Sometimes the walls we put up to keep things out actually end up holding us back. “I can’t do this”. “I’m not good enough”. “I’m wasting my time”. When it boils down to it, its amazing just how much we get in the way of ourselves, which is absurd given how much the world throws at us on its own. I understand that some of us inherit a situation far graver than others, be it finances or a good set of parents, but when oneself is down on your own being, its hard to have a fighting chance in my opinion. Some of the most limitless people are held back by this very thing. I guess negative surroundings and negative situations can enhance these feelings of gloom though, I can attest to that after the last few months. There were plenty of times where I would catch myself saying “oh man you blew it, you really had no chance to do this”. They were definitely walls that I put up in my own mind after countless days of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Looking back, it was a really shitty learning experience that sometimes we can blockade our selves mentally. We just have to be strong enough and have enough resolve to outlast the bad and see that these barriers come crumbling down in the face of who we really are as people.

I feel like a lot of what has molded me into who I am today stems from traveling. Not only traveling, but the way I tend to go about it. Off the beaten path, walking to the beat of your own drum is the way to see the world. Not just anywhere exotic but just life in general. Even before I ever step foot in another country, I was headed in that direction and I guess that would be the most important thing that I got “right” at a young age. A lot of it began with music. I was always bouncing around the South going to this and that concert, so I got used to going new places on my own and I rarely spent the night in a hotel or anywhere nice. I can’t tell you how many fences I’ve jumped or parking lots I’ve slept in. I even spent the night on top of a concrete bathroom in the Los Angeles Coliseum when I snuck in the night before a Metallica concert. The second I left the States for the first time, all of this became amplified. I love hearing new languages, I love seeing history existing in modern settings, and I love seeing things from a non-tourist point of view. In the middle of the night or the crack of dawn are some of my favorite times of the day to head out and see a new city. As long as the place is new to my eyes, I feel like I have accomplished something. Small ghost towns in Florida along Highway 90 or villages in Europe, sounds good to me.

My wife and I share these same feelings, and I really think its something both people have to share an interest in for it to exist in a relationship. I’ll bring up this or that destination, she’ll crack a smile at me and say “hell yeah, let’s do it”. As life progresses and we take on more responsibilities, I’m sure travel opportunities may dwindle. And that’s ok. I am totally enjoying our progression as a couple and am looking forward to building our life together. When the times come, I will be ready. I’ve done a lot and seen a lot, and I will always posses a bit of wanderlust in me. Hopefully our children inherit that.

I’d rather not live here anymore. Too many life sucking vampires that don’t care about anything but themselves, their illicit profits, and their seemingly undying need to bring people down so that they can feel better about their shitty life. That, coupled with the Summer of absolute hell just makes me feel so tired. I’m beat. Worn down. Stressed to the point that I feel chemically hurting inside of my body. Perhaps a change of scenery and a few days alone can recharge my life. Then I can dive into something new and go forward. There a some very big changes on my horizon. Especially one that we will need each other for in ways that we never imagined. But they can only be positive as long as my wife and I hold fast to the idea that no matter what, as long as we are together, we can overcome everything and anything.

I grant you this torn land,
I’d rather not live here anymore.
Don’t say I didn’t try,

But I’d rather not live here anymore.

We were sitting in the coffee shop in Oxford when it hit me. Samm and I had just driven the exact same route, and now were in the exact same cafe that I had gone to on my way up North. It was a bizarre feeling, like I had just re-written history. A do over. I guess it was also ironic going on a trip mimicking the same journey I had done seeking enlightenment into a problematic life going through a marriage crisis, with the other half of said marriage. The fact that I felt we had bonded a bit on this trip made it seem even more important. There have been several seemingly off the beaten path types of places that I have run across in my travels, and sometimes I even remark that I probably won’t be coming back through these places again. Funny enough, I have ended up going back to these exact spots and it always makes me feel strangely reflective about myself. Like how is this time different, what is different about me, and are things better in my life than the last time that I was here. This was one of those times. The thing that I carry with me as a married man is that whenever I go anywhere without her, I always find myself wishing I was seeing these things with her. So to have a do over on this first leg of my Northern voyage, was a satisfying experience.

Samm and I drove up to Memphis for her Uncle Tommy’s funeral. I never met Tommy, but he was a very important figure in Samm’s family life. She was obviously heart broken when I told her the news. Later in the day she had written me a really heartfelt message telling me how sorry she was for the way things had gone this Summer, and I can’t really begin to paraphrase it all. I guess I would just say it had a lot of things in it that I just needed to hear. That’s all. We got up to Memphis at 3 AM and had to be down in the hotel lobby at 8. She hadn’t seen or spoken to her mother since she had came to visit us and things went haywire. This was a good chance for everyone to not only heal, but to spend some quality time together. It reminded me of something that I heard recently: sometimes through tragedy, we manage to come together and be closer. After spending an entire night of driving with uniterupted time with my wife, and then meeting the other half of her family that obviously loved and cherished this man that we had all gathered to honor, and seeing them so glad to see Samantha, I can whole heartedly agree with that statement. Through a death, we managed to grow closer. All of us. It is what he would have wanted.

I left about 5 rose petals sitting on the kitchen table the entire time Samantha was gone. They were from a flower I brought her a long time ago, and it sat in a vase. I guess when she took the vase, some petals fell from it and they were all that was left for me when I came into the house back in April. I said I wouldn’t ever distrub the petals until she came home. SO there they sat, in the big damn middle of everything. Cali and I had to eat around them, do paintings around them, and sometimes she would ask why there were dead plants laying on the table that we couldn’t throw out. “Because sometimes, things that appear dead are just waiting to be reborn.”. When Samm and a friend moved the last of her belongings back into the house, back came the vase. We were eating dinner last week when it hit me that the flower was still there in the vase. I scooped up the petals finally and placed them in an open oyster shell that Cali had found on the beach earlier that day. Things that appear all dried up and dead to the world aren’t that way forever.