new adults

On December ninth of 2015, or thereabouts, we were in Thailand, staying at a Moonrise Bungalow on the beach of Menai in Koh Samui, an island in the gulf, just steps from the ocean. Less than two months prior to that I had been engaged to a wonderful woman that I loved and adored and didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with, on a three month work trip to LA that turned into six, working for CBS in the promo department and slowly beginning to wonder what the fuck I was doing with my life, and all of a sudden I realized, standing on the porch of that bungalow and looking out at an unfamiliar sea, that I was completely untethered in every way. I had no home, I had no job, I had no obligations or debt, no children, no actual relationship to speak of (more on that in a moment) and no reason to stay in LA, or Portland, or anywhere really.

 

Since I was a senior in high school, I had wanted to travel and see the world, and now all of a sudden I had a chunk of change and no reason to put that off any longer. Standing on that little porch, looking out at the endless expanse of water, I decided that the time was now, that that desire could remain a dream no longer. I decided that I would liquidate everything material in my life and set out on a path of discovery, both internal and external, and go travel without a destination for as long as it took to satisfy that urge, with the awareness that it might never end. 

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I went inside and told Quinn, my twin flame, my match, the woman that I was deeply in love with and who had come with me to Thailand and proven herself to be the companion that I had been searching for my entire life, that I was leaving when we got back to the states and might well never return. I asked her to come with me, and she said no.

 

She had another boyfriend, you see, her roommate, and a life in Portland, and things to go back to. I didn’t, but I respected her choice, and assured her that I would be leaving with or without her come January.

 

We headed back to Los Angeles the next day, traveling over thirty hours through Bangkok and Guangzhou, China. On the flight from China to Los Angeles, she asked me out of the blue why I was doing all the things she wanted to do right now. She had spent years searching for an opportunity to go travel around without destination or end, with a partner, someone that wanted what she wanted. She had tried to force and manufacture that opportunity with every man she had been with since graduating from college, and now, in this complicated situation, in this time of uncertatinty and change, I had finally presented her with that chance, and she was afraid to take it. She was happy with her life in Portland, happy in her relationship with this other guy, afraid of giving up the safety and security of her life for a dream. I told her again that she was welcome to come with me, and again she said no.

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We landed in Los Angeles and took a cab to the apartment I had been staying at and immediately got into bed for nearly thirty six hours. In that time we mostly slept, but at one point she woke up and told me “you're everything I want, and I'm almost ready for you” and I died a little inside.

 

Almost.

 

Almost hurt me more than not at all could have, because it meant that something was holding her back, and that something seemed likely to spell not at all, a missed opportunity that would ultimately mean an end. I readied myself to let her go forever, and when we finally got out of bed and I drove her to the airport to get on that plane and leave, I said goodbye and meant it.

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I left her alone to reunite with that other man, drove to my friend Donnie’s house for his ugly christmas sweater party, and walked around in a daze, lost and empty without her, but resolute. I told everyone I held dear that I was heading back to Portland to sell off everything I owned and go drive around for a little while.

 

The responses ranged from measured doubt to outright condemnation to excitement and jealousy and encouragement. I've always been one of the weirder people in my loose affiliation of friends and acquaintances, so nobody was shocked. I eventually drove home, exhausted, and got into bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. I tried everything I could think of, but by four am I was still laying awake, quietly crying, missing Quinn more than I had ever missed anyone in my entire life but determined to let her go, let her be. 

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Then she texted me. “Are you awake?” she asked. I said yes. 

 

“I miss you” she said. I said I missed her too. 

 

“I can't do this without you,” she told me.

 

That was Saturday night, or early Sunday morning.

 

By five am on Tuesday, she had decided that she was coming with me. A week later I was back in Portland.

 

A month later we were on the road.