Crying and the rain

Leaving the island meant I was leaving behind a part of me. I’d bought the things I felt I’d need to survive for a while and strapped them to my bike. Meanwhile my father and friends were helping me lug all the shite out of my apartment. So much accumulated waste in just two years.

Then I got on a boat with a bike full of things and I cried until I was empty. Mech was there. If you know her, you understand how peaceful she can be. We’d had a send off the night before, I got good and drunk, and so by the time she sat there with her peacefulness, telling me about the relative meaninglessness of life, absorbing my general fact spewing ideas about buddhism, she smiled and I smiled through watery eyes. She showed me a picture of my father with her friends she took a few days before and I cried again. I left him alone. Not alone. But without me. And I was without him, and that hurt.

Bike conditions were awful, rain and head wind. I arrived in Deventer drenched and tired and met up with my friends Aalt and Hannelotte. Showered at their place and realised my back pack was not waterproof at all. I curled up in my sleeping bag and slept for an hour. Then Aalt looked at me from over his laptop and smiled. I had arrived.