Fear

It is Wednesday and I am a couple days into my house sitting/dog sitting extravaganza here in Seaton, England. It has been a difficult couple of days for me as I am extremely bored most of the time and even more lonely then I am bored. Thankfully, Jerry and Charlotte gave me some tasks to do out in the yard while they are gone. These have been keeping me busy and I feel like I am doing something helpful and good.

Currently I am trying to fit a ton of dirt, rubble and general bits of worthlessness into a tiny dumpster they call a "skip" here. The job is taking me much longer then I thought it would, but that is probably a good thing considering after this job is done, I will not have any more to do work wise until Jerry and Charlotte return from their vacation in Italy which will not be until this coming Monday. Right now, it is 3pm here in England and still light out. I could be out in the yard continuing the work that is awaiting me, but my body is very tired from all the action that it has seen over the last couple of days work out in the yard.

I find that I am very depressed here in Seaton. There is not much I can do or places I can go seeing as how I have a dog I need to walk twice a day. Miriah is twelve years old and is starting to show it. When I am not walking or feeding her, Miriah also seems very down and depressed. She takes to sleeping most of the day away and when she is not sleeping she is staring at me with eyes that tell me she is not very happy. This really does nothing for my mood as it generally makes me quite tired most of the time and her demeanor certainly does nothing to make me feel better about what is going on in my life. And just what is going on in my life?

Not that much, and that I think is one of the problems. I feel quite static and stuck here in Seaton. I feel even more stuck in my own mind. I am constantly thinking about the future and what my future holds for me. I day dream about what will happen in the coming months. What will happen? Where will I go? What will I do? Who will I meet? Will I ever find what I am looking for? Will I ever feel better? There are so many questions rolling around in my head and I cannot seem to do much of anything to silence them. Most of these questions are downright ridiculous to even be asking since there is no answer. I should not be worried with such things. I should be concentrating on the here and the now; enjoying my trip. For whatever reason, this is extremely hard for me to do. I find myself breaking down and crying for reasons that I do not even understand. I am not a crying type of person; or at least I never used to be. Crying was something that was reserved for special occasions when something terrible would happen or when I would think about my old dog Charlie. Now, though, I am a crying person. I have cried more since I have arrived here in Seaton then I have probably in the last 3 or 4 years. I am hard pressed to know why, although I have a sneaking suspicion of what it is.

Life for me has been mostly about unhappiness and dis-contentedness. Overall, I have been quite unhappy with what I have been doing at any given time in my life. There were moments of happiness and times where I really felt like I was doing what I wanted and I was where I wanted to be. For the most part, though, life for me has been quite trying. All of that changed very recently.

When I was in the middle stages of planning my trip, one of the things that I knew could potentially make my trip very difficult was if I were to get involved in a serious relationship with a woman prior to my departure. I made an active effort to keep this in the forefront of my mind. I did not want anything from back home constantly on my mind while I was away. As luck would have it, I met and fell in love with Irene shortly before my departure on my trip. In fact, I actually delayed my trip so that I could spend as much time with Irene as possible. Why would I do such a thing? I was doing the very thing that I told myself I should not. As it was, I could not help myself. The time that I spent with Irene were the happiest moments of my life. I was content and relaxed any time I was with her. It was truly amazing. I had finally found what had been evading me for so many years: contentment. I loved every moment of it, and it was all because of Irene. I made the decision that I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before she left for school in Oregon. All the time that I spent with her only strengthened the bond that I shared with her and it did not take long for me to realize that I was in love for the first time.

The very short time that I was able to spend with Irene before her departure to school and my departure on my trip was the happiest of my life. I think it is for this reason that I cry. I have a great amount of fear in me currently and the thing I think I fear the most is that I will never again be as happy as I was in those moments with Irene. I fear that I have reached the utmost pinnacle of happiness in my life. I fear I have reached that pinnacle and now I am venturing downward never again to feel what I had when I was with Irene. The thought is terrifying and it suffocates me even in this moment as I sit here trying to convey my thoughts on feelings into words.

Should I then go back home to Irene? Should I pursue what I know in my heart to be the greatest thing that has ever happened to me? The only answer that I can come to at this moment is no. At least, not yet.

I feel I need to learn how to be happy on my own. I know that if I were to follow Irene in her life, I would eventually kill any chance at a relationship that she and I have. I would be following her as an incomplete person. A person with no passion, no love and no happiness in his own skin. The thought that I need another person to make me happy in life scares the hell out of me. I think it is this notion that would eventually drive Irene away from me if I chose to follow her.

One thing that I have learned in the recent past is that life is all about relationships. We humans are social beings and we need other people in our lives that we can count on, love and trust. Irene is one of those people for me...perhaps even the most wonderful of them all. I can see myself spending the rest of my life with her, and yet I cannot go to her now. I know it would be the end of whatever we have. At the same time though, I worry that on my trip I will change into a different person. I know that this trip will help me to grow as a person; I just hope that it will not change me into a person that would hurt what I have with Irene.

I have so much fear for the future and I feel so helpless to do anything about it. My thoughts haunt me and I am finding no escape from them here in Seaton.