orsay.

It's funny how I thought that Europe would make everything so clear. Instead, it just fucked with me even more. Now I feel unsettled and I also feel like I'm stuck in a paradox between craving freedom and craving intense intimacy.

Two nights ago, I was sitting on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower drinking wine straight out of the bottle with one of my best friends. The tower was lit with the most awful green and yellow, celebrating one rugby defeat or another. We hung out with three guys who were traveling the world for 7 months, listening to their stories and sharing our adventures. When you meet other travelers, storytelling really becomes a swapping exercise: I'll tell you about sleeping in a train station in France, you tell me about the fjords in New Zealand. I'll tell you about the medieval graveyards of Ireland, you tell me about being threatened by a small Vietnamese man on a train to Southeast Asia.

Two nights ago. Forty-eight hours. And here I am again. My house hasn't changed one bit. My parents are the same, my friends the same. I feel like the whole world sat still while I spun around it. Or that I took some sort of time travel device and that the last two months never really occurred. Because, really, Europe didn't help me figure anything out. It only showed me how much I have yet to know.

And I really do think that I'm going to move to Ireland after I graduate, at least just for one summer. I'll live like a bum and love every minute. I can't stay in one place anymore. It hurts too much to just stand still.