Reeling in my sappiness.

Having lived 26 years on this earth, I feel like I'm at a point where I can look back on life with a sense of nostalgia. When you're late teens/early twenties, it's hard to justify nostalgia....in most cases, it just happened to you. But now that I'm seeing the 90s generation turning 18, I feel I'm due up for some nostalgia.

Mainly because the aforementioned fact makes me feel old and like reliving my youth.

I was hanging out with my friend Emily, she was busy getting me some old music (keep in mind, she's 8 years my junior and listens to the likes of Bob Dylan and The Flying Burrito Brothers - of Gram Parsons fame). To act as a sound filler for our hangings out, she put on an old recorded TV version on VHS of (scrawled in pencil on the side, to avoid confusion) Alice in Wonderland (Real people).

What happened next lit up my brain and emotions like none other. The movie was absolutely horrid from a writing standpoint and Alice's awkward emoting; but I was captured again as a 10 year old watching this in Mr. Hageman's 5th Grade class, studying raptly the part of the March Hare, of whose part I was to perform in front of an audience of parents. It immediately brought back the nervousness and awkwardness (and along with that the reminder that this performance was my first in front of ANYONE).

I may not be doing a good job explaining how this all made me feel, as my emotions are hard to tag, but know this:

I feel a rebirthing coming.

A simple Sunday morning.

Sitting in a hotel room in Portland, OR, sipping on lukewarm English Breakfast tea I am consumed with a feeling of longing and loss.

Paradoxically beautiful, both of these things. Maybe it's the tea. I need a microwave.

Before anyone jumps to conclusions about what I might be talking about, I just want to say that no one has died. A time in my life has been left behind. The feelings I described at the beginning don't seem to articulate this burning in my gut. It's mixed feelings of anticipation, anxiety, a sense of worthiness and ineffectiveness.

Confused yet?

I am.

This disorientation seems to be a result of the last 5 months of my life. I have been prompted from some of the deepest places of my heart (often in ways that I never imagined myself feeling). I'm seeking a good word to describe what it is, the best I have is probably an antonym for tainted.

I feel a bit like Neo in The Matrix. "A bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole." I have no idea what this new life that I have chosen is going to bring me, but I still want more than anything to stay on it.

There is a subtle, reluctance to be the man that I know that I'm supposed to be. The person that has been revealed to me to be.

I suppose it's not really all that bad.

My body feels a little jittery.

One cup of tea should do.