The sun was a gold disc, blurred by salt patterned windows; the horizon a bleary somewhere else. We drive the way of tackle shops, motor stores and cheap motels. The roads lined with general stores and diners that belong to people like Frank and Al and Nana. I listen to a melancholy playlist and that song comes on. The song that fits like a second skin. The song I carry with me always.
We drive until the sun disappears, until the lights of the city appear in its place. After five stale hours, the children two seats ahead get antsy. We adults wish that we, too, could whine are we there yet? We’ve places to be, but mostly we’re tired of between.
Twenty six hours in another city. The heaviest hours I’ve felt in a long time, passing both slowly and too fast: burdened by the weight of sadness and carried by love. I pass on the songs that carried me here and hope they will offer some strength.
My memories are full of Greyhound buses. Of looking at my face in window reflections on buses, trains and planes. Tired eyes and bedraggled hair look better in the forgiving dark glass. I watch one city disappear and another appear in the fog before dawn, and I think of a quote I heard years ago:
Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.
- John le Carre
“Sometimes people ask me how you can be best friends with someone you only see twice a year. All I can say is, when it comes to Fae, my other half, how can I not?” - March 9, 2009
There have been times in my life, crying in front of a computer screen, that the distance has seemed like too much. Times when all I want is to be able to be there for my best friend the way you’re supposed to be. There with a pint of ice cream. There with a hug. There with a shoulder to cry on.
Somehow, we made words enough. Black and white on computer screens or cell phones. Words have power, and usually that was enough.
It’s not enough this time. The words are useless. Being here for her isn’t as good as being there for her.
There is a whole new level to long distance relationships. The part that means when something awful happens, you can’t be there in an instant. Can’t sit beside the hospital bed. Can’t hold her hand. Can’t make her soup.
The distance has been killing me for 34 days. It has never seemed for far. I have never ever felt so useless.
But I wish my car could drive to her tonight
Then I’d know everything is gonna be alright
Yes then I’d know it’ll be alright
-Joshua Radin
I need to move. I have never known how to be happy here.
The end.
I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of people lately.
I haven’t had much money since September, and I’ve had absolutely none since New Year’s. It really limits what I can do. I want to be able to go out, but everything always costs money and it gets really stressful sometimes.
I can’t even count the number of times in the last 6 months that one of my friends has bought me a drink. Or dinner. Or concert tickets. A coffee. Anything. It amazes me that people are always looking out for me. It amazes me that they want to spend time with me so much that they’ll pay my share.
Though there are many things I want and need when I finally get a job and have an income, my priority is to slowly start paying my friends back for their generosity. As much as I can.
Maybe all people aren’t good, but my friends sure are.
I’ve been working through this post in my head for exactly 4 days, 13 hours, 59 minutes and 15 seconds.
It’s not about resolutions.
I don’t think I believe in resolutions. At least, I don’t believe in them for me. I already have my list of 100 things to do before I die. Sometimes at the beginning of a year I’ll pick a few of those that I think I can accomplish by the end of the year. When I was in high school and university, I would usually write a little list of about 5 things I wanted to do over the summer. They were always achievable things. The summer I was 14 I taught myself to shuffle. The summer I was 17 I taught myself to French braid my hair. The summer I was 21 I taught myself to sit up straight. But I do horribly with concepts that you can’t measure. Things that I can’t definitively cross off a list. And, honestly, if I make a list that I can’t finish it drives me crazy.
Okay, I lied, it’s about resolutions.
But I don’t have any. Not really. It’s more like I’ve come up with a philosophy.
If you’re reading my blog then you already know that these past four months have been some of the hardest of my life. There are a lot of things outside of my control that I have been working against, to change. And I’ve had a few conversations with Fae and Kaitlyn recently about what type of things I should accept in life and which things I should work to change.
Because life sucks. But I’m stronger than that, right?
There are things in my life that suck. Things that I can’t change. Things that require patience and courage and perseverance.
What I can change is how they effect me. What I can change is how I see my circumstances. What I can change is what I make of my life.
And the true task isn’t being happy when everything’s great, it’s finding a way to be happy when everything isn’t.
I’ve already started to make some changes in my life this year. Little things that I can change. And hopefully I’ll slowly work up to the big things and I’ll spend 2011 learning how to be happy when things aren’t exactly as I might wish them to be.
And this girl? I’ve proof that she still exists.
death, friendship, life, love, travel | Hezabelle March 7, 2011 | 
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