I Threw Out My Map And Compass

Dear K,

I'm going to skip the part where I apologize. We've apologized enough to each other over the years, its more of a formality now than anything. The important part is that we pick up again, and I don't think we should apologize when we start writing to each other.

It's been a long weird couple of years.

I got my heart ripped out of me. I put it back in myself. I went to the hospital in an ambulance when I fell down some stairs trying to impress a girl. I got staples in my scalp, but nothing was broken. My body hurt for months.

I was homeless in Chicago. I had a warm place to sleep every night, but it was a different place every night. I would carry my suitcase with me all day until a different friend got off work. I was a permanent traveler in winter. It was a dark and uncertain time. I rode Amtrak a lot. I rode Megabus a lot. I ran out of money.

Then I moved back home. I moved in with my parents. I lived in my Mother's basement, and I walked everywhere and rode my bike. I got a job working for RAGBRAI. Then I got a job running an improv theater.

It was the best of times. I had a long sweet summer.

I met a girl. I told her I loved her, and then I broke her heart.

She moved to Des Moines for me. I broke up with her a month later. Three months into our relationship.

Three months later we were friends. Then we got into a fight and I haven't talked to her since. I've been cold. I grew scales on my heart.

I started dating another girl.

I broke her heart too.

We broke up in February, just before Valentines Day. I became heartless.

The whole time I was working six days a week, sometimes seven. I was working seventy hours a week, and I was barely holding my self together.

I got yelled at almost every day. I worked for a married couple that owned the theater. They would get into fights and communicate through me. I would smile and nod and try to make the best of things. I made things work. I plugged holes. I stretched myself too thin.

I lost myself in the grind. I evaporated day by day.

Somewhere along the way I met somebody. I'm pretty sure we're going to get married. Most days I ask her if she wants to marry me. She came after me. She pulled me out of my cold heartlessness. She asked me what needed to happen to make me dance. Nobody has ever asked me what it takes to make me dance.

We're planning to move. I want to see the world. I want to live in other places.

I have no clue where I'm going.

I quit my dream job in June. It was killing me. I didn't sleep most nights. I just laid awake staring at the ceiling cringing about what I had missed that day, and what I would miss the next day. Who did I not call? What did I not do? Everything I did seemed like it would make or break the theater. It seemed like everything depended on me. Everything did depend on me. I was the buffer. I was the whipping post. I was a piece of inanimate would. I was a punching bag. I was the janitor. I was the front of house manager. I was the one who asked drunk people to leave. I took the money. I counted the money. I dreamt up all of the reasons it wasn't our fault nobody came to the shows. I emailed everyone we knew every week begging them to come to shows.

Then I started slipping. I would miss crucial tasks. I was paralyzed by fear. I was afraid to work on anything because it might not be the right thing to work on. I was tired of doing everything, and I needed a break, but there is no break. I had chained myself to a rock, and the tide started to rise. Summer came and the audiences stopped coming. I started slipping.

At the end I had been underwater for a month, and I was pretty sure that I would never breath again.

Then my commitment was questioned. It had worked before as a motivational technique. A psychic whip crack to move the mule. Only this time it made me look around. Was I committed? I had given everything I had to the theater. I had given my entire existence. I lost sleep every night over it. I had poured myself out.

I reacted with pain and rage, and a day later I said I wanted to step down. I offered to stay on until a replacement could be trained, and a transition plan could be made.

I was done a week later. I came in on a Tuesday morning and found out that Friday would be my last day.

I've spent the last couple of months pulling myself together.

I have no idea where I'm going. I don't have a job. I've eaten all of my savings.

And I've never been more free.

Freedom tastes differently than I thought it would. I thought freedom would taste like a beach or a summer's day. I thought freedom would feel like sunshine on my skin. Freedom is hungrier than that. Freedom takes more than that. Freedom does not mean easy living. Freedom is hard. Freedom makes you question yourself more than chaining yourself ever did.

I feel free when I ride my bicycle without a plan. Every summer I ride with twenty-thousand other people across Iowa. That week is heaven. I wake up without knowing where I'm going, and then I ride with my friends until we feel like stopping, or I feel like stopping, or until we get to the place where we are going to sleep. I never know the route. I never know where we will turn, or what hills will be in the way, or whether the wind will make me struggle, or if the rain will pour down on us. My existence becomes simply pedaling and looking around, and then more pedaling. Nothing is better.

I have no idea where I'm going right now. I don't know if I'll make it to the next town. I don't know anything. I've thrown out my compass, and I'm trying to throw out my expectations.

I'm going to work on a book now.

Wish me luck. Wish me aimlessness. Wish me twists and turns. Wish me a long summer's night under the stars in good company. I wish all of these things for you.

-K