Three Years

Officially three years ago I packed a duffle bag, a backpack and a grand and moved to a strange city I’d never stepped foot in. I’ve depended on the kindness of strangers. I know what manner of bed the concrete here makes. I’ve found family in darkness. I’ve lost so much. I’ve loved in more ways then I knew possible and I’ve been broken.

I came here expecting to throw my head shots to the wind and hope. I came here expecting to tap at this keyboard and write my way into a future. I’ve done a little bit of that. I made my words and the words of my friends come to life in a movie we can call our own. A movie that is doing fairly well considering. Mostly though I’ve been fulfilling my mother’s greatest wish for me.

“I just want him to get experiences.” That is what my mom said when asked what she felt about me moving to NYC. I couldn’t possibly have asked for a more varied education then the one I’ve gotten here.

Still my wanderlust whispers to me. I’m still not really sure where I am going. I’m still a lost boy finding shelter in the wilderness. The difference between today and then is that now I feel the wilderness, the uncertain, the unconventional, is where my future is and will always be.

This wandering life, this living by the seat of my pants recording what I see and hoping those records are worth reading, it stops being cute at a certain age. Then the real challenge begins. I’m not sure if my life from this point on will be a total and utter waste. I don’t know if I will die alone, unrecognized and disregarded in a dirty gutter somewhere or if I will die peacefully surrounded by my friends and loved ones. I just know it is too late to turn back now. I just know that this is where I am meant to be.

So I’ll try to stop questioning myself. I will say yes to the roads that call to me. I will let my heart be swayed and my ambitions change with the seasons. I will invest in what seems to stick around and disregard what is obviously a passing infatuation.

In three years what have I learned?

There is no script. People are so much more complicated than they appear. Love is so much more mysterious than I ever thought it could be. I am so much more lost than I originally thought.

I’ve learned I am large, I’ve learned I contain multitudes. *Walt Whitman*

I love you all

KH-