22 & not a clue

At the bottom of a hill in a small Irish town there lies a newsagents that boasts a funny smell. The owner looked his best 30 years ago and hasn't changed since. His cream cardigan is grubby, his finger nails orange, tinged from many a year spent rolling tobacco. The darting pink of his tongue running along the paper as it rolls together to make yet another 'bine'.

The kids outside bounce the ball against the wall for another time. He stirs from his stool, paper crushed by his side to be brandished.  The door bell chimes in a rush as he storms through to shout unintelligably. A mixture of uniforms, green with badges embroidered on and black with pockets hanging off. High school and Grammar kids mooch around in this no man's land.

Resting at the bottom of this hill the shop is a divide between the wealthier end of town and the estates backing onto it. From 15:30 - 16:00 the kids loiter, in this lost section of time when they aren't quite expected home yet and don't quite want to leave. The grammar girls mingle with the high school boys who make jokes and lean against the wall without a care, ignoring them. Hockey boys dart the spit balls thrown their way and the girls giggle on.

Stan has seen them all come and go, white tights with brown leather shoes, short skirts with high heels and black bras under white shirts. His darting tongue running across paper after paper as nimble dirty fingers fold and roll. The stubs of his finger tips become black from newspaper ink as he thumbs through the papers slowly, waiting for that golden half hour each day.

'You refuse to make a man the centre of your life, but romance is.
That is your conundrum.
So you are smart enough to know that life is short and needs to be filled.
But you're not sure life can be filled if there isn't a romance as part of it.'

I don't know about the rest of you but at some point this realisation hit and I was truth tripping all over the place. Thanks to the good friend who made that happen. But seriously, is this just me? The committment cold feet, the accusations of running away from anything that resembles stability?
It can't just be our age, it has to go deeper subconsciously to somewhere t
hat's still nursing the bruises left by bastards in the past.

Life is to be lived, love is to be had and shared, but why would you want to share a life if your half hasn't yet been lived to the full? You shouldn't put on hold all the things you want right now. It's like the old man who told me 'don't work all your life and not have adventures in the belief that one day you will be able to pay for them all at once - because you won't. Go out and adventure now.'

And yet what we humans want most is to be loved, really, when you think about it. We just want love and so we are split between the want for adventure and the need to love and be loved. We let the hunt for one over-ride the necessity for the other. We are unable to quantify our lives as they are or appreciate them until we have someone else to share them with.

It's the argument of will anyone hear the tree should it fall with no one there - is it still an adventure if you go it alone. Of course it is. In fact its how we are designed, unless you have stuff going on there should only be you in that head of yours. So listen to yourself, silence all the hum and answer the question: "What is it I want?" Once you answer that question, go out and do it, find it, see it, live it. Because time waits for no man and the best time to do anything is now.

I have three weekends left in Australia. I have one pair of jeans with a huge hole in the crotch from having lived in them since winter arrived in this beautiful city. I have one jumper and no coat and only my ambitions and hopes to keep me warm. They've kept me going from the start and helped keep negativity from the door.