Ch-Ch-Changes

As I sat and admired the Perito Moreno Glacier, I started to feel tired and worn out, as I secretly have been for the last few weeks. It doesn't seem to matter where I am or what magnificent thing I am seeing for the first time -- my mind wanders to the webbing of my fingers and the brown freckles that now occupy the once vacant spaces, the scar in the middle of my right hand left by a fence that needed hopping on a day I was late for 8th grade choir practice (I had a solo, what can I say?), or the multitude of friends that time has forced in a different direction than my own. I no longer feel homesick, but instead nostalgia accompanies my instinct to do something more substantive--or at least feels substantive.

In front of this giant ice cube, I sit and feel time pass over me as I wonder where in the hell it has gone. Its not even that you take time for granted, its just that it doesn't stop--at least for long, as it can at times when you are alone. I think that my urge to finally write something about it was brought about while I slid my feed over the wooden planks that make up the trails to the park, and my shoulders brushed along the trees. The combination of the planks and pine trees reminded me of one of the last times that I saw my Dad in reasonably good health. On the flipside, it could have been the girls from Missouri with their Nalgene bottles that had sorority logos placed in neon puffy paint on them... Both seem to have significance. Of course, in very very different ways.

I've wondered if I should be spending more of my silence--these moments--reflecting on the present, but I can't help but look at the past. I do honestly believe that I am better for thinking about all of the moments that have defined my character: tragedies, triumphs, loves, heartbreaks, moments, phases, transitions, and adjustments. Already in 3 months, I can map out my life chronilogically by all of the aforementioned -- the moments of impact where I walked away having learned something that I didn't know before. I can only wonder where I will be in another six...

If nothing else, I will return from this trip with a heightened appreciation for my life, my friends, and my family. Though I've always known it, I think for the time being I've stopped taking how fortunate I already have been for granted. Even through the toughest times of my life, I've been lucky. In fact, through some amalgamation of influences, I've escaped them all not only unscathed, but wiser. I can only hope that my mom will agree.