Nanaimo had been great when I'd first returned; it always was. One with enough patience to dig through the crusty exterior of Nanaimo's scene will find a endless wealth of love - and a reunion with that kind of love is impossible not to enjoy. A reunion fades quickly though, and while the love never faded, my connection with it did.
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| The Sweet, Sweet Home Harbour |
I tripped over my own life. I stumbled and fell for months, deep into the dankest of pits populated with the masochistic musings of my own psyche. I became stuck in the stagnant and painful grip of addiction, I was tossed into a destructive whirlwind of abusive friendships.
The sun was shining, but down here at rock bottom I could barely see the rays.
So, needless to say, I was eager to jump free at the first opportunity that presented itself. I didn't care with whom - and this was a bad decision. Any seasoned traveler will attest to this - if you're embarking on a closeknit journey with any one individual, make sure you know them damn well.. Even the tightest of kin will discover dark parts about their other half when they're stuck on the highway, stressed and thirsty, being flogged by sunlight and mocked by the laughing engines of passing cars,
So distraught was I that I didn't care. I wanted out, wanderlust had me gripped by the balls. So, when Shrimp and I were halfway through a bottle of Jagermeister, a conversation stumbled between our half-slacked lips and changed our lives forever.
"Guess what - I'm going to Central America soon!"
"Yeah? Cool. Hah - I'll come with you." A brief stumble.
"Hell yeah! Do it!"
Consciousness soon eluded me. I'm sure we spoke more of the idea that night, but I'll never remember. Drunken promises are made to be broken. Regardless, I woke up the next morning fortified by the prospect of travel and messaged Shrimp over Facebook to see if she still remembered the plan. It seemed that she, too, was just as curious.
Turns out, we were both a hundred percent into it.
I quit my job the next day, sent half my paycheck to Shrimp and watched her turn it into a plane ticket. I had $300 left in my pocket, a heart full of promises, and a week and a half to kick an addiction I'd been struggling with for five months and to say goodbye to the only ones I loved enough to help me do that - to set out across five different countries with a stranger I'd only met twice (albeit very drunken and intimately.)
Things were finally getting interesting.
