Dust, epiphany and gratitude.

I cannot seem to seem to string together more than a couple of words before my mind drifts onto something else. I mentioned to friends that my epiphanies come at strange and unexpected times. Just before I was leaving lboro, with no thoughts “really of it’s time to leave”, leaving was merely an inevitable given. But as I walked home from the library back to the house, trying to absorb every bit of the pink skies, the now faded cherry blossoms, even the chill, I saw an old lady walking into a shop, and thought “this is not my place”.  It was time to go.

Now as I’m clearing and cleaning my room, the second time in a year, one in the boro and once here. I throw out more things with less hesitation (but still am more hesitant than a normal person) and my thoughts are scattered and this clear thought passed. ” I weep, not because of the future which I cannot see but because of the past which I know is no more. The past which once was will never and can never be recreated, try as we should but we really shouldn’t, and shouldn’t look back. Just a glance backward so you are reminded of where you are and turn your gaze forward”. I look at the postcards collected whilst travelling and my mind does a quick slide-show through scenes I can remember from backpacking. I ponder about the intensity with which I undertook my travelling holidays because I figured it could be my last time travelling in that country, travelling in that bit of europe. Now I think it’s not the improbability of not returning, it’s the knowing that I will not travel again with the same gusto, with the same freedom, with that same ability to fall in love with the things I see, the places I visit.

I look out my window, at the well-lit apartment block across the road, at the different coloured lights and think “that’s beautiful!”. My mind flits to the bumpy ride in the minibus careening across a corner of Vietnam, the driver breaking every possible traffic rule and the roads threatening to break everyone’s back as vehicles tumbled along the uneven dirt. I looked up at the sky, tuning out the sound of people making really bad conversation on my right and peeing through the dirt crusted window up to the dark night sky. Stars. Millions of them. “That’s beautiful”. I wanted to cry.

I feel a sudden nose itch, a wet glaze on my eyes. I know that the last 3 years, were and will not be again. I close my eyes, not to weep for what was, but for an incredible sense of gratitude for beautiful people I encountered, nature that made me want to fall to my knees, the struggles, the memories.

Thank you Lord.