just let go

I've always loved airports. There is something about the vibe of a airport that entrances me every single time. I can never pinpoint it, but I love it. I could spend days on end in an airport, watching the people at the gates, the people waving to loved ones boarding planes, the anxious women biting their nails and checking their watches at the arrival gates.

I love planes. I love flying. I don't think I'll ever get tired of it, which is a good thing considering the career I'm aiming for.

Cuba was fantastic, it was so great to be by the ocean again. Words cannot express the joy that is sitting outside with a warm carribbean breeze blowing your hair, listening to the palm trees rustle as you sip your fourth mojito. It's just soul food.

But when it came time to leave, the old haunts of leaving started to creep up again. I'm not sure why I don't like the concept of "home." Courtney was anxious to get back into the swing of real life, to see her kitten again. Was I anxious to sleep in my own bed? Sure. But could I have gone another month without it? Absolutely. Could I have taken my suitcase, chosen a random terminal in the airport, and taken off again? Without hesitation.

I have no ties. These binds and pulls that other people have towards home--going back to familiarity, the comforts of routine--I don't have those. I have friends that are my life support, but I keep them with me wherever I go. Friendship is as fluid and malleable as the concept of home, friendship can follow you.

Sometimes I wonder if it's a bad thing. Eveyone thinks I'm crazy to hate going home from wherever 've been. I can't remember a time where I was ever anxious to get back once I had been away--which probably means that wherever I feel my home is, it's not Montreal.

Because when I left Halifax last summer, my heart broke into pieces.

On Thursday night, the weather in Cuba was stifling even at midnight. It's the kind of heat that just envelops you all over and makes you think there is a God. The beach was dark and desolate. The sound of the wavs crashing the shore is one of my greatest pleasures in life. The ocean is my muse, my temptress, and it's a sound I could listen to forever.

I asked my friend to hang back near the passageway. I kicked off my flip flops and walked down the sand to the shoreline. I waded a foot deep into the water and just stayed there for a few minutes, taking it all in. The stars were out, neatly dotting the dark sky in constellations that I didn't recognize. Standing on that beach, alone, is something I will never forget. A few thoughts that crept into my head were powerful enough to give me shivers, but the sense of fate and the unknown was the most powerful force that overtook me.

Last summer, sitting on the Halifax Harbourfront at 2AM, three words kept repeating themselves in my head. On that beach, the three words came back, but they were different this time.

Everything is going to be okay.

I'm as atheist as they come, but there's something really comforting about knowing that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

I don't believe in accidents.