It's been a long time. I've thought of writing so many times and halted due to exhaustion, needing to use my computer time more productively (facebook, anyone?), wanting to do anything BUT turn on my computer, traveling 1/2 way around the planet again, all excuses. I just got back to Aaron's best friend Adam's place. Aaron and I rolled out of the futon (third night of no sleep for this girl) at 6:30am and rode bikes to the end of the Atlantic City boardwalk. All of the strombolis, cream cheese and bagels, hoogies, and cinnamon rolls are making my board shorts too tight - happily too tight - and like a typical woman who is having peak woman hormones surging through her, I spoke up. "I need to exercise", I whined to Aaron who has since been trying to help me with my "problem". Result? I am sore from a nice ride, coated with salty spray, and looking forward to going out and trying to boogie-board/surf later. It's back to the basics in the water for this girl today and I'm all up in knots of fear and anticipation. Please let this go well.
The same could be said for my relationship with Aaron right now too, I'm all up in knots of fear and anticipation. Everything is going so well it's terrifying for my poor heart at times. I remember not too long ago when someone loved me and I didn't love them back enough and how painful that was. Or during that same time, when I loved someone who had been done with me for a while, and how much that hurt. I can't be more grateful for the resilience that arises unbidden and continues to love with my whole heart.
It's cold here. After Portland's chill and the select few summer clothes I brought with me, it's bizarrely chilly and I'm headed to a thrift store today for a set of sweats. I do think the weather will change in the next two days to full-on summer, but in the meantime I'm wrapped up in Aaron's old lifeguard jacket and Adam's sweatpants from 1994 (BUM Equipment style, seriously). Atlantic City is charming, the people are nicer than nice, the food is outrageously good tasting and bad for me, and the stereotype of the Jersey Shore is alive and suntanned to an inch of its life here. I've spent a day slinging Bud Light beer, going from total keg pour novice to racing Aaron as we pull empty glasses stacked next to the spouts. I win on speed and quality of pour at least a couple of times and it feels good. He points out that I hate being new to something, or not great at something, and it's the first time I've even noticed that quality in myself, but despite my personal view of me as a laid-back, non-competitive person, the reality is that he's so right. I finally see it in myself and now I can play with it instead of just struggling with it.
The Jersey Shore is proving to be yet a completely different place, where I'm exploring with just a backpack of my belongings and the constant personal challenge to try new things at every opportunity. I'm not done with the travel blog either. Finding on returning to the United States that I have no home, really, that my choices are limited by partly my choices and partly by circumstance, that SE Asia is there for me, but it's going to get way more complicated before I return or way more simplified.
Time for work! More coming.....