08052011

Out of this world.

There is utter excitement in the air of my bed room. Every shade of color seems to reflect my next year abroad. I can see the fluorescent street lights of Shanghai in my television, I can feel the green meadows and mountaineous landscapes on my pillows, I can touch the golden sand of Fiji on the floor of my room (even though I ran the vaccuum yesterday), I can put on my sun glasses to feel like a superstar walking down the Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and I can dig deep into my warm blanket and smile thinking about the coldness of Iceland.

Everything I do seems to build its road towards my journey around the world. I have started building up my physical fitness towards working at farms and trekking lightly and sleeping less. I have started calculating how much money I might approximately have after the job-filled summer I'm about to have. I have started studying New-Zealand more than I have studied for any of the courses I have had this year. (I learned yesterday that there are tuataras in New-Zealand and they are like the most awesome-looking lizards ever) Every action I make and every word I form tends to revolve around the same subject: my journey.


Then again, it's not just my journey. I have had the blessing to acquire the most amazing companion on such a journey. I can't wait to see her smiling on the airplane, see her looking at the various fruits and foods at a marketplace, lift her on my shoulders for her to get a better view at the mountains, to laugh at her when she falls off the surf board for the first time and help her get back on, to lay with her in the back of a van and blame her for stealing my blanket (again), to part with her, so that we both can discover how it feels to be completely alone in a distant part of the world. A year abroad will be a major trial for our friendship, that I know. There will be so many hard times because we're both strong-willed and quite opionated people. There will be quarrels, even fights, but there will be hugs afterwards - at least I like to believe so.

Back when I was a little boy, I wanted to become an explorer. Witness the majesty of this world first hand. I saw myself climbing mountains, wielding a machete through the jungles, living in a bamboo hut. I saw myself doing this as solo, a one-man-excursion. But back then the concept of happiness was ever-existent. Now I'm living in a pursuit of happiness because the happiness of my childhood, the innocent happiness, is slowly fading away. Now I see myself doing all those same exploratory things, but this time with someone else there too. Someone else there too to share my feelings, smile or pain. Words can't describe the feeling I know I will have when you see something amazing for the first time on the journey and you can look at the other person and know that they're feeling it too. Seeing something beautiful alone is worth it, but seeing something beautiful with a friend is something out of this world.

.saint.