Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Why I Haven't Been Writing

On April 14 2012 I woke up a little before 5 AM alone in a tent on the Masai Mara National Reserve in southern Kenya. We ate breakfast mostly in silence – two safari guides out of Nairobi, two young women (one of whom despised me like I have never been despised before) and I. The final, exhilarating leg of the safari caught us a rare glimpse of a black rhino, giraffes rollicking across the savanna, and an endlessly pensive sky.


After lunch I bade goodbye to my companions, boarded a bus bound for Lake Victoria, and – finally alone – ventured deeper into Africa. That was a dazzling afternoon, winding through the incandescent tea farms of western Kenya.


Free at last of burdens – particularly those of the interior sort – I slowly realized that I had been reborn. Somehow this desperate mission had been accomplished and I found myself staring at a bright, clean slate of blessed existence.

My life has never been the same. I don’t know if it is renewed zeal, wisdom hard-earned through trial and error, or simply dumb luck, but that bus ride through Kenya carried me to a land of contentment. I now work hard at four different jobs that challenge every part of my brain and leave plenty of time left over for leisure. I spend that leisure time in ideal locations with wise, humorous and supportive friends. I share this life with a marvelous woman whose values align splendidly with mine. There isn’t much else to say. I have been living the happiest days of my life for the last two years – days which have proven to inspire fewer piercing emotions, smaller peaks and valleys, ultimately less of a need to describe.