two zero one seven

I always liked digging through my old New Year's posts. On some level they're nothing special, of course--just some meditations on the new year and the old, on the events and feelings and thoughts that make up the world. But they reflect the time in which they were written, they remind me of who I was, what was happening at the time. Sometimes, occasionally, you can even see the narrative running between them, if you know how to look.

In December of 2015, for instance, I wrote this. It's all true--this exact sequence of events happened, that is, and it stuck in my brain the way these things do. It had been a rough year, but the worst was over, and as I was trying to make sense of the year that story appeared in my mind, as if to remind me that the night won't last forever.

Everything feels so fragile right now, but remembering this woman on the wayside put a smile on my lips, if nothing else. Another mystery to puzzle over, another moment of serendipity to add to the collection. It's nice. And maybe she's still right: maybe everything is okay. Maybe we're moments away from turning this all around. It's a hope worth fighting for, I think.

If you're reading this there's a good chance you've noticed I've been writing here again lately. It had been a while, for many reasons, some good, some less good, but visiting some old friends and reading over some old stories reminded me how much I loved doing this. There will be more in the future, I think, exploring characters new and old.

So then. To my friends and comrades, thank you so much. You've helped make this year bearable in a thousand ways, and I cannot properly express how much that means to me. Thank you for lending me your strength, for laughing with me (and, let's be fair, at me), and for giving me an anchor to which I can tether myself.

To my old acquaintances: you have absolutely not been forgotten. You've all shaped my life in some small way, and it always makes my day when I hear from you.

To any strangers on the wayside: I hope you find what you're looking for. I hope everything is okay.

Finally, I'll conclude by stealing the valediction from that 2015 post: A toast, then, to strangers on the wayside, to old friends, and to everything finally being okay.

Happy 2018.

never brought to mind

I finally made it back to Portland (the one in Maine) after our little holiday adventure. Christmas is for family; New Year's is for me. It's fuck-off cold outside and I didn't pack my best winter gear, but it's only about a mile from the train station to my house so I figured, you know, fuck it, I'll walk.

I've always liked walking. It's peaceful, and everything looks so different when you actually have time to look at it. And tonight it reminds me of a New Year's Eve many years ago when it was just about as cold as this, and I was just as under-dressed. I had youth and absinthe to fortify me against the cold. Both, I suppose, were gradually wearing off as I walked (the latter rather quicker than the former).

Everything seemed so much clearer back then, and not just because I was drunk on wormwood and hopelessly in love with a girl I'd known for about a month and felt like I already knew intimately. (It turned out, of course, she wasn't into girls. C'est la vie.) Even stone cold sober there was this sense of progress, this sense that anything was possible. There was a lot of bullshit out there, of course, but it was exactly like the cold: so long as we kept moving forward, it didn't matter. We stopped moving forward, of course, and when I got back to the house I was living in at the time the hot water was broken and it was still cold inside, and I wrapped myself in all the blankets I owned and a couple coats for good measure and huddled in bed and dreamed of warmer times.

So tonight as I walk home I'm wondering what the girl I was back then would have thought of today. I know she'd be horrified, but what would she think, looking forward? What would she think of me? Would she hate me for giving up, for hiding from the world? Would she think I'm foolish that even after everything this past few years have thrown at me and at the world I'm still allowing myself that sense of hope? Did we have anything in common besides living in the same body at different times, walking back home in the bitter cold, pretending it's not getting to us?

It's so easy to neglect the people we've been. And, yeah, past-me was insufferable and idiotic at times. But every now and then, when I take the time to reflect on auld lang syne, she startles me with some insight that I'd since forgotten. There's so much more to her than heartache and regret and failed hopes.

many weary miles

I was going to say we went home for the holidays, Elle and me, traveling to the icy desert where we grew up, but sometimes I wonder what the word "home" even means. It sure as hell doesn't mean listening to that one cousin with hella dubious politics harassing your sister. And it doesn't mean drinking too much wine in the hopes that it will make your eye stop twitching, and then finally just snarling "leave her alone you fucking neckbeard" and glaring until he slinks away to sulk.

But everyone goes home at night and then it's just us in our folks' old house, with the yard all covered in snow and the air so cold it hurts, and sometimes the two of us in the old hot tub, staring up at the stars and counting constellations, and maybe that's home. That strange combination of beautiful and painful, the cold seeping into your bones like memories. The hot water keeps it all at bay, but it's still there. Just like memories, the cold never really goes away. There was probably a time I didn't think that there could be anything painful about home, that if it was painful it couldn't possibly be home, but now I think I have that backwards. You can't have home without pain anymore than you can have home without beauty.

Life has happened since we lived here. When I first moved out, I wanted to forget this town ever existed, but lately I'm spending more and more time thinking of the old times--the stories I'd write about cities before I knew what cities were like; all the misadventures with friends, each of us determined to get the hell out of this place; all the anger that comes from being a kid who's just little bit different in a culture which rewards conformity; the terrible relationships. It's all a part of my DNA now. I think that's what home is. It sucks and it's wonderful and it's you, all the complications and contradictions that entails.

And maybe that's why I can never figure out what home means. It gets bigger with each passing year. And especially in years like this one the only thing I want is to have a tiny home with my sister again--and maybe, just maybe, if I ever do figure out what home means, it'll be like a magic spell to bring us back there.

leaving the city

Before I started backpacking I never really thought of myself as an outdoor person. Sure, it was pretty and all, but some weekends I never even left the house and that was fine. I had books and video games. Being an outdoor person seemed like a lot of work. But there's always that call--that feeling when you take a road trip across the pass and suddenly there's this stunning vista of snowy mountains and you've got this primal urge to just never go home.

It started at a party, because someone I didn't know very well talked me into going to a party when I was in a good mood. That whole night whenever my host introduced me to someone he made sure they knew that Ellie was a nickname, and he wanted them to think it was just some special nickname he'd made up for me and not, you know, the actual name I was going by at the time. It was both demeaning and kind of flattering. When someone asked if they could call me Ellie, as if calling me by the name I fucking gave them was some sacred privilege between me and the asshole who invited me here, instead of getting angry I just told myself the next time someone asks me to a party, I'm going to literally be in the middle of the woods instead.

I don't think I really understood how freeing it was, walking through a misty forest, everything I need to survive on my back, until I'd done it, until I'd set up camp and cooked myself a hot meal and just lay down in my tent and listened to the wind and the rain and the critters. After that I took every opportunity to hit the trails. I think I'm the only one who was surprised.

it's been years

I spent the evening looking through old blog entries, from back when Alex was still around. Back then I'd always talk about how she'd always call me out on my bullshit, like it was a good thing, like it kept me honest or some shit. Like it was a good thing that every single thing I did was because I was afraid it would make her angry, and how ultimately that just led to me not doing very much at all. Sitting around the house, writing blog posts. So much for the spirit of adventure. When it started getting bad I'd write about all the ways I was "needling" her, trying to make her angry by doing the things that I knew made her angry. Like it was my fault, somehow.

She's gone now. We all know how that went. But it's been years and somehow I realized I'm still tiptoeing through tulips, same as ever, like if I make too much noise or remind anyone I still exist she might show up again, rolling her eyes and sighing theatrically at me. Most of the time I was too small, too insignificant, to yell at.

All those years took the fight out of me, and "fight" is all I am. When I was finally free from her, when I finally understood what had happened, I still didn't understand how deep it went. How I could still be so lethargic after so much time--not just the lethargy of depression, that old friend of mine, but a different lethargy. That little voice telling me it's absurd to do any of the things I love, that it's too indulgent, too pretentious, too unoriginal. Of course I've managed to ignore the voice sometimes, but I didn't really realize it was there.

I hear you now, motherfucker.