Nov. 8

On ferry leaving Auckland for Coromandel. Glen dropped me off at the ferry after Amanda made me breakfast and shipped me off with enough snacks to cover my eating for the next few days. The two of them have completely changed my attitude about everything. I feel like everything will just work out. It just does. They both have had periods where they’ve relied on nothing but the kindness of strangers. They are both selfless in their kindness to strangers. Give and you shall receive. I want to live like they do. Glen lived out of a backpack for ten years. He went to England with 100 pounds. Everything is okay. Sitting here, having said goodbye to this situation which I spent so much time anticipating, I realize it’s already becoming something I’ve done. I think that will be mny central idea throughout this journey. Sometimes, I’m sure I’ll repeat that phrase to myself when I’m really sad and lonely, or scared, that this will someday just be something I’ve done, and I’ll find comfort in knowing that it will pass, that everything is temporary. Right now though, it makes me feel like I’m growing up infinitely, somehow. Like in the last episode of Six Feet Under when Clare is saying her goodbyes to the family, and on her way to the car takes one final picture of them all. And Nate leans over her shoulder and whispers “You can’t take a picture of something that’s already gone. I feel like everything is finishing at the same rate it’s happening. I’m looking at the present through this filter of the past. They’re simultaneous, which makes the present feel so significant, so monumental, so fleeting, and so beautifully sad. If I look at life this way forever, I’ll have no choice but to love every moment.
I used to panic because I didn’t know what I’d be doing in six months. Now, I have absolutely no idea where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing in six days and for the first time in my entire life, I am completely free of worry. There are no knots in the pit of my stomach, no nagging thoughts threatening to steal my sleep. I am excited for everything; I am not scared of anything.