Reflection

Another night slips away. When you spend most of your nights alone, be they under star-filled skies surrounded by silhouetted mountains, or be they under pulsing lines of electricity on the second floor of a third-rate hotel in a first world country, I can't help but view my time with friends and family as increasingly precious. Some activity hobbyists consider themselves weekend warriors, working during the week days (as if Saturday and Sunday don't comprise two of the seven days of the week, which simple computation shows to be 28.5 percent) to perform physically on the weekends. The schedule to which I have conformed these last few years is an expanded view of this. What if, instead of holding out for weekends, you were to hold out for a season of 3 or 4 out of 12 months? How long can you hold your breathe while diving deeper into work? These prolonged dives from one extreme to the other are becoming harder to share, and harder to explain. Most importantly, they make it harder to relate to people and vice versa. This blog started as a way to share the experiences of a trip after college to South America. I'm posed to turn 30. Many of my childhood friends and sweethearts are married. This past year, two new friends of mine left this world, turned back into stardust, to rest on a shoulder as a butterfly or twinkle in the lonely night sky on some forlorn summit I work all year to gain. I thought by now I'd have it all figured out. Some theory proven. Some gal found. Some cause I could connect with that I'd have taken by the horns, therein fulfilling the college tagline, "Think one person can change the world? So do we." I was in such a rush. But all these explosive moments give me pause. What's the rush? Mortality. If you love someone, you should tell them. If someone makes you happy, you should tell them. The corollary is usually more sticky and I've found difficulty with it, even with all the training in dealing with conflict as a middle child. In my experience, it's easier to solve other people's problems or approach them with an an aire of objectivity. But I digress. I guess all I have to say is still a Frank Ocean quotation: Thinkin Bout you. I hope all my friends and family are safe out there and are finding the balance in life that they seek. Though our paths do oft diverge, they are not divergent.

-n8