Lately, I've felt like expectations and disappointment go hand in hand. Always. I simultaneously hold the beliefs that you cannot be truly happy without looking forward to things and also that disappointment only keeps the company of people who are excited about something. Vulnerability is the key to both soaring happiness and crushing disappointment. Excitement makes you vulnerable.
Well, I'm excited about life. I'm excited to be alive and to wake up three times in one night after only an hour of sleep each time on a bus that is curving dangerously along scary mountain roads in the dark. I'm looking forward to my birthday and the summer and tomorrow and the rest of my life, however long that turns out to be. I take pride in the fact that I don't get bored. Why bother, when there is so much to do and be and experience? Why waste one second of this precious existence on the demon of boredom?
Sometimes, though, I'm on that bus with a bunch of strangers who are going different places but still united in some strange, unexplainable way. And sometimes we're leaving home and we cross imaginary lines into places where the sky is hidden my grayness and the only adjective in our minds is 'bleak'.
Calgary is nice enough. There are heated bus shelters and tons of statues and gathering places and I'm jealous of these things. There are shopping areas trendy areas and hip areas--not to be confused with each other. There's bridges and parks and a mostly frozen river. My sister seems to know her way around so well and it scares me a little. When I was too far away to be watching, this city became a part of her and it's strange to see that. I love it, witnessing this life of hers that I'm not a part of, but it's hard, too.
I wondered alone on Friday as my sister was at work in her Eco Store. This was after a fourteen hour bus ride and three unconsecutive hours of sleep but I'm young and somehow I kept walking. The air bit into my face and I couldn't help the question that was reverberating around my mind: why would anyone want to live here?
That's harsh and you should feel free to misunderstand me but the climate is just so incredibly hostile. The snow and frost has it's own beauty of course but I simply can't comprehend why anyone would want to make their life here.
And that's the weird thing about people and nature and our relationship with each other. For the most part, we make it work. We choose impossible places to live and breathe and sleep and we deal with it and we get used to it and nature doesn't bend or give in or fold to our will. We coexist, and us humans think we have some sort of authority but it's all just make believe. All we can do is work around our environment and pretend we're in control.
Every person I passed on the sidewalk became a mystery. I marvelled at their purpose and reason for being here. They weren't 'just people' who I passed by without looking at their faces and never thought of. They were puzzles, each of them going somewhere, each of them with their own path and destination and reason to be here, in this city of contradictions.
People are complex. We get on buses and travel in the same direction for a while but we're all going somewhere different. We live in cold places and it slowly becomes normal. We separate from our familie's and we reunite and we're constantly learning and changing.
That's about it for now.
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