I have to use the toilet, but I don't want to leave my Ellie outside by herself. I also don't want to bring her inside with me, as there wouldn't be room in the toilet for the two of us.
So I simply work on my self-control and try to keep my mind otherwise occupied.
Not on how thirsty I am.
Not on how much my back hurts.
NOT on how much I hated leaving Calabria today.
There are a lot of people eating granita. Granita is a popular dessert in Southern Italy that's made up of fruit and sugar. It's quite nice and refreshing. If my psoriasis wasn't eating my scalp, I'd be eating a granita. I can understand bits and pieces of Italian around me, but not enough to make me feel like I belong. Enough to make me feel like the player on the football team who always sits on the bench.
I'm in a rather melancholy mood. If you hadn't gathered.
I listened to a podcast about being happy on the ferry ride from Reggio Calbria to Messina. There was a clip of an old monk talking about gratitude and how gratitude leads to happiness. He talked about not being grateful for murders or sicknesses, but being grateful for the opportunity to learn that murder and sickness gives us.
I'm tired of being grateful for "opportunities" to learn. That's the excuse I use to justify the bad situations I... ummm... leap into. Isn't it?
"I thought that traveling more quickly would make me more confident. Make me braver. But it doesn't. It only makes me afraid and lonely and sad," I told Giuseppe as we waited for the ferry to come and whisk me away to Sicily. "This is getting so hard for me. I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this."
My stomach churned. My eyes burned. I felt like my whole body was about to dissolve into a puddle of gooey sadness (sadness is gooey. Like melted ice cream).
I felt very, very small. Infinitesimal. Insignificant. I usually enjoy the sensation of weightlessness, but at that moment, I wanted to chain an anchor to my leg. Something to keep me from floating away.
It used to be easy for me to leave a place... but something seems to have snapped. I blame Slovenia.
My throat hurt in the way that goes hand in hand with burning eyes and churning stomachs.
I don't WANT to go to a new place to meet new people and have new experiences and all that jazz. But it doesn't feel right to stay, either. No. No, I can't stay. My body won't let me. My mind won't let me. My spirit won't let me. But my body and my mind and my spirit have ganged up on my heart and left its pieces strewn all over Europe. I feel like Tantalus, that cursed Greek god. The one who had grapes dangled just out of his grasp for all eternity. I visit places like Ljubljana and I meet people like Michael... but something inside of me tells me that I can't have them. These places... these communities... these people... they're not for me.
I used to move because I was running. Blindly. Then I moved because I had momentum from all that blind running. I've lost momentum. I'm looking around with newly opened eyes and a bleeding heart and trying to understand what I was actually running from in the first place.
There it is.
My monster.
It's a big, blog, smoking ball of confusion. Swirling, whirling, churning (like my stomach right now) with accusations of, "You never finish anything you start," and "you're only a burden to those around you," and "you used to be so much better. At what? Bourget, you used to be better at just about everything. Baha! That philosophy you have of seasons? It's just because you're afraid to admit that you've failed," and "your life, Bourget. Your life is selfish and manipulative and you spend your days using people."
It's a pretty ferocious beast, this monster of mine. I've kept it locked up in the deepest, darkest, dampest corner of my subconscious, but 14 months of travel and challenge and introspection has forced me to face the smoking confusion and try to figure out how to release the pain that's swirling inside.
How do I have this much fear? How have I MADE this?
I look at my monster and again, I feel very, very small.
I had a nightmare in Calabria. I'd only been in Italy for two weeks, but my dream was about being in prison. Being unable to escape. As I'd watched a few prison films previously, so a prison nightmare isn't surprising -- but the amount of anguish I felt at being tied to one place surprised even me.
I need to move. I love these people and this place is incredible... but... but I can't stay. I have to see Sicily! Yes, that's what I need. I need to see Sicily. Not seeing Sicily = failing as a traveler. My identity is now solidly wrapped up in traveling, so not seeing Sicily = failing as a human being. Welp, better go see Sicily then. I need to have something to write about in GG.
All the little things went wrong today. The Vodafone shop where I'd hoped to purchase a SIM card was closed, and I didn't have the patience or willpower to try another shop (I was in a self-destructive sort of mood). I also didn't think I'd need the SIM card until tomorrow, so I figured I'd get it when I need it.
When I truly need things, they'll come to me... right?
I ineffectively choked back tears all the way from Italy to Sicily. When I arrived at the station, I sat myself down at the meeting point to wait for my blablacar ride.
12:40... he said he'd be here at 12:30. And he seemed to be in a hurry. Something must be wrong.
I asked for a phone and called Massimo.
He'd already left.
"BUT I WAS HERE!" I screamed into the borrowed phone. "I've been sitting JUST where you told me to sit for the past hour! How could you just leave?"
"I didn't see you. Were you outside?"
"No, I wasn't outside! I was by Bineri 1, just like you asked. Wearing blue pants and carrying a purple backpack and holding a sign that read 'Aimee'."
"Well, I'm going to be late for work. What do you want to do?"
"What can we do? Have a nice day," I handed the phone back to the stranger.
"I wish I could help," he said as he watched my ineffective choking.
Should have just bought the damn SIM card.
"Can you tell me where the bus station is?"
"Sure, just walk to the end and turn right. You'll see buses. Find one for city center, not the airport."
"Okay, thanks so much."
"Niente."
After ten minutes of walking, I decided to just take the train, few extra euros shmuros. I headed back to the station to purchase a ticket and ran directly into Massimo.
"Aimee?"
"You came back!"
"Yes, this way."
He couldn't drive me to the city center, but he dropped me off at the airport bus stop and gave me a ticket to reach centro.
Today hasn't been hard at all. Relatively. But it's the picking at a wound. Tearing at the threads of a seam that's already fraying, falling apart.
My life. My life is beautiful. My life is vibrant and so exciting and spontaneous that I forget what day it is on a consistent basis. I forget what country I'm in on a consistent basis. My "work" consists of writing about my experiences, living with complete strangers, drinking good wine, teaching the occasional yoga class and sleeping next to lakes.
Then WHY am I so drained?
It's not the physical (although my psoriasis is rampaging across my skin and through my joints like a Colorado wild fire). It's the emotional. It's the heartache that I try to ignore.
I don't know where I'm sleeping tonight. My host's name is Michele. He's interested in practicing yoga with me and he has a motorcycle. We're meeting at 21:00 at the train station. It will be the 32nd different place I've slept in the last three months (this includes the surreal night in Francesco's car).
The 32nd place. I'm not sure what I'm praying to... but let me have the energy to treat the 32nd like the first. Let me keep my beginner's mind. My childlike enthusiasm for CHEESE and everything else. My gratitude. My joy. And please... let my psoriasis cool its jets. I'd like to be able to eat a gelato in Sicily without wanting to die afterwards. Also, umm... peanuts. Yes. Girl needs her peanuts...
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| Thanks for the two weeks in Calabria, Zema family (and friends). I'm going to miss you all. |
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