This is What You Came For

Nine years ago it was a Sunday afternoon in Florence, Italy and I walked to my school so I could write this. It is a short and somewhat amusing tale of my last trip during study abroad. A trip in which I defied my parents and flew to Dublin on the last weekend of my trip even though my college fund was gone.

(LPT: If your grandparents leave you a sizable 'college fund' stay in state, study abroad and your college fund becomes a trust fund)

The story talks about how my friends and I talked our way into a few bars, struck out with an Irish Bachelorette party and all had to leave the bar at one point or another to vomit. Also, I manage to do it in a couple hundred words, not these 20 minute diatribes I go on now.

If you go a few days further in my old blog, you will find a post called the 25th Hour in which I struggled to reconcile my feelings about coming home. The writing is pretty pitiful (lots of talk about buying bottles and lording at bars) but was an interesting snap shot of what I prioritized at the time.

I was excited to come home and see some friends. Pumped to grab a beer in Broad Ripple (gross) and go to the Indy 500. I was full of hope because of a summer in Lincoln Park and a Senior Year that I expected to be phenomenal (it was!) But also there were the doubts that I feel to this day. Is this it? I leave this adventure, graduate college and begin the rest of my life. Is that it? Sure there is always a nagging sense of melancholy, especially after 6 months halfway across the world, on a hedonistic voyage of debauchery with 9 of your best friends.

I realize now, nearly a decade later that what meant the most to me then, still matters the most to me now; shared experiences with people I care about. So why then am I happiest when traveling, even if it's alone? Why do I feverishly check Scott's Cheap Flights before I get out of bed even though there are exciting events waiting for me here in the present in Los Angeles?

What am I looking for on a trip...

Is it stories? Do I want to have a fleeting 2 night stand with a woman who doesn't speak English on the whim that we will fall madly in love, have international children and live out our days in Portugal or something? Do I really want a Richard Linklater film for a life?

Or do I want the bender with a bunch of Aussies that I met in a hostel? Friendships so brief, yet impactful that they burn a presence into my soul for eternity.

Maybe it's the freedom of escape. Hopping on a bird and flying to another world 12 hours away reminds us that no matter how daunting the present reality seems, we are only ever two clicks away from destroying our current circumstances in favor of a new experience. Sure it may drain the bank account and compound the problems upon return, but for a brief moment we can be happy and forget about everything that's wrong.

But mainly, I think the burning desire deep within me that fuels this curiosity is the same thing that has pushed explorers since the beginning of time: knowledge. What's it like out there? I can see a post card, listen to your story, watch a film, but until I'm there in the thick of it, it might as well be a fiction. 

I look back at my the wishful desires of a 21 year old kid with his whole life ahead of him...

On the dawn on my exodus back to the States, I find an unsettling disturbance in the things to come. What do I have to look forward to but work and paying for gas? Then again there is the Indy 500, Cathedral people, Chicago, Chipotle, my family, Boo Boo, Kilroys, Ripple, Lincoln Park...ok I guess I'm ready. But what about Central Park, Maracana, elementary level classes, 30 minute walks, The Oil Shoppe, Twice, my fat bachelor pad, daily doses of gorgeous east coast girls...ok well, lets just say a favorable ratio. I'm going to miss it all. Buying bottles like I had money and drinking 6 nights a week will be hard to give up...but it's almost over.

These were the words of an insufferable douche. Basically what I missed from America was Kilroy's and my cat; I was sad that I was leaving a Florentine nightclub that routinely booked D list hip hop acts on Wednesdays.

This however...this still rings true.

But it doesn't have to be...
I could get a job promoting clubs for the Americans studying here this summer. I could live in a Hostel and learn Italian during the day. I could just not get on my flight and stay here. I'll come back some day, well maybe. Maybe not. I stayed in North America for 21 years, I don't see why I can't rip another continent an equal amount of times. On the weekends I can RyanAir anywhere in Europe. I could completely see the world. I could probably take enough online classes to get some sort of degree from Indiana...I could meet an Italian woman and fall in love. We would get married and have lots of kids and raise them bilingually. We could live with her parents until we had enough money to get our own villa in Tuscany. It would be perfect.

It would be perfect.

I'm glad I came back, experienced Senior year, moved to Chicago, moved to LA, lived an interesting life but lately it does seem like a lot of my life has been 'work and paying for gas.' (And I don't even work the whole year) I met fantastic people that I shared a life with. But I must admit, I am starting to get itchy and the time may come that I have to run away again.