Will you take me where you're going if you're never coming back

Shortly before San left for her life-changing trip to Japan this year, I sent her a message. So much of our communications had always been through text message, but now it seems strange -- I've not sent her a text message since April. Anyway, because of the nature of text messages or just how my mind works, the message I sent her was something along the lines of "What if I was not your only friend in this world? Can you take me where you're going if you're never coming back?".

It's a quote from an Eels song, Last Stop This Town -- the song is actually about death (as much of that album is, unfortunately for Mr E), but I liked the idea "will you take me where you're going if you're never coming back" it conveys a whole range of emotions, and expressed a lot for me in a few words.

San and I were talking a little on email today, about music and gigs this summer. San expressed an interest in one particular show -- but then brought up the point: will she even be here? I think technically her obligation to her teaching assistant contract finishes in April, but San said herself that if she comes home for an extended period of time she is worried it will be forever.

This has been playing on my mind in one form or another. Part of me wants to ask maybe what she is running away from (you can't run away from yourself), or what she's looking for. But then part of me asks, isn't she just doing what I keep saying I want to do -- and lack the courage? I say I'm not interested in the material life, that I want to travel, meet people, see all the amazing things this world has to offer. I want to take pictures and listen to stories, I don't care about cars and houses...

At the same time, I tell myself I need to clear my debts, and my dreams are all very nice but completely impractical. I daydream about rescuing sea turtles in Mexico, or spear-fishing in Brazil -- and maybe if you want to, these things are really possible, or maybe it's all well and good for a few years until you realise that time isn't standing still for you and sooner or later "a proper job" will be inevitable if you expect to be able to eat, or whatever. Maybe what it really comes down to is I'm jealous, because I want to have the courage to just stick two fingers up to everything here.

Don't get me wrong, I have no desire to be a teaching assistant. I don't want to teach and aren't a huge fan of kids in general. The kinds of things that do appeal require me to stump up large sums of cash first.

I tell myself the trick is to play the game -- to get the good job, so I then have the money to travel, to embark on volunteer adventures, so that I can meet people and take pictures. But it's a tightrope, especially when what you'd also really like is someone special in your life -- all too quickly one thing can lead to another, and it's not a bad thing, it's just life.

There isn't really a point to any of this. I don't have a conclusion or a happy ending to give to it to resolve it. If San really is ever coming back -- for more than a visit -- only she can decide. And I still need to decide for myself how to get what I should have in my life -- which is becoming a running theme just lately.

"Why dont we take a ride away up high
Through the neighbourhood
Up over the billboards and the factories
And smoke..."