I went on my first solo international trip recently, where I had no choice but to reflect on myself and the way I process my emotions, which I tend to feel in Ctrl + B bold emphasis. Bold in the face of the unknown, bold in the expression of my passions and depth of my flaws. They are all a cycle; I am in control of them.
On the final morning of the trip I would awake entangled in his nest, thinking with every incredulous atom in my body, I love you, I love you, how can it be? I would say farewell at the airport to this magic man with whom I stayed up all night. At home I would speak to him every day, fall asleep flush with excitement. Two weeks later, I would call in sick and board a plane. He would fail to greet me the way I wanted. The seal of the original rush, the original wonder coursing through me, would break. But I would remain hopeful. I would remember the way I felt that morning, like I was witnessing the first pulse of the rest of my life. I would decide, again, to return. The feeling did not. Instead I would grow weak from giving in to his distorted perception of myself. When he declared that I got desperate easily it would sting me in the same place I thought he could heal. I would marvel that these circumstances had formed a perfect circle.
But right now it is before I ever knew him. I am at my hotel, drinking coffee in the sun. I am drinking my coffee and thinking about how glorious it is to be alone, how my fear has crossed over into gratitude. I am reveling in the brightness when a fellow lone traveler offers me a guava. The fruit fits so perfectly in her cupped hands, and for a moment, its skin and her skin are the same golden chartreuse. I think about making conversation but decide not to spoil the omen the morning has given me. I am considering my plans. Today, like the day before it, and like all the days that will unravel from this day forward, I can do whatever it is that I want.