I know what you're thinking. You're thinking why has she been away so long. You're probably assuming that I was so consumed by my writing that I just couldn't fit updating my blog in my busy yet eccentric writer's schedule. You're thinking I wonder what new advice she'll have after all this time away practicing. Either that or your thinking, this isn't the page I searched for.
In either case, I'm afraid I have disappointed you. Over the last, however long its been, I quit university, I ran away on a road trip around Australia, I met several hippies, went vegan for about 2 hours, and I wrote a total of zero words. Well there were directions and shopping lists. But I just don't think 'second exit at the roundabout', and 'don't forget lube' is all that intriguing. Well maybe a little, but you can read about it in my other, much saucier blog.
I've been doing too many fun adventury things, and I've not been keeping a journal, and now I wish I had. I wish I had every secret whispered into my ear written down. I wish I recounted as it happened, every stroke of my hair, every feeling that rushed through me as I climbed rocks, and hiked mountains and had panic attacks and had fights about how anxiety cannot be cured through healthy eating and about all the funny things I thought of on the road and all of the mixed emotions as I let someone into my heart after so long of it being empty and the feeling of being held so tightly and the feeling of saying goodbye and crying in my car. I will try to grasp at these memories, desperately clutching at the words that will keep them safe for me until I one day look back on my experiences and smile at the life I've lived and the people I've shared it with, but not yet.
I will do this when I am home. When I am home I will start working seriously on my novel. When I am home I will start writing memories of my life, because so far it is the only thing I know how to write with the honesty and feeling that I see in my favourite authors. When I am home I will figure out a schedule for updating this blog, along with my personal one, and my youtube as well.
When I am home, I will sit and write 9am til 5pm every day until I produce something of worth.
Right now I need sleep. I have an 11 and a half hour drive tomorrow and an 8 and a half hour drive the following day. Its harder without my French man directing me, not the driving or navigation, it just feels so empty without him. This will go away, and I will recover, but there's something kind of beautiful about missing someone. It feels like a really healthy kind of sadness.
People die in car crashes all the time. And so in the event of an accident, I want to record how happy and free I've felt. I pray sometimes and my faith is weak but there. I sin often, but I am forgiven.
My time with Baptiste, and just my time pushing myself to go beyond my own fears has been the best I've known. Sometimes I used to have intense euphoric highs followed by this impenetrable darkness with a numb feeling to it. My sister asked me once if I had manic depression. Maybe I did, I'm not sure. But this time, this happiness, was more substantial, nothing crazy or over the top but a strong feeling I could really depend on. There were no shallow stories of crazy drunken nights out, that led to more wild times. It was more serious, more stern, with 'what would you like for lunch' conversations and feeling sick together from that rich pasta sauce I made us and those tired embraces every time we reached our destination that ended up as just falling on each other trying to rest just for a second before we had to check in. There were warm smiles and holding hands and closing my eyes to the sun on my face after such a cold winter. There was the strange sensation of having sex with someone who wasn't just in it for the sex. With someone who thought, thinks I am cool and likes hanging out and talking more than anything physical anyway, but that is a nice part too.
And then there was music and politics and sisters and festivals which have enriched every moment, and in two days I will be home and my travels will be over, and I'm not sad, because I am too busy being happy that I had all of these opportunities. I have experienced life. It's like when you smell real earth, or dirt. Its not like candy, or hot chocolate, or flowers, but you breathe in heavily because you know your smelling something real, something with substance and something that is down to its depths, good.
