i just spent

an hour discussing my bar trip....over wine and mole...with my madre. I want to do Thailand. I want to sit on a beach, ride an elephant, I want to experience the far east. I want to lay in a hammock, watch the waves crash, get $20 happy ending specials, and look forward to the rest of my life as a lawyer.

I'm having issues about the companionship. While we are talking, I'm watching marijuana references on family guy and become torn between spending 2-3 amazing weeks experiencing my mother vs. 2-3 amazing weeks experiencing my friends and/or my self, and the different worlds that those involve. They can be polar opposite at times, but i know who and what is truly there for me.

I have felt so good being at home. I am loved, I am not judged. Even though the Hawaii trip with Mr. D has fallen through, I came clean with my parents. Rather than ranting and raving at me, my mom dug through her closet to find beach clothes that I could wear. I have spent the last 4-5 years thinking they would ex-communicate me if they knew that a (now 42) year old man was a recipient of my affections.

The same with S... I saw him and even though I broke up with him all those years ago, it felt so comfortable and so normal and so "college" to be with him. I wasn't shy...I was myself...

So basically I don't know what all of these circumstances are telling me...(oh, and not to mention the compelling read "Of Human Bondage" and all the thoughts it has stirring...thanks for the reference Paradox)...Life is so ugly and it is so beautiful all at once...when you realize how vulgar and terrible it is and how many layers lie before you...how low you can get and how impossible it seems...then something beautiful comes up and suprises you....freshly fallen snow or a raging fire in the fireplace or the look of an old friend...when the idealism of youth wears off and you are left standing with things that matter...when you realize that honesty is the best policy and produces the best dividends....when you realize there are some things about yourself that will never change...when you realize that at the end of the day you have no one else to answer to but yourself...when you realize that people around you feel the same ways that you do...but that is so hard to believe or accept...when you realize the beautiful paths that are placed before you...

sigh...this may be the first year it is hard for me to leave home. i am truly excited to be back in the sun and on the beach...but this has been an incredible, introspective trip home to the deep Southwest This was a great read....amazing how the human tradition trancends generations.