Run Away With Me

       For some unforeseen reason, this trip has left me with a very fresh sense of loneliness. Normally I'm wrought with loneliness on my first few days - usually chalked up to being hungry and incredibly sleepy. But this time it isn't like that. I actually haven't felt that way at all - even during the traditional first few nights. Maybe it's because I'm expecting to be gone for so long. I'd just sort of gotten over it since I knew it was something I was going to need to be accustomed to for awhile. And I expected it. But I've never felt this way before.
       I don't even know if I would call it loneliness. It's just a constant state of awareness that I am completely and entirely alone. (I feel like there's a significant difference between those two.) Even going by myself to Alderwood Mall sounds better right now that going to the South of France. It's not necessarily about familiarity, either, as I've been to Nice and was rushed into figuring it out, so Toronto would be more threatening than the Mediterranean.
        I think the big issue here is that I know what I'm going back to, and it's not the same. Normally, my options were Vacation or Work. Now that is not the case. I've given myself the opportunity to spend all my time with my dog, at Starbucks, and writing, and that's what I want to do with my life, so now that I have that opportunity, I don't want to be in the suburbs of Dublin, or fluttering around in Italy trying to communicate with strangers.
        It just seems silly to me that I've created my ideal life, and now I'm running from it.

Ramblings From A Tired Vagabond

Theme parks -the good ones- are very precious ideas to grasp. There's that fine line between enjoying where you are, and believing where you are. I don't even mean the people who take it too far - I mean sitting in Hogs Head and dwelling on the fact that Ron and Hermione will never walk through that door because they don't go to school in that fake castle across the lake and you've actually just paid a hefty sum to allow a group of individuals to guide you along in your delusion that fiction and reality are interchangeable. And the problem is, those people are really good at it. You're not the first naive dreamer to walk through these hallowed 'streets' and you certainly won't be the last. But we're not in Neverland with Peter Pan, obviously, because Wendy and Michael didn't have to use lap bars and I don't think I ever saw them with a digital camera.

Or whatever. I'm trying to tan but I think I'm dehydrated and I've been stuck between enough Brazilian tour groups to last me a lifetime.