Start (Player One)

I’ve spent the majority of my life not knowing where I was heading.

The memories are fuzzy in some places, solid in others. Sunlight streaming through the clouds. Sunflowers on rainy days. Mud pies slung across flooded grass. Flashlights in a dark room. Laughter coloring a house full of women. Those stories, though, will come in due time.

I collect stories like trinkets.

It comes naturally to me, I suppose, but it’s not always easy.

As silly as it sounds, I’ve found some sort of solace in placing my words onto paper; rather, I think the entire process of recognition and letting go has helped me center myself and heal in my own way. I scribble down notes on my travels, when I remember, and often times I find myself wanting to reignite the same energy later down the road. The best way I’ve found to do just that has been through recollections. The connections we make and the moments we remember can either be groundbreaking or completely innocuous for us as individual, independent people. I eventually found more pleasure in the simplicity, over time. 

This space will be a place for me to remember–the good and the bad, the bent or broken, the healthy and toxic.

Traveling, then, has led me to some sort of answer to the very real and personal why I’ve faced time and time again. I’ve found over the years that it’s not necessarily something that I’m running from, per say, that has led me to want to experience the wonders of the world around me, but much rather that I’m running toward something. Maybe a brighter future. Maybe an understanding of other people and cultures. Maybe a better knowledge of myself. 

I think what I’ve learned over the years is that in all of the time I spent wasting away on the what-ifs of the past, I forgot to concern myself over the concrete future.

These journal entries are a collection of ones I’ve written either previously or as a recollection of current events. Each one has its own time stamp, placing the date and year. Some destinations may have more than one part. Some may just have one very strong memory attached. They aren’t necessarily chronological, either, and they aren’t meant to be. Each has their own purpose, their own specific memory or experience–the date itself is unnecessary to enjoy the full effect. 

These entries read more like letters, in the end, which is to say that I perhaps wrote them as a means to an end–hoping that somewhere down the line they would be important enough for someone else to read them. For someone else to enjoy them. 

In that way, they’ll take on a life of their own.  

Sam