I thought I’d have this eye opening experience where life and my purpose would just click and make sense…. but here I sit 2 months into the trip of my lifetime, in a random country, where I know no one, and I feel so alone. I have no purpose, no path and it’s utterly confusing.  What am I doing? Why am I here? What am I actually looking for? Did I make a mistake? I’m 100% free from everything I thought I wanted to be free from. Wandering the world like a true gypsy… I belong to no man or no city, yet,
it’s like I’m trying to feel my way through the darkness. Searching for my people/my tribe. The one place I truly belong. Budapest has been the closest I’ve come… and, it scared  me…. they were weird and strange and wonderful and hardly showered, all make love… they lived in an old ruined building that resembled a crack den…. still I ran. With the fear behind me I’d stay forever and miss out on something on that “feeling” I’ve been searching for… the feeling I have no fucking clue what it is or if it even exists. Maybe I just need to embrace that and run straight back into their happy family of weirdness. To the Dirty people who want peace. It sounds right to me! There are too many clean people who want nothing but war.

Still  I feel alone. This loneliness won’t seem to leave. I can never seem to escape it.  Maybe it’s my empathic nature and I’m simply absorbing the loneliness around me is this giant world of truly lonely people. As I look at the man across the room from me and my heart breaks for him. I can feel his feelings, his sadness like I’m drinking them down as I would a glass of water. Consuming every ounce of me. How do I help him? How do I help myself? Literally fighting my own tears back as I try to look into his life. The crows feet around his eye intrigue me. I want to know where he’s been, how old is he, what his stories are that made him laugh that made him cry. The stories behind what brought him here today. Sitting alone drinking a beer.  

Soaking up his energy is hard for me but also inviting and full of pure sadness. 

Andrea

My friends, this woman is one of the most magnificent specimens of selflessness and kindness on this planet. She is genuine and pure and unique. She’s my best friend. One I haven’t seen in years but, I don’t need to in order to know she’s still there. She and I are connected by something real and rare. We are bonded in a way that, unfortunately, i don’t think many will ever feel. She says soul sister. That’s very true.  I don’t know what a soul is made of. I don’t know who gave mine to me. But everything in me knows that hers and mine are very much the same and it kills me when she says things like, “This loneliness won’t leave me alone.” That is beautiful. It’s that kind of absurd irony that makes life so strange and beautiful.

We’ve lived very different lives but have come to the same conclusions on most things. Mostly we believe that there is an overwhelming need for kindness, love, and acceptance on this planet and that we have to work to do something to combat the people in this world who preach the opposite.

Let me tell you about my friend.

She and I grew up in the same area. It was a rural one and most people don’t leave there. We certainly did (although I’m back there for reasons). It’s a lovely place,  as all places are. It is typically the people that screw places up.

During our younger years she and I weren’t that close at all. We were friends but we had different best friends and we were often among different groups of people. When we were both still in high school it seems we simultaneously hit a wall. We each found our own vices to cope with the onset of awfulness that was our emergence into this modern society. I don’t know if she could pinpoint the feelings that drove her to destruction back then. I never asked. Maybe I should have. Mine were fairly clear but took a decade to dig out from.

“I’m not what I’m supposed to be.”

That phrase would ring through my mind over and over again. I spent time trying to conform within my own code of conduct but, none of it ever felt right. I went to college thinking I’d found a path I could live on. That didn’t really work out. She came to see me a few times as she attempted to escape the asylum the world wanted to put her in. That’s not my story to tell but, guys, it’s a good one.

Anyway, when the dust settled after the disastrous teenage years were behind us, we found we were closer than ever. She may have been a teenager still, come to think of it. I don’t really know. I know she’s younger than me but I can never remember by how much. Some reading this may think, “How can you not know how old she is if you call her your best friend?” Well, it never seemed to matter. In high school she was more mature than I was. By A LOT. She taught me the drama and standards of female friendships were COMPLETELY unnecessary. That changed me. Her free spirit punched my free spirit right in the gut with that. I remember thinking, “I don’t have to participate in this nonsense?” I was under the impression that I was bound to that code or I’d be left alone. I thank whoever created our consciousness that she showed me I was wrong. 

I guess you could say, as we figured out more of who we really were, our spirits came closer to alignment within our individual selves and then became closer to alignment with each other as they are so similar. 

I always felt her spirit was a good bit stronger than mine. I had a tendency to draw myself inward and she forced herself out into the fray. She has well developed social skills because of this whereas I hide in my head and behind the keys of a computer in an effort to riddle it all out. 

I had a family and a marriage and I moved away from her and everyone I knew just trying to do what was right and grow into what I thought I should be and what I felt I was being directed to become. She was in a serious relationship with a dude, had a real job, a house, and some dogs. We seemed to be finally fitting in.  

But, it still didn’t feel right.

She called me one day. She told me she wasn’t happy in that spot. The world was so small there. Everything is the same over and over again. The people and the places and the experiences are quite limited when you live in the Midwest. So, I told her to stop worrying about obligations to others if she knew she’d be miserable in those boundaries. I told her to live for herself.

I’m sure she had already decided what she needed to do. That conversation couldn’t have held much weight. She does what she’s compelled to do and it’s magnificent because she’s one of the rare ones who can be trusted to do well with that kind of power.

She moved to the desert of Arizona. I was in the deep south. We spoke on the phone maybe twice a year, but, in those conversations from thousands of miles away, I felt more of a connection to her than I’d felt with any other and in a way that made up for all of what I felt was meaningless in my day to day interactions. Speaking with her refreshed me and made me feel like there was hope for true happiness.

From Arizona her world has only gotten bigger as she’s joined with philanthropic teams to assist those in need. Her world, it just keeps getting bigger.

I can see why she’s lost. We don’t have what is required to travel the paved roads on the maps that seem so popular. Their way doesn’t fill us up. Also, doing what does come naturally and what feels right doesn’t garner us any praise. We are often scorned for our actions in ways that don’t make sense to us. We are asked why we would be kind to certain people. Why would you give so much for someone you don’t know? Why would you do this and that and the other thing? It’s like we are weird and abnormal and strange and, maybe we are. 

There’s a lack of appreciation in a life like that. A lack of acceptance, a longing for camaraderie and, let’s face it, we were taught to need those things. Shaking that bad habit is hard as hell. When you’re an empathetic soul it hurts to watch people hurt each other. When you see an end to all of the useless pain and you’re told it will never work because of old ideas and standards you start to think others refuse to see the future and it’s frustrating and unfortunately, the laws are made in their favor so, you are forced to bend to their will in a lot of ways. It’s a bummer.

Maybe we evolved too early. Maybe it’s harder for us to find the like minded in a crowd because we are a sparse group of folks. Or maybe we were born too late. That hippie culture lingered but it feels like it’s gone. 

Regardless, the answers you’re searching for, my dearest friend, they aren’t out there. They never were. Whatever made us all gave the plan to us when he/she/it made our souls. They were attached to us before we were born so they couldn’t be taken from us. So everyone had a fair shot at happiness and fulfillment. Who you’re supposed to be and where you’re supposed to go and what you’re supposed to do are things you already know and you, precious Starchild, you’re lucky enough to be one of the brilliant ones who doesn’t need to be directed. You’re soul is smart enough and loud enough to drive you there. If you get it wrong something will turn you around. If it doesn’t feel right, walk away. Or run. You’ve been so far and you’ve done so much good.  Your intentions are PURE and your motives are clear.  You’re exactly who and what and where you’re supposed to be. 

If you don’t feel appreciated it is only because most people don’t know how to appreciate you. You’re like one of those stipple paintings that looks like dots up close to people who don’t know well enough to take a step back. You’re just too big for their small views. And that’s ok. Because there are a few exceptional people out there who can see you for all of the glorious good that you are. Don’t be lonely. We feel you there. Alllllll the way over there.

One person’s appreciation doesn’t feel like enough sometimes. Especially when you give so much of yourself without asking for much in return.  Administering polio vaccines and helping to build water filtration systems.  Jeez, man.  You should never have to doubt your beauty and worth.  You should never have to search for validation. But you will have to.  

Some days you won’t feel any love at all. Then you have to look for it and, on the way, you’ll find something that’s going to change you. The next step. It always starts in a moment of discomfort or pain. You’re about to grow wings, you beautiful creature.  Soon enough, you won’t have to look for anything at all. You’ll have found it all inside of you. And you’ll find that there is so much in there that you need not fear sharing it with any and everyone you come across because, if there is one thing I know, people like you never run out of love.  

Love is what fuels you. Love fuels us all and a lot of people replaced it with something else. I’m afraid many have forgotten what it really feels and looks like in it’s many magnificent forms but, you have it in abundance and it’s not going anywhere. 

I imagine you’ve seen things that make your efforts seem small, as exhausting as they have been. They aren’t small. And neither are you. When you reach out your hand or extend your love with that brilliant smile, you plug into another soul. And they bring it to another and on and on and on and, before you know it, your smile improved the whole of humanity. How can anyone feel alone when they start seeing that? It may sound trite but, you’ll see it, if you’re looking for it.  

You’re strong. Smart. Capable. Diligent in an effort to make humanity more positive and pleasant. You’re important. Just because you aren’t “following the rules” doesn’t mean you’re off course. I’m sure there are kids in India who’d be dead had they not met you.  YOU are everything you’re supposed to be, doing exactly what you’re supposed to do, exactly where you’re supposed to be. 

I love you.

P.S.

I miss your face