What is it all for?

While wiling away the brief, blinking moments of nothing in my life that are quickly killing even themselves, I was asked an interesting question.  The conversation had kept running long past the metaphorical last buzzer and we turned into those two shadows in the back of the gym that no one notices as they lock up...but they don't notice themselves either.  It was a Saturday night that was too chock-full of options that the two of us decided to avoid being overwhelmed and sat camped out together for hours trying to share life updates somewhere between the sarcasm and laughter.

"But do you still even consider yourself on this journey to find a home?"

I'm running, I've found my groove, there's no stopping and - BAM. Did someone just hurl a bucket of ice water on my face?

My first reaction was to wonder why my friend who knows me so well would even ask me that question.  What kind of question is that? Of course I'm still on my journey.  This isn't where I planned to end up.  This city did not embrace me as I entered.  There was no cuddling in the warmth of my bed while it was bitingly cold outside...no comfort.

"I do because I still feel like I haven't come to a complete stop.  I feel that there's something more, somewhere out there that I need to get to."

But does that still make this the original journey I started?

"I should stop saying I'm still on my journey. I am on a journey. Life is a journey, of course. Whatever. But that part of my life, that escape, that fleeing that I needed has ended.  I guess I've started a different journey."
"I think so, too. Your journey has ended.  This is your new life, Kaitlin. You'd better get used to it."

While I inwardly chuckled at this comment coming out of this person who continuously makes fun of my Seminar-minded musings, I was reminded of the comment that his friend told me months ago (oh, how times does sprint) while paused in Alabama: "Your adventure should be all about love."

And it has been.  That's truly what it came down to in the end of it all.  And if this journey within the greater journey of life has any indication of what life as a whole is all about...well, I think you know where this is headed.

But it's true. This adventure has been about love.  It is the explanation of everything my fleeing has been about.  It has been about learning to slow down in the midst of life speeding up around you.  Breathing.  It's when you slow down and are able to truly see what's happening around you because you no longer are fretting about what comes next that you learn love.  You pursue.  You pursue love.  You pursue love to consume your own self.

Internally I was fighting myself.  I was at a point where I was moving and my world around me wasn't.  Northern California already had me firm in its grip, talons around my ankle, and I was drowning in that last bit of water that pops as it gurgles down the drain.  I would have given myself 6 more months there before I slipped down that drain and set up roots.  I saw all of it happening and for a long time I felt like there was nothing I could do about it.  I was a little kid that was so excited for my new bouncy ball only to toss it to the floor and realize that it didn't bounce.  It was accept or get out and I didn't have long to decide before it was decided for me by the invisible forces that trap in all Californians within their nets simply because it's California.

So I started to pursue love.  I'm still not quite sure of what that love was - and is - but it had something to do with my continual amazement at life's possibilities.  I have a love for testing limits.  I don't want to live in a world of imposed limits that don't even have the nerve to justify themselves.  It has something to do with Jon's description of romantic love:  "It's worth it to stay interested in case it's real."  But that applies to any type of love.  And since life is defined by love then it's safe to say that I should stay interested in life in case it's real.

Now you're thinking about all of this.  Maybe re-reading portions. You never thought you'd turn into a Gael, did you?  Welcome to the Seminar disease!

Anyway...this love journey was only realized once I stopped to look at everything happening around me.  There's no better way to describe it than to compare it to the upside-down truck route sign from Birmingham (wow, way to make a lot of appearances in this post, Alabama).

We were trying to get somewhere.  You have to drive everywhere you go.  For some reason Alabama and California wanted to be lovers and decided their children would be forever public transit malnourished.  You drive fast because you can.  You make a lot of superfluous turns.  You pass a lot of warehouses and vacant, rusting buildings.

We were pondering what Alabama was.  How does one describe it simply?  At that perfect moment in the conversation where there is an awkward silence, one where both people feel the need to say something but don't, we stopped at a stop sign.  I was already perfecting my California roll, Birmingham-style because I was rushing.  I looked up to my right.  He looked up to his right.  Instant, synchronized laughter ensued.

"That's what Alabama is right there.  That's Alabama."

Or at least that's what sounded like came out of his mouth between explosions of laughter at the absurdity of it all.