Man on Fire

I messed up.

In running back home to heal I accidentally stumbled upon something beautiful.

And I am heartbroken.

I have never had the courage to live alone. I have always seen singularity as a weakness. But that has changed.

When the one who loves Rock and Roll left after a week in my land and my new apartment, I drove home for dinner. It was grey, I missed having a companion. And then something happened. Somewhere between exit 185 and 183C, I got tired of being lonely.

And I thought back to my entire life. I am the only kin. My childhood consisted of entire days of me wandering the hills of the country, playing with the sky. Because there was nothing else to talk to.

I have been alone my entire life. I will be alone for a good portion of the rest of it. I decided I was done being lonely. That even if it killed me, I was going to learn how to be happy being alone. I was going to find solitude.

Unfortunately, I found it a lot sooner than I expected.

I found it in a little apartment three floors up, with french stairs and a view of the river. I found it in the crazy dining room table I somehow designed and built. I found it in the peace that comes from knowing my space is exactly the same as I left it. I found it in the introspection that a warm winter brings. I found it in not having anyone else to blame but myself.

I have become more patient. I listen to the words of songs now. I sit at my table in the mornings and drink my coffee and read the news. In the evenings, I write, I paint, I dance with Apple to Rock and Roll. And part of me wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

The problem is, this peace seems to only exist in this space. Solitude vanishes when I open the door. And it makes me wonder if it's Richmond I love or simply my own world.

A world I completely control.

I am so stuck between this peace and the west. Of moving into a house full of lively strangers in a very far away place and going into a program that is going to rock my world and my career. I wish the electricity in my bones had settled down before I found peace. If I never go west

I will always regret not knowing.

But I am so scared of never finding this peace again. It is still so fresh, so young. It is not quite muscle memory yet. I keep looking down to figure out how my feet landed so surely.

There are moments in my life where I am fully aware that I am living in the past. There's a calmness that comes with going through motions you know are fleeting. I felt it in pieces at Hampshire, and I feel it here.

Who knew peace could be such a difficult state to exist in.