Sunsets and Oceans
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
When I awoke today the first thought that crossed my mind as my eyes were half open and the parts that were exposed, a quarter sleepy, was that tomorrow, at this time, I’m going to be on my way to the airport to go home. An immense excitement swept over me. The next moment I thought, “what am I going to do to enjoy my last day abroad?”
I arrived in Noordwijk, Netherlands yesterday, greeted by my long time friend, Aileen and it’s a small seaside town, much like Seaside or Cannon Beach in Oregon. It’s tiny, a few strips with store fronts, beach clubs that are temporary restaurants set up for the peak season, excluding the one I sit in now, De Zeemeeuw, which is open year round, and vacation homes all around. If there is one thing I’ve learned in my travels, it’s I like to walk the shit out of the cities I’m in. As Aileen’s girlfriend, Florianne, left to support her friend who is suing the country for infringement on personal identity due to a new policy where everyone who applies to get a passport must have all of their finger prints taken and stored in some database, I headed off in the other direction to walk to the beach.
I made my way to the beach front strip and found a book store, since I finished Veronika Decides to Die in a day (I need to stop doing that), purchased The Alchemist, which I’m also probably going to finish in a day and made my way through the dunes of the Netherlands coast. It’s a beautiful morning, the sun rose and people of all ages and kinds were peddling their bikes along the path, some returning from running errands with bottles of milk clanking in the bags attached to the back of their bikes, some just enjoying the day, as I was. I parked my ass on the sand, bundled up with my gloves, 4 layers of clothing and read my book until the tide came up to where I was sitting, which didn’t take more than a few pages of reading.
Amsterdam was filled with a disgusting hostel, lots of drinking of crappy beer, great times with amazing friends from all over Europe, beautiful woman in a LESBIAN bar (gasp, I know since that’s generally an oxymoron!), sweet kisses, almost getting into trouble in Absolute Danny for breaking (even though I didn’t) a pair of thigh high rubber boots, eating amazingly delicious dutch pancakes, walking, reading, relaxing oh and I wrote my first set of song lyrics! Diana asked me if I would and said she would put the words to song so I’m pretty excited to see what she comes up with. Poetry is usually what I’ve written in the past so it was a pretty smooth mental process once I had an idea. I’m pretty sure I actually wrote it entirely when we were walking back from lunch to our gross hostel. I will say, I wasn’t sad to say good bye to Amsterdam yesterday.
Today though, I couldn’t have asked for a better last day of adventuring, even though today, I’m doing exactly what I would do if I was on the other side of the world.
Below is an entry I wrote a few days ago…
Xxx,
Bruised and excited to come home and see my loves!
Bruised and excited to come home and see my loves!
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Are You Easy to Love?
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Call this a special Valentine’s Edition of my journal, which is only indirectly related to my travels. I’ve been very reflective lately, wait, what am I talking about? I’m always reflective, which is sometimes the death of me. Rome asked this question to Mandy and Mary when she was driving them to Johannesburg and she asked me the same question days later and I’ve had to think about it. “Are you easy to love?” It’s not exactly an easy question to answer and chances are, if your answer involves a shit ton of caveats, even if you answered, “yes,” you’re not really. So here’s my answer – Yes!
Caveat time? No, not exactly. I have a heart that is probably bigger than my entire being and it’s mushy, really really mushy. It’s important to me that all those in my life who I love, admire and appreciate know it as often as possible and I do my best to SHOW people how much they mean to me, not just tell them. I’m an open book, honest and I’m not afraid to say what’s on my mind, whether it be saying, “I love you” or having the more difficult conversations. Sometimes I fault myself for being too open and speaking my mind and heart too freely because it’s fucking scary sometimes. I may be a feather, drifting with the wind at the moment but I know who I am, what I want out of my life, myself and my potential partner and it’s pretty fucking intense sometimes. I wrote a letter a few months ago telling someone I had been in love with her since the day I met her. I kicked myself in the ass about it a few weeks after but one of my friends reminded me, “you have strong feelings and no one can fault you for being yourself and saying what’s in your heart.” Is it easy to deal with my intensity? Probably not but time on this earth is short and I would rather tell someone how I feel rather than let countless days, weeks, months and years pass without ever saying a thing, at whatever the risk but sometimes I scare even myself with how intense I can get and not knowing how to dial it back.
There’s love but then there’s also a relationship and am I easy to be with in one of those? I have NO fucking idea! My last serious relationship completely and totally changed me as a person, it took a very long time to regain who I was, and I don’t know if any residual effects have been left but I fear there are some. I went from a completely confident, independent, self-assured person to one who was completely insecure, untrusting and dependant. I was completely unlovable and I hated who I became. After being in a ridiculously unhealthy relationship for almost a year and a half with someone who was a perpetual liar from day one, I about lost my marbles and became rather nuts. My mom even voiced her concern at one point but I was completely blind to my changes. It’s been my goal since then to not only get back to being me but being a better me. I worry there are still some things I need to sort through but then I only know that once I’m dating someone I’m really into, which isn’t often, and then I worry I’ll lose someone amazing because I have to work to sort out past issues. I know, if that person is really amazing they will be patient but I don’t want anyone to have to be patient with me. I want to just be a ball of awesomeness from the start dammit! J Now I’ve put myself in a situation where it’s almost impossible to get close to someone with all the travel plans I have in store. I’m not traveling to keep people or my feelings at a distance but I can’t say that didn’t play a small role in my decision to do what I’m doing either. This is a dream being realized and I’m so excited for it but that’s another thing that makes me easy to love but hard to actually get close to. I do want to find someone to be close to though, who supports me in everything I want to do and someone whose dreams I can also support. My days of gaily gallivanting around town are over since my recent past experiences have been nothing short of amazing on every imaginable level and anything else would just seem pointless and leave me feeling empty, physically, emotionally and mentally. I’ve made a conscious decision to not sell myself short on any of life’s experiences and my relations with others being one of the big and potentially amazing experiences available. So here I sit, alone, in my hostel room half way around the world from my home, listening to Adele (the old one but I cannot wait to get home and get the new one) knowing that things will all fall into place, when the time is right, when the person is right and when I’m ready because right now, as easy as I am to love, I’m not sure I’m ready to be loved, which makes me impossible to love. I guess my answer should be changed to "NO" then huh? ;)
So, are you easy to love?
Oh and btw, Amsterdam, has been fun J
xxx,
Dirty
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