London Calling

Originally written April 24, 2006

To lose all hope is freedom. To build a man in the model of what is expected of him, you have to first tear him down to his most basic element. Greed. Lust. Hate. Desire. Desire to be something else, to be somewhere else. Desire to move beyond the physical and temporal limitations of your current existence, to ascend to some higher plan of reality and be the one you see in your dreams.

With that we're led into year three of our stories. When all things changed never rest never sure. We're back in the same pissant little apartment, but the world has changed. Sitting there I'm not content to finish my days how they began in Kansas. After my year of penance, I either had wiped the slate clean, or paid my dues for something greater than I had grown used to. Restless for an adventure. My thoughts turned to London.

Flashback end of sophomore year where the gears were set in motion. I knew something had to give. Going to a study abroad fair, I stepped up to a booth about Japan. After being turned down because I didn't have the slightest idea of what the Japanese language sounded like, a girl at the Hong Kong booth asked me if I ever thought of going to the little island that could. I said not a chance, but please sell me on it. She sold me, enough to go to the study abroad meeting. I was incredibly intrigued with the idea of being out of my element, and I went so far as renew my lease for just six months so that come hell or high water that second semester junior year I would be gone.

Despite the best laid plans...sometimes these things just happen. You meet people, you change your plans for them. London Calling. I went to one of the most prestigious schools in Europe, backpacked through a dozen countries and lived the dream I had dreamt a hundred times. The girl, the job, the future that was laid out in front of me. Everything that I could want compressed upon me, time to grow up, to be that guy that I knew I could be.

And I wasn't ready. I thought I knew what it was, what did I know. Those days are gone forever, I should just let them go. The moral redemption of this story, everything I wanted was thrusted upon me too quickly, I wasn't ready, wasn't able to come to grips with who I had to be. But I had seen the dream in person. Standing in a snow covered field at 4am in the middle of Holland with no lights in sight. Walking through the courtyard of the British Parliament as if I owned the Palace. Flying in the wind atop the castle after kissing the Blarney Stone, where Bernie and Theo stood twelve years before. Stonehenge, the Ring of Kerry, Doolin, sunset on the Eiffel Tower. For that third year, everything about me, everything before me, I knew the path I was on would take me back to the best of what's around. Things were going to change, I could feel it.