adventures in solitude

Life has been proving itself tricky to navigate these past few weeks.  Friends came to town this weekend and what should have been one of the best weekends of the summer proved to be rather empty in the end. I don’t mean that it wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t nearly what it should have been. Time was cut shorter than any of us realized and we spent what time we did have doing things that weren’t what we should have. There was a high point. William played guitar, for what seemed like forever (but I feel like even forever has a resolve) and we sang. We all did. Whatever we wanted, whatever came to mind. It was messy at times and so beautiful at others. We threw out things that were hilarious and silly but then things that had more meaning than maybe even we know. The best part about it was the comfort, I have never felt truly comfortable singing in a group of people if the words are not something that is previously written, but this was different, this time there was very little hesitation and I sang whatever came to mind. At times it may not have been rhythmically  beautiful, but it was beautiful in that it was careless. There’s something amazing about what happens when you reach that point of comfort, because when you truly get lost in the moment, in the situation and quit caring about what is being thought about what you’re doing things happen. We all felt it. It was a lovely feeling. It increased how much I wish these certain friends lived here.

Life has been tricky because, well, because life is tricky. Trying to navigate through each day means that decisions have to be made, they won’t always be the correct ones, or rather the ones that I wish that I had made. I make mistakes everyday. It’s a reality that has to be acknowledged and understood, some of them will be forgotten almost immediately because the gravity isn’t that heavy. However, some of them will have such gravity that I can’t let them go for days (or weeks, or months…) they’ll be the ones that haunt me for a while, regardless of how much I say that I have forgiven myself for them. I think as humans we have a hard time accepting our own stupidity. We want to believe that our ideals and morals are so strong that breaking them would take much more than a simple, idiotic miscalculation. But that is sometimes all it takes. One clumsy misstep. But time ticks on. And eventually we do forgive ourselves. I hope.

This summer has been quite wonderful so far. Alee and I painted the apartment, with great help from Chad, drinks from Jeremiah and almost no help from Tony. But he was there. A lot of time has been spent outside, although a tan has yet to emerge. Work has been alright. Saturday morning was the highlight of my weekend. I walked in at 73o a.m. to open, when I reached the counter I noticed several notes in various neon colours littering the beverage area. They were all hilarious. “I’m so sorry!” “It’s my bad!” “I’ll work double time!” “I heart Dawn.” “Please, don’t tell my mom!” “Seriously, so sorry!” “Hi, please wake me up. Love, William Dan.” I read them and laughed and started to open the store. At about five to open I sent William a text message asking if he was serious about a wake up call, but never received a response. I went to the back closet to get the cash drawer and was rounding the cafe to turn on all the lights when I noticed someone was actually sleeping on the couch in the gallery. It was amazing. I woke poor Will up with some water and aspirin then watched him wobble up to the condo to catch a nap before coming back down an hour later to work. The notes were my favorite part, I kept every one of them.

I’m still setting my sights on starting school in the fall and actually getting into the apprenticeship in the spring semester, I really hope that I can get a great job through that. I’ll probably only take two classes this fall, one because I need it to get into the math class that I have to take and the other just to knock it out of the way. Tomorrow I’ll do my FAFSA…I hope.

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