in the decade or so since i last saw her i built her up in my mind quite a bit. she was a couple of years older than me (still is) and just had this love of life and adventure that i internalized and feel like i made real.

i dont know if the way i remember her or the attributes i associate with her are accurate, but thats the way it works. anyway, she called me and invited me to come to the beach to help her look for beach glass. that seemed like a really fun thing to do, especially since i was procrastinating on calling someone and this fell into my lap. i told her i would meet her in a half hour or so and readied myself.

i had the biggest smile on my face when i was driving out there, how romantic is the idea of finding (or meeting, whatever) someone that you have built up so many things around in your head walking down the beach looking for glass. i called when i got there, but thought better of it and instead walked along the beach, so we could just run into each other, and we found each other rather quickly. i knew it was her from the tattoo she has above her breast. and that embarrassed me.

see, we never got up to having sex when we knew each other but we did spend a fair amount of time (in my memory) around each other without any clothes on. i wish that i had the words to explain the effect that had on me at a young age right now, but i just dont. i smile with happiness and regret, becasue i appreciate the things that i learned from her and regret that at the time i didnt embrace the experiences.

anyway, as with everyone else we got on pretty well rather quickly and walked along the beach talking and looking for glass. we spent about four hours walking the beach and hiking through some trails, just talking about the things life has done to us over the years. and it was awesome. we capped it off by watching the sunset on the beach having a picnic. when we parted ways, i wanted more to come of it, i had such a good time. but that sting of wanting and not getting is part of what i want out of this journey.

i want to see all of the people and things that have passed through my life and see them better off than me, i want to see them happier and i want to envy their lives. i am unsure why, maybe it is because although i was unhappy with my life recently i have absolutely never had real regrets about my life or envied someones elses life. like the time thing, it is something i am trying to get over.