A breakdown

If you know me at all, or knew me at all, you know that I have over-active tear glands. I will cry at anything and everything. But surprisingly while I've been here, I have cried I think only twice. Perhaps it is because my eyes are too busy taking in so many new things to let any old things come out. But anyway, today I had a good cry, and it was appropriately over a book.

If you like people, don't read Into the Wild. Though I haven't finished, I do believe that the point, at least that I can see, is that human relationships are not possible to and are not worth severing. But it goes about it on an agonizing trail. It is the story of a boy who, after graduating from university gave all his savings to a charity and abandoned his family without a word and went on his merry way to the northwest and west and north. He eventually wound up in Alaska, where he took decidedly insufficient supplies to survive as long as he hoped to, and he died there.

In the months, perhaps years that followed, the author of this book, who wrote the original article on the story in an outdoors-y magazine, tracked down several people who had spent time with the boy, picked him up while he was hitch hiking, let him stay with them, gave him a job or met him.

Today I took a trip to Vilnius with some girls for my friend Hannah's birthday, so we had a long bus drive on which I could sit and read. I made a bit dent in the novel. So on the way back, I was reading chapter thirteen, which is recounting the boy's family's reactions to his death, both in the immediate after effects, and upon months of time to contemplate. At the beginning of the chapter, I started to cry, and then I just didn't stop after that. I was so upset that he would be so selfish.

It reminded me slightly of my trip here, and I became frightened that I was running away from something. I know this is not true, and I always appreciate that my parents know where I am, and that they are always willing to listen and help when they can. This chapter made me desperate to tell them that I am anxious to come see them again, and I always want to keep building our relationship. I am perplexed and upset by this boy's drive to detatch from all human connection; and the fact that his family mourned his death, though he left them in the dust (or snow, so to speak), just goes to prove that you cannot sever those ties completely, because you need a two-man saw.

So, all this to say, I love my family, and I am coming home after my adventure!