Today is my last day here, and I find myself most reflective now. I've never done anything like this before, traveling solo. I usually take company even to the gas station, and every route I drive usually looks the same because I tend to follow only what I know. Anyone who knows me knows that I have gone through most of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with these past few years, and I've been at some real lows. While reaching out is something I did, and am so grateful for the people in my life who supported me and stuck around, I realized that talking my guts out, to no matter who it was, only helped so far. Depression is so much more than sadness. I cannot reiterate that enough, which is why so much of my poetry blossoms because of it; it's complex as hell. It leaves you with an emptiness that can't be explained, the same way a silence can be deafening. It consumes every piece of you, from your mind, to your bones and joints, your heart, and your desire to do anything you know you love, and for some reason, can't find the will to do. I have never dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul. Getting on a plane, and flying 1200 miles away from home with no plan and a few hundred dollars in my pocket has been the most revealing, loving, care-free medicine, and I still can't believe I'm here. When you see a part of the world for yourself--get up, take a warm shower, hop on a train with strangers, and go find yourself a hot cup of coffee and a day of adventure, you really don't have room for the uncomfortability that comes with staying in one place too long. You don't have time to worry about yesterday, or tomorrow; you're thinking about how your shoes feel while you're walking an unfamiliar street; you're thinking about every person you pass by: the wrinkled, smiling woman, with a Twins windbreaker reaching her knees, the dark-skinned man in corduroy pants, drinking a mimosa, sitting across from you at the diner: you see them and you wonder if they came here for the same things you did-- to be somewhere, and nowhere, all at once. And suddenly, you finally feel like you are who you were meant to be, Or, at the very least, you've found the right path.
