jamesters.

ethaney:

When I first decided to leave home, I told my father first. I told him over two overly sweet lukewarm coffees and one burnt tongue at an empty Starbucks. I told him because I knew he was the only one who would support me and for me, it was enough. Our past didn’t matter. His mistakes and the grudge I secretly held against him disappeared. I told him I wanted to learn. I wanted to learn about people and I wanted to see things I wouldn’t ever get a chance to see. I wanted to smell different air from different parts of the country. I just wanted to see with open eyes. And with one raised eyebrow and the flick of his cigarette against the pavement, he hugged me good-bye and told me to go out there.

I traveled across the country with Morgan. My mother was furious with me, I didn’t say good-bye to my brother and I left with a written note stuck to a windshield and one packed bag in the backseat of my Volkswagen. Over two and a half months, we saw deserts and forests, mountains and plains. We loved in cheap motel rooms and we laughed in the front seat of our car. I sat in the driver’s seat as the miles clicked and clicked away. Yet at times when the music was turned down too low and the sun was setting in just that perfect way where the orange hits gold and spurns a devilish red over soft white clouds, I wasn’t sure if this was where I was supposed to be, and sometimes I would cry silently in the cheap plastic shower of boring plain motel rooms. But most of the time, when the sun rose and the windows were down, it felt right. 

And now it’s been over a year of figuring each other out from afar and fingertips to fingertips, fixing things that crumbled slightly under our careful watch, learning the rights and wrongs and loving the best way we know how. It’s been a year of me wondering how I got here and the affirmation of my choices. Sometimes I look at him and I think, I have never fought myself harder for anyone else before and that means something. That really means something. Sometimes I think of what I told my father. I had told him I wanted to learn. The word is so broad and I don’t know if he knew what I meant or if I knew what he was thinking. Bu that word settled there between us and made everything seem alright and acceptable. I probably didn’t learn the things he was thinking I would learn. And to be honest, I don’t think I learned the things I was expecting to either.

But I’ve learned the power of a simple apology and how tender the gentle furrowing of a brow really is. I’ve learned how sweet the end of an argument can be. I’ve learned how far and loud my voice can stretch and how low I can make someone feel with a flick of the tongue, with the snapping of the jaw. I’ve learned the beauty of growing, stumbling, falling with scraped knees and the effort of trying to pick yourself up again. I’ve learned that patience is the truest virtue and when someone has that endless amount of patience with you and for you, there isn’t really any greater gift than that. I learned the honesty of what it means to give all of yourself for the hope that it’s returned back to you in one piece. I learned the ugliness of stubbornness and of deep rooted pride, I learned the way jealousy is the fastest way to kill anything living and green. And most of all, I learned why we as humans take such big chances and take big risks. I learned the truth of believing what you believe in is magic. I saw the beauty in taking a leap. I felt it. I saw it. I woke up with it every morning. 

I learned why love or maybe even the chance of love makes us do insane things. I learned why it makes us step out of our boundaries and color outside the lines. And sometimes even with all me and my father’s differences, I like to think we both knew what I meant that afternoon in Starbucks. I like to think that he had hoped for the things I have been lucky to experience and I hope that even through the stagnant silence between us, he knows that at the end of it all, I learned the things I needed to become myself. And to be happy.

I had learned my idea of happiness.