Journeys

Andrew's making the big journey this week. If you drive straight and don't screw around it's a 2,260 mile venture to western Idaho where the summer skies are blue and the mercury rises like a cold can of beer from a lawnchair's built-in cupholder overlooking a river swollen with snowmelt. That's Idaho. As far as Pittsburgh goes, nothing could be more different, and Andrew being a desperate measures kind of guy, is good with that. Ah, the great escape. The big dream. The great magnet. I wish you well.

The woman I've spent the majority of my time with down here in the lulling American Mediterranean is leaving this week as well. Her journey is 2,800 miles, eventually ending up somewhere around the country's capitol. A trip that we would all deem of epic proportions indeed, a necessary trip, and hopefully a healing one too, where she can find herself and start a new network of lovers, friends, and family. I wish her the best from the very heart of me. We did business this week, that final bargaining for the acquired things still mutually owned in one another's possession. I now outright own the car and the television, but she eventually wants the lamp back, the one with three light settings but only works on one. I acquiesced.

My dearest Grandma, the only one I ever had since my father's mother passed before my time, left on her last journey this past week. She signed off on Judgement Day. She was ninety-two and a half years old and only days away from her sixty-ninth wedding anniversary with my grandfather Douglas, who sadly left the world far too young and her alone for far too many years. We said goodbye to her this week. I hope she's finally found peace from a life of devotion and the deepest love and loss. My Grandma loved me like crazy and I would never ever be the person I am now had she not been there.

This year rebirth is in the air, the non-religious kind, the real kind. I can feel it and I welcome it. I've traveled a long winding road these past few years and though I've managed to not run away as I've done so many times in the past, I still have the strong sense of arriving somewhere. I needed to refind the Jesse that I liked more and begin investing myself in the people and places that will bring me real happiness. It's harder than it sounds. I wanted to put myself back in the arms of whatever it is that's always called me and feel that unfeigned embrace.

I got my job back and found a new appreciation for the small things. That was a big start. And the people I work with have become a new family for me. There were also a couple people I'd mixed with in my past relationship’s small radius that I went back for and found. I was tiring of the watered-down supporting cast, drinking friends, that long line of acquaintances that we all acquire... I needed some real friends, lead roles, and I was so lucky to find true friendship when I needed it most.

Then I met Melody and my heart just about overflowed. She's an angel. She makes me want to write stupid things like, She's an angel. What the hell does that mean anyway? I think it's just a feeling, those silly words, and I feel them. She’s good to me. She’s more than good to me, she’s good for me. She was immediately an old friend and lover, reminding me of a song, it's hard to put your finger on the thing that scares you most... and it is scary to feel so deeply, but I'm in love and feel grateful for this time to be happy again and moving in a direction that feels of home.