Still Traveling, Still Puzzling

I am sitting in my house, having just finished a bowl of Joe's Os with raisins, drinking French press of Victrola's Guatemalan Huehuetenango. Funny that, how you can leave the country for half a year, travel all over, and then still find it acceptable to eat the same breakfast as you always did. I am the same Carlos as always.

Today is Friday the 13th; I returned two months ago to Seattle from Ecuador and all. I have spent the last two months fully tangled up in work. I have spent the last two months up and down emotionally and, overwhelmingly, trying to puzzle out who I am now. I am some version of Andrew.

I was driving up I-5, all the way from San Francisco to Seattle, on no reasonable schedule at all. The time was five in the afternoon, perhaps, and I was nowhere close to the Oregon border. I had been seeing signs for Mount and Lake, all Shasta and gorgeous and northern California.

California was good—so good. Claire, Whit and I ate In-N-Out for our first meal back in the Golden State. I saw my cousins and I saw my aunt and uncle: love. Maren and I drank so much good coffee and ate so many delicious foods. (Brioche doughnut holes at LaMill Coffee are for real.) I had drinks and hugs and laughs with the incredible community in San Francisco.

Whit and Claire's couch felt like home. Sparkle Motion felt like home.
I was good, glorious ol' Drew.

So I was on I-5, right? And I saw the bridge approaching, and I started thinking, Am I the same, the same boring? Driving to Seattle without any magic or perspective?

What am I leaving? Where am I going? Fuck it, I need to jump in this lake!

I crossed the bridge and pulled off the highway, winding my way down a dirt road and nearly bottoming out a few times. Funny that, how I make poor driving choices on country roads whilst in fragile emotional states.

I parked. I made my way down through the brush to the rocky shore and slipped out into the cool milky blue. I am still traveling.

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The universe is shaped exactly like the Earth
If you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were