On a bus to San Antonio, by myself, trying to work out where my compass lies. Fighting everything within my head, my heart, my gut. For 4 months I had waited patiently and anxiously for the time to come to leave. The beginning of a new life was one that I had painted with bright colours, rainbows, unicorns, fluffy white rabbits. What can I say - I was always shit at art.
Staying inside my head trying to work it out means I normally get it wrong. I normally bounce feelings, emotions, thoughts too someone, to hear it out aloud and gain another perspective. I have only my own perspective to gain wisdom from. This is hard when everything is filled with darkness and negativity.
The bus ride was uncomfortable. I thought I had a seat to myself, but that lasted all of 2 minutes. My heart punted so loudly I could hear it in my ears. Here I was in a foreign country sitting in a dodgy fucking Greyhound Station, going to a city I had no idea about, all for space. I wanted to throw up. Fighting that feeling for 4 hours was hard. Nearly impossible. My hands sweat, my breath was short, and I felt like a caged animal in this seat.
And then there was the dude opposite me who fell asleep within 2 minutes of the bus going. I envied him. Sleep always makes everything stop. Its like a temporary death that you know you will wake up from, but you close your eyes tighter to make it last longer. He snored the whole way to San Antonio. Not cute puppy snores, but deep, someone has their hands tight around his throat, and he is choking snores, that made me realise that I wish i had a tazer gun that i could shoot at him every time he made that FUCKING noise.
The whole time west, I wondered if the differences between us, was going to be the things that eventually destroyed us. The inability to see each other from where each other stood. The inability to really hear what each person was saying and truly understand. Would this be what was too hard to fix. And then it crossed my mind that the reason for lack of understanding and ability to do this, is that we still don't know each other at all. We know parts of each other, and they are the good parts that we have chosen to share. Our reactions to situations that have hit us emotionally, are triggered from the dark places inside of us that we haven't yet shown. And therefore maybe that is where our lack of understanding comes from - a response to a place that we have so far kept secret. We throw things out there, and think we are being honest and sharing, however if the other doesn't understand and then asks for clarification, only to get shut down, then we head 2 steps backwards from where we began.
What I realised is, it is ok to ask for clarification and more information. Because there is nothing to lose. But when we ask and when we share, it needs to come from a neutral place, instead of defensive and angry place that we spew forward and onto the other. I wondered if we could do that.
I also started thinking that being alone, in a city where no-one knows you, is not always the most healthiest place to be in. And I laughed to myself at the thought of being found in the dodgy motel I had paid for, 1 week later, pizza boxes and empty whiskey bottles strewn around the place, and the poor spanish speaking woman making the discovery. If it was Las Vegas, it would have been a good story for my eulogy. But this wasn't Las Vegas, it was downtown San Antonio and it didn't quite have the same ring.. For some reason my Dad came into my mind, just like that, and I look out the window.
I don't know what it meant, but I knew I would be ok. I watched that cloud formation move across the sky. And for a brief while there was comfort in this dysfunction.
