Uncharted Waters

Did I turn back too soon?
I lost the shore on the horizon and panicked.

I lay back down in my spot.
Coffee spoon nestled into place.
The same blonde wisps caught in my three day stubble.

The pain and the paint on the glass is where I left it.
The tucked in sheets I swore didn't want strangle the legs.
There's a suburban safety to the suffocation.
But did I turn back too soon?

The souls of my shoes wore along the smooth path,
But the persnickety details on the label made them expendable.
The new way was rougher but it was approached with a sprint rather than shuffling steps.
The souls on the new shoes are sturdy but the heals are rubbing me raw.

--------

I'm amazed at people. Especially in New York. They are all so different, but honestly they're much more the same. New York is filled with the exact same people as Iowa, Detroit, Chicago...farms and other cities. But it's filled with different roles and different costumes.

A broad shouldered man filling out his power suit well during a business lunch could be the same guy with sleeves rolled up and his hands in the dirt. Different business meetings, same person.

The group of pretty girls sitting next to me in yellow jeans drinking $4 bottles of water waiting for their break could be the same group of girls in cardigans from Kohl's talking about babies and their husbands.

Did I give up on Sara too soon? Conventional wisdom says now...three years should be plenty of time. But was being with her putting me in a bad mood or was my frustrations with my surrounding doing it? Sara always said how she wanted to travel and do exciting things too. I still don't know if I believe here, but in my sadness I tend to give her the benefit of the doubt. She has flaws. I couldn't ignore them. I have flaws. I feel like she took them in stride and loved me for them. I can't tell you how unbearable that is to think about.

But if I go back now, will I be saying "Did I give up on a better future?" I haven't really TRIED anything yet. I've gone through almost four months of struggle, but I haven't done anything worthwhile yet. I haven't gotten anything out of my system. I can't, it turns out, do anything that I "dreamt" of while I was in a relationship and longing to be a single man. But I can date. I can get to know other people.

It's funny, through all my time in New York, I've loosely just been thinking this: Now is my time to get this stuff out of my system. Then I can go back to Sara and continue the life I've grown so accustomed to.

Everything about me at this moment reeks of technology. Head phones in, typing on my phone, with a bluetooth keyboard propping it up with my iPad.

It's hard to hold something at arm's length when it's in the palm of your hand.

Toilet Seat

Why are there so many toilet seats in the ocean?
There are over 452,000 toilet seats in the ocean.
Actually, I just made that up.
But there are always toilet seats being picked up in fisherman nets in movies.
Why?
How often have you detached a toilet seat?
How often have you disposed of it by flinging it into the ocean?
Boots are always showing up in fisherman's nets too.
Boots I can understand.
At least a lot more than I can understand toilet seats.
Are people living closer to large bodies of water more apt to detach toilet seats from the base?
And are they concurrently more apt to be anti-environment by casually tossing them into a lake or an ocean?
We need to get to the bottom of this.
We need to commission a study.
We need to form a task force.
Why are there so many toilet seats in the ocean?