Ten years ago today I arrived for the first time to Aotearoa New Zealand.

I was a month shy of 19 years old. As the northern hemisphere slid into winter, the southern was climbing into spring, though it snowed the day after I landed. I’d never been away from home on my own for more than a week. Apart from a quick family trip across the border to Canada (before passports were required), I’d also never been out of the country. Yet (and this has never happened in any of the more than a dozen countries I’ve been to since), as soon as I stepped off of the airplane I felt at home and a sense of a peace strong enough that I stopped and took a mental note of it.

This evening I plan to take some time to reflect on the past ten years. I want to look back at why that trip happened, how it cascaded events after it, and what that means for my future years. It was such a life-defining trip: so much that has happened in the intervening years has been shaped by it. Maybe it’s because I’ve been back several times since, but it doesn’t seem like it’s been nearly a third of my life ago.

It’s important to take time away from the comings and goings of life, to step back and reflect upon one’s life itself. I want to evaluate where I’m at, in the context of where I’ve been – what I thought and told myself back then – and see what changes I should make for tomorrow.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
– J.R.R. Tolkien

And even so I’m not too sure how much I like the series. Funny how that works.

If you haven’t read the books, go away right now. I’m not really sure what I’m going to write about regarding the books, but there will be spoilers. I hate finding out how something turns out in a manner the author didn’t intend, I’d rather you don’t either, and I don’t want to whisper, so go away.

Right, like I said, I’m not really sure what I’m going to write. I was texting my friend Laurel who let me borrow the books that I’m looking forward to discussing them with her, but I still feel the need to work things out in my head, and that’s what I’ll be doing here.

First let me say that I won’t be going off about the violence of the books. I remember seeing a few headlines about this in the past. I never read them because I figured I might end up reading the books, so I’m not really sure what they were about, but they sounded condemning. I won’t be doing that here. If you have a problem with violence in books that star children, you should discuss Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow first.

This morning, as I was mulling over what I read as I finished the book last night, I thought I may as well start reading Orwell’s 1984 to cheer myself up. Yeah, maybe the world’s most famous dystopia would be a more cheery read. A story about one man and one woman’s ultimately hopeless and fruitless fight against a tyrannical state that does not end at all how you hope versus a story about a one-girl-sparked rebellion, that ultimately wins out, told through the lens of brutal child wars? I suppose that’s not really a happier story, but at the least I don’t remember getting so connected to the story in 1984.

I think that’s what made it an impactful and difficult read: that I was drawn in and empathized with the characters so much. At first I was thrown off by the first-person present-tense style of the storytelling, but once I got used to it, I think it was very much to the books’ advantage. I kept imagining myself sitting with Katniss around a low burning fireplace as she recounted to me her story. You could still see the scars on her body, the remembered exhaustion in her eyes, and the desperation in her voice.

Maybe it’s just me and how much I allow myself to get drawn into a story, especially one about a girl, not much older than my niece, who could seriously use some protection, but for a few days everything in my actual life seemed more gritty and desperate. There was a heavier weight on my shoulders walking to and from the bus. Well written, but I hesitate to say that I liked it because of that.

If I dig deeper, perhaps that pressing weight was because the love story highlighted short-comings in my own short-lived romance with a girl I once dated. Which is odd because it’s the romance piece of the story that I found the least well conceived. I kept finding myself thinking, This was obviously written from a female perspective. Peeta is too perfect through 2 1/2 books – pretty much the entire time he’s rational and in his right mind. What boy at, what is he, twelve when he throws her the bread, falls completely in love with a girl and never looses sight of that even the slightest? Everything he does and says is for her. While she is flighty, irrational, and honestly kind of how I would expect a teenage girl to act in her horrific situation, he is selfless, solid, and unbowed. It’s too much a fairytale. With so much realistic grit, this shows up too clean. Of course, maybe I don’t like that because it’s not what my relationship was like. I wasn’t selfless, I wasn’t a perfect romantic with just the right words at the needed time. That stings some. Am I overly cynical, or does Peeta actually exist?

But then there is Gale. The best friend for years. He knows her inside and out, he can predict her completely, words are almost unnecessary anymore. And because he’s passionate about a cause, he’s thrown to the wind by the end of the story and she assumes he’s so easily and cheaply cast her away for another lover. Isn’t it said you are supposed to marry your best friend? Honestly, I think Katniss ends up with the wrong guy. That didn’t play out right. Maybe by indirectly killing her sister he lost that avenue completely, but I get the feeling that that was just the final nail in the coffin to make sure we as listeners knew it was never meant to be. A convenient (and heart-breaking) final nail. Gale knew her, Peeta more or less stalked her prior to the Games.

While I’m doing a bit of gripping on storyline pieces I didn’t like, I still cannot understand Katniss’s decision to vote Yes for a final, symbolic, Hunger Games to punish the Capital for it’s 75 years of atrocities. Everything she has ever worked and lived for since her father died was to keep her little sister safe. She’s drawn to help those in pain as part of who she is in her core. Rue, Gale when in pain, the hospital in District 8. And yet, in the very end she votes to kill two dozen relatively innocent children, after just watching and being horrified by the merciless killing of dozens of children at the hands of the rebels. This is a 180-degree flip in her broken personality. Coming from a girl who grieved for the tributes she killed and their families, this just does not make sense.

Of course, none of that happens and perhaps she was just playing with Coin so she keep the secret of who she would really kill hidden until the end. But it didn’t read like that.

The hardest thing for me about her decision is it undermines so much that the book is working towards. Of course holding a sadistic, twisted version of gladiator games with children to keep the peace is wrong. That most humans’ basic nature would revolt from this is what the book is built upon. It constantly is serving as a warning to us (as all good dystopias do) to be vigilant to not even put a foot on the path to this possible future. It pushes that the entire time, through it’s characters wanting to stop the capital, Peeta not wanting to lose who he really is in the Games, and Katniss’s own refusal to play by their rules. She even is against destroying the mountain fortress near the end of the war. How can you convincingly tell a story trying to condemn such violence and acts of revenge by turning it all around at the end? It falls apart.

Please, someone tell me if I’m missing a piece of the puzzle.

The only piece that, depressingly, gives credence to Katniss’s decision to vote for one last Hunger Game is her Solomonic thought that “Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change now.” (see Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Engaging books, thought provoking, a constant wringing of emotions (I need to shake it off so I can trust people again; it was just a story), but, in the end, Katniss has lost her humanity. I’m not sure a handful of pages of broad-stroke storytelling and a short epilogue and change that.

Creepy? Sure. Illegal? Nah. All it did was do the hard work of gathering that information for you. There has been plenty of debate on whether or not what the app does is ethical or moral. A lot of people cried foul at the developers of the app.

Then there’s a great article by one of the girl’s who was randomly pictured in a screen shot of the app on one of the write-ups. Go read it, I’ll wait. It’s basically what nudged me to write this little post.

Because along with all the outcry against what seems so creepy, there has been plenty of people saying “You put that information out there, ladies. You checked in, you posted your picture. So you must be okay with people stalking you and hitting on you.”

In that article you just read, Marie ends with this winning conclusion:

I don’t believe that having a public persona online needs to be a risky enterprise, and it seems like plenty of people are able to manage that without being attacked, stalked, or otherwise targeted. If we’re saying that’s only true for one half of the population, then I don’t think this is really a conversation about internet privacy as much as it’s a conversation about whether it’s safe to be a woman and live in public.

If the answer to that is “no”, then I think we’ve got bigger problems than ‘Girls Around Me.’

And that’s exactly the issue here. A big conclusion of this thing has been that it’s risky to be a woman and live publicly. And that should never be true. There’s an issue at the root of this that is much, much bigger than an app for a smartphone.  Culturally, we have some problems to address. Some deep problems about how we respect and act around each other. Privacy isn’t the issue, the issue is humanity not being able to treat well those who choose not to be private.

I know I’m rambling and am not really making a point. I’m sorry, I usually try to be a bit more focused when I write. Honestly though, I’m not really sure how to start this conversation or what to do to help. I just don’t think the right of life is shutting up women in a house with no windows or internet for their own safety is a good option. I’m also confused because there is a weird balance between chivalrous protection and pandering over-protection. Not that I know where that balance is…

I guess the point of writing all of this is I just needed to say something, and add my little voice in support of Marie’s ending point, and to hopefully spark some thought and conversation with you.

Each one with their own story.

But this is the bus. You walk on, pay, and then either put in your Apple white earbuds, pull out a book, look at your phone, or look asleep. Those who do none of those simply look bored and disconnected. This is the bus, you don’t connect with the other humans on it.

Maybe it’s because simply riding the bus doesn’t give you enough in common to breach the Talking to Strangers barrier. But I’m pretty sure as I watch all of these people board and disembark that they all have interesting stories if only you’d ask.

—–

There’s this older couple that’s on the same bus every morning. She seems to have a slight mental disorder. She asks questions with the speech impediment of a child, and also their unquenchable persistence. While his face is tired, his arm is constantly around her as he patiently answers her repeated questions. Now and again there is a quick kiss.

In actuality, this whole rapture end-of-the-world business has been unsettling to me. Something is just wrong with the whole situation, and I’m not talking about the obvious. Sure, I’ve poked my fun, laughed at the jokes, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. It isn’t just the situation either, there’s something wrong with us.

Last night, I told a friend that I had thought about throwing an End of the World party, or at least a See-Ya-Later-All-Us-Christians-Are-OUT party, but that as amusing as it would be, it just seems a little, well, blasphemous. I’m a Christian, I believe Jesus. I suck at following his example, but I still believe in it. Which means I also believe that there’s more to life than this mortal coil. I don’t know how this so-called rapture will happen, or what the prophesied return of Jesus will look like, but I think it’s wrong to so blatantly scoff at the idea of it. I went to a birthday party instead.

As a Christian, I’m supposed to be looking forward to the return of Christ. I know 99.99+% of Christians believe literally in the Bible verses that say we don’t know when it will happen and it will be surprising. But I haven’t heard any Christians talk lately about how excited they are for that to happen. Instead, it’s laughter and derision. Sure, that’s because some guy who apparently knows the Bible better than anyone ever is predicting dates and hours. But I find in myself not a desire that he be wrong because it would show him to be a loony bin , but frankly, because I don’t feel ready for it. Remember that verse about the sheep and the goats? (Matt 25:31-46) Or Matthew 7:21-23:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”

Let’s be honest, verses like those are a little scary. Do I think I’m a horrible human being? No. Am I knowingly trying to use and abuse the name of Jesus for my own gain? No. Do I sometimes disconnect from the real meaning while I’m working audio / visual for an evangelistic performance tour? Yeah, it happens. Have I walked by the hungry, the needy, the thirsty, the sick, and ignored them while hoping they don’t look at me? A lot.

Selfishly and with earth-bound thinking there is still stuff I want to do. Places I want to see, things I want to accomplish. In that sense, I don’t feel ready. But in another sense, I feel like I’m failing my savior and my soul by skipping like a goat past the homeless guys under the bridge by my office. At best, it would be downright embarrassing if Jesus came back right now.

I could be, but I doubt I am, alone in this.

Which leads me to think: We’re doing it wrong.

But you know who is excited about the rapture? Who really cannot wait for it to happen? Atheists. And pretty much the rest of the world. Atheists are stoked for the rapture! They’re planning post-rapture parties and getting ready to loot the left over stuff. I’m pretty sure as much as they don’t believe in a god, they really want this one part to be true.

Because then we’d all be gone.

Wait, what? All the Christians are gone and the rest of the world throws a party?

We’re doing it wrong.

If we’re too busy making sure our pets are taken care of to the point that we are ignoring people, something needs to change.

Actually, as silly as it sounds, in a weird illogical logical way, that isn’t a horrible idea. If the rapture is going to look like the Left Behind series, wouldn’t a good pet owner make sure their animals weren’t left out in the cold to die when Jesus takes the owners home? But wouldn’t a good Christian care more about making sure their neighbors (in the broad Jesus sense of the word) were cared for, or better yet, came along with them instead?

This is the crux of the whole issue: the response that the “non-believing” portion of the world is having right now is shining a light on the fact that Christians as a population are viewed as crack-pots, not a loving and serving people that the rest of the world would miss. Think of it this way: when you move away, do you want to be missed and remembered by people? When you die, do you want people at your funeral because they will miss having you around? Apparently, when Christians leave, they won’t be missed. Yeah, there will be a goodbye party, but it’s not the kind you want.

Christians don’t love and care for people and the world enough that they will still want us around. The rapture? Good riddance.

Ouch.

Even if my friend hadn’t received my note with flight details (he hadn’t) to come pick me up I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t coming into a foreign city that I didn’t know. I’ve become very nonchalant about my travel, but am even more so here in a way. Not apathetically, but comfortably. I know what road from the airport to take to get into town, how to avoid the central business district and what alternate routes to use to get to my friend’s house.

I call New Zealand home. It’s part tongue-in-cheek and part how I really feel about it. That doesn’t mean that Oregon isn’t home to me also, but just to explain how comfortable I feel here, even when I find more and more cultural differences the longer I stay. The first time I came here, a wet-behind-the-ears traveler a mere 18 years old, I felt oddly at peace, welcome, and, well, home when I stepped off the plane. For someone who’d never been away from home or family for more than a week or two, that was significant and memorable.

Why am I reiterating all of this? It’s nothing I haven’t expressed before: friends expect me to stay each trip – even my banker thought it wise to add a few extra weeks to my accounts’ travel notice and the immigration officer asked me when I was moving permanently.

Maybe it’s to emphasize what I felt the first few days walking and driving around Christchurch. I was glued to the #eqnz Twitter stream and online media news sources the week of the February earthquake. I saw all the footage and photos. I read all the stories. I knew more about the city’s situation and plans than my local friend when I arrived. But I hadn’t seen it all myself. It feels a bit surreal.

When I bussed from the airport to the mall where my friend was to pick me up, I went right through my old neighborhood. Aside from a boost in traffic, it was fine. Maybe one roof with a removed chimney. Then we drove across town, around the CBD and to the east side. Buildings missing facades, second story rooms exposed where roofs and walls had fallen away, potholes and protrusions all along the roads where liquefaction had sucked down or pushed up the pavement. Previously familiar areas unrecognizable through the damage. You think you know a place and discover that you may no longer. It feels a bit surreal.

The next day I spent the morning walking along the east side of the cordoned off downtown. Initially the entire central portion of the city was closed. Roughly 100 blocks by my estimate. A month later there is much more open and many inroads pushing towards the interior red zone. As I walked along cracked pavement and gaping earth, looking at destroyed businesses and leaning houses next door to seemingly intact buildings, I noticed that everyone who could was going about their day. Yes, it’s been a month, but this is how it’s been since the initial shock (and aftershocks) wore off: life goes on.

I had the opportunity to meet with a handful of businessmen who had previously worked in the CBD. While they expressed frustration at not being able to access their buildings, even if they were okay, the biggest topic was how they were managing to continue running their businesses and how different companies were coping. Listening to people talk at a local pub’s trivia night you wouldn’t hear anything about the quake. Church groups still meet, though possibly (like my old church) in a different building. My friend and I were talking, he said that life is still moving on for most people, things just take a bit longer. Water needs to be boiled before drinking. Driving somewhere may require slower speeds and alternate routes.

For all of that, there is still a tension, a disturbance, under the surface. The second and third nights I was woken by aftershocks. In the nine days I’ve been here I’ve noticed five aftershocks, a couple of them strong enough of long enough to be a little disturbing, though not dangerous. Compound that number by months and that will start to cause strain. And of course there is everything else, it’s foolish to play like there are no residual effects. There are lives lost, property damaged, jobs gone, landscape changed. Schools are still only partially open. Christchurch won’t be a “normal” city for several years, if it ever really is again. The natural need to continue life will cause a shift in where hot spots are in the city for recreation. That makes it weird to see a place I have contemplated living long term be in such a state.

* * * * *

I’m having a hard time knowing how to end this post. I didn’t have much of a point when I started writing outside of explaining how odd it is to come to a familiar place that is striving to rebuild and return to normalcy.  Perhaps this is a DIY. Draw your own point, lesson, conclusion. For me, understanding what New Zealand is to me is an ongoing process – it’s just that it got a little more complicated.

On September 22nd, 2010 there was a 7.1 earthquake in the Canterbury region of New Zealand’s south island. It was roughly 25 miles west of Christchurch (and 25 miles south of where I went to school in Oxford). It struck in the middle of the night when very few people were about and at a depth of around 6 miles. No one died as a direct result of the quake, and damage was limited.

Since that initial quake there have been over 5000 aftershocks. Read that again. Five-thousand aftershocks magnitude two or higher. That’s roughly 30 per day.

Things seemed to be settling down until thirteen days ago. At 12:51pm on Tuesday the 22nd local time, when tens of thousands of people were at work, people were having lunch, and tourists were taking in the sites, the biggest aftershock occurred. Smaller than the original quake, this one was centered only six miles south-east of Christchurch and a mere 1.2 miles deep. Those two facts, in addition to the timing, created a much more devastating earthquake. 166 people are confirmed dead, thousands have been displaced, the central business district (CBD) was heavily damaged, and nearly two weeks out core services aren’t 100% yet. For the first time ever, New Zealand is in a state of national emergency.

And this is the situation I want to write about. I don’t have a point I’m trying to make, I don’t have any agenda. I just want to share my thoughts. Call it my small coping mechanism for the small way this affects me.

Anyone who knows me knows that New Zealand is my heartland and second home. When I was 18 and 19 and going to school in Oxford I visited Christchurch at least once a week for three months. During my work with Impact World Tour I was sad to not help with the Christchurch show. And then in 2007-08 I lived in the city for eight months. No, that’s not a huge amount of time, but it became home. I had a church I ran sound for and attended; I had a weekly barbecue with a few friends; I had my local watering holes and local dairies; I grew to know locals and became part of the sporting community there. It was in Christchurch I first lived on my own and bought my own first car.

Honestly, it was hard to not be there in September. At first I thought it was weird, but from talking with people, they understand. It has been really difficult to not be there now. Not to see the destruction and tragedy, not to have a sob-story, and not have people care for me. As horrible an event as it is, it is the type of thing that forces community to happen. People must come together. And when major events happen to a group of people, whether it be a small group of friends or a nation, it creates a common bond – a shared experience that connects people. Just like your grandparents can tell you where they were when Pearl Harbor was attacked, like your parents can tell you where they were when Neil Armstrong set foot on another celestial body, and like you can tell each other where you were when 9/11 happened, Canterbrians will be able to tell you where they were and what they were doing at 12:51pm February 22nd.

That’s a shared experience I will only have with them by proxy. Through a handful of personal connections and the Internet. I heard about the quake through Twitter within minutes of it happening thanks to a web designer acquaintance who was visiting at the time. For the rest of the week I was glued to live streaming online news from New Zealand and Australian channels. While the majority of the world focused on the tension in Libya and the Middle East, I looked the other direction. But all I’ll be able to say is I was sitting in my office 7327 miles away worrying about friends.

A shared experience isn’t the only reason I want to be there. I want to help shovel silt from the liquefaction from my friends’ driveway. Or to give someone a place to sleep. To help my mates sort out water through their church. I think anyone else would feel the same for a place they consider home. I’ve been keeping up with people who are helping with the technical side of the recovery effort. Within a day websites were popping up helping people find resources and report issues. Even being in touch with these techies has been good. I hope to be able to do more. The Red Cross is looking for some web development help and I may be able to do something there. It would be great to use my skills somehow, even if I’m not there.

What’s weird to think is that in three weeks I will be there. I purchased tickets for a month long trip in December. The plan was to visit friends, holiday, and play in the NZ Ultimate (frisbee) Nationals. I would be staying with one of my friends in the city, probably spend a few afternoons downtown, eating sushi and watching gentlemen play the oversized chess set in the shadow of the cathedral in the square. It’s weird to think that I won’t be allowed into the CBD, it will be at least partially closed for probably months. It’s weird to think I may not be able to stay with my friend because I’m not sure of the state of his house. It’s weird to think I’ll probably have to boil drinking water and use a toilet dug in the back yard. And it’s weird to know that I will experience small aftershocks while I’m there. Currently, every few hours a magnitude 3.something aftershock is occurring in the Canterbury plains. I’m not expecting to be in any danger, but it will be a bit surreal.

If (when?) I move to New Zealand, Christchurch is always where I’ve wanted to live. That hasn’t changed, but it won’t be the same. Not just the skyline, but the culture and mentality of the population has irreversibly changed. As someone there mentioned, there is no six-degrees of separation in New Zealand. For a country of only 4.3 million people, it’s more like two-degrees. If you don’t know someone who was affected, you know someone who knows someone who was.

Much to my relief, everyone I know in Christchurch is safe. Their houses aren’t necessarily, but they are. I was very touched by the friends and family who reached out to ask how I was doing. I wasn’t even there, but they knew how much it meant to me. To those of you, thank you so much.

– – – – –
If you read all the way down here, I’m impressed. Thanks for letting me ramble and process.

This speech, however, caught my attention in a certain way. I know most presidents reference God in their speeches, pray, and say “God bless America.” President Obama has been no different, but today he seemed much more forward about it. Not only was he liberal in his mentions toward God, but it seemed a large portion of the speech was devoted to preaching the second greatest commandment, summarized as “love people.” My favorite quote from today was this:

“We recognize our own mortality, and we are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame – but rather, how well we have loved – and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.”

None of the worldly pleasures matter, just love. Let me quote that again, “what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame – but rather, how well we have loved”.

Two passages from the Old Testament were also quoted, one from Psalm 46 and another from Job 30.

“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.”
– Psalm 46:4 & 5

I found this to be a very odd and enigmatic Scripture choice. It is rather esoteric. Because of that I decided to do a little digging, so I read the entire Psalm: God is our safety in hard times, and there will be bad times, but we need not be afraid. God is with us. Take note, He is in control.

I’m not a biblical scholar, but through a brief exploration of some study resources I was able to understand these two verses more. Through trying and difficult times God’s grace is still with His people. He is with them and will not leave.

The mere fact that this passage is poetic and not direct seems to imply more than a shallow understanding and usage of Scripture. President Obama and his script writers could easily have used the more blunt verse one, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Instead they chose depth. Perhaps they were also choosing something that wouldn’t seem so insensitive to those who only days ago lost loved ones, but I’m sure there are many other sensitive and more widely known passages that would have fit. Instead, there is one that sounds like his audience knows the Bible well. And for those who don’t, it makes you look a little further, explore a little more. I like that.

And so while the president is quoting scripture to us, maybe I will quote to him in return, in hope that it becomes true of him.

“Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.”
– Proverbs 16:31

Countries: Four
(United States, Canada, Mongolia, Philippines)

States: Six
(Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Nevada)

Cities: Twelve
(Only visits where I stayed all day or slept there)

Lived: Six
(Places I lived one month or longer)

Beds: Twenty
(Including one under the stars)

Planes: Fifteen
(Counting connections)

Airports: Twelve
(Unique ones)

Airlines: Six

I lived out of a suitcase quite a lot this past year. I don’t expect that to change much this year.

And you know what the best part of all of that was? It wasn’t seeing the piece of land my brother is working to preserve while simultaneously develop education in Mongolia, it wasn’t the mango smoothies in a marketplace in the Philippines while our military escort filtered through the crowd. Nor was it the beauty of Estes Park in Colorado or morning runs and swims in the lake in the Central Oregon wilderness.

It was the people all along the way.

It’s my friends and teammates from Ultimate Frisbee who, only knowing me for a short while, are sad to see me go.
It’s the random man who paid for my taxi in Manila, the friendly lady who passed the time with me in the airport in Ulaanbataar.
The nuns who showed boundless hospitality.
The people who held long conversations with me to challenge my attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs.

And suddenly I’m stuck because of the overwhelming amount of incredible people I know and met this year. It’s painfully beautiful.

The best thing for me in traveling is the awesome people I meet: be it in transit at the airport or welcoming me into their homes and life at the destination. It’s also the hardest part because I’m always picking up and leaving again.

My friends complain about me traveling because they are afraid I won’t come back. It’s love. What I’m not sure they understand is that it’s not just I who am gone from their lives for that time, but they who are gone from my life.

Sometimes I half-seriously joke about there being too many awesome people in this world. You can’t know or be with them all. But you want to, because they are incredible and have an amazing story. I want to know what makes everyone tick: what makes them love and hurt. But that’s not really possible, there isn’t time or space with so many people.

I haven’t come to terms with that yet; I’m not sure I want to.