Homeward Bound! But Where's Shadow?

I'm posting a day early because today is the day I'm actually going home for Thanksgiving Break; I thought it would be more appropriate, considering the title and content of this post.  This post is mainly my unfiltered thoughts from when I wrote it at 1:30 in the morning so if they seem a little abrasive, that's probably why.

If you're reading this on the day of its posting, good for you; but for me there are only four and a half days left of NaNoWriMo!  If you're not reading this on the day it was posted, I assume you had a hideous eye-infection that prevented you from doing so.  Just as it doesn't really matter when you're actually reading this, the last four and a half days of NaNoWriMo don't really matter because I've already achieved my goal of writing more words than I did last year.  Scratch that.  IT MATTERS!  I've come way too far not to finish now.  Once November's over I'll finally be able to unleash the natural editor inside me that I've kept chained and padlocked in a dark and lonely cell with walls three feet thick and only one key -- "The End."

NaNoWriMo has been a bit of a wild ride for me.  There was a week at the very beginning where I liked my secondary characters more than my main character but since then I've suffered from a severe case of the neglected subplot.  I'm okay with this, though, because I can always go back and flesh out my subplots during edits but I have to resolve my main conflict one way or the other by the end of the month.  Next week I'll probably do a brief debrief before continuing on with the story of my summer.

Right now, however, I'd like to write about something that's been bothering me this past week.  Over the past few months I've felt the best I've felt about myself in a long time.  I can wake up in the morning, look in the mirror (after I've showered, of course) and say to myself, "What a good looking, smart young man you are!"  I've managed to do well in all of my classes -- even the one with a difficult professor.  Heck!  I'm writing a freaking novel!  How cool is that?  In addition to all that, I have a great group of friends that I have dinner with more often than not, even though I live halfway across campus.  The best analogy I could come up with for how I feel/felt is Sassy the cat from "Homeward Bound."  If you haven't seen "Homeward Bound" you must not have had a childhood.  Anywho, Sassy nearly drowned after plummeting down a waterfall -- my grandfathers' deaths -- but was nursed back to health and is now back stronger and sassier than ever.  (Believe me; I have my sassy days.)  I'm homeward bound -- in the home stretch -- both for NaNoWriMo and this quarter.  Soon I'll be home enjoying the comforts of family and real food.  But something's missing.  Where's Shadow the golden retriever?

This past week I've felt as if something is missing from my life.  I noticed that I've been listening to songs that have a powerful cathartic effect on me -- "Into the West" from "The Return of the King" soundtrack and "Fire with Fire" by the Scissor Sisters, to name a couple.  I even dug out the slideshow I made for my high school graduation.  It could be that I'm just anxious to get home and see my family but if my subconscious is honest with me, I don't think that's it.

A few nights ago I had a dream with a meaning as clear as lake water.  A certain well-known YouTube violinist/dancer came to my school to perform.  After her performance she decided to hang around the dorms for a few days to get to know people.  For some reason, she took particular interest in me.  We became friends and would sit around eating apples as we chatted.  Things never progressed beyond that.  Even though she's quite a bit older than me I still find her to be a very attractive young woman so I was confused as to why my subconscious wouldn't capitalize on such a fortuitous situation.  As a boy I woke up disappointed; as a friend, happy; as an individual, restless.

I may just be shoving words into the porcupine's mouth, but I definitely feel like that dream means something.  Even if it has no meaning, it made me analyze my friendships and think about what it is I want from them.  I feel like an ass typing this, but most -- if not all -- of the friendships I've formed since coming to college are supplementary to my studies, meaning, I use my friends and the adventures we have as a method to blow off steam built up in the pressure chamber that is my Computer Science class.  That isn't to say I don't genuinely care about my friends because I do; it's just that if it comes down to a choice between spending an entire Saturday working on things I want to get done or going to Vancouver with my friends, I'll choose to lock myself in my room with a bag of potato chips until I've finished whatever it is that I wanted to get done.  I'll dispense with the hypothetical pretenses and just say that this is exactly what happened last Saturday (11/23).   But apparently, working nonstop on Japanese homework, Computer Science homework, a study abroad application, and 2,117 words for NaNoWriMo from 11:30am to midnight wasn't enough, because I stayed up until 1:30am writing this blog post.

As much as I ended up getting done, it wasn't without much deliberation that I declined the invitation to Vancouver.  The reason, I think, goes back to that dream I had a few nights ago; what do I want out of my friendships?  Could it be possible that I'd like something more than just eating apples and chatting?  It's possible but my conscious mind tells me that's not it.  I think what had a larger impact is this: "I have trust issues."

I keep my own true feelings well guarded not because I'm afraid somebody might hurt me but because I fear that my feelings will hurt someone else.  It makes absolutely no sense, I know, but because of this I find it very hard to trust anyone but my family and a few of my closest friends from high school.  Yes, I will tell someone -- you, the reader of this blog, for instance -- personal details about myself but it is very likely I'm only doing so because it's something I've already incorporated into who I am as a person and don't think should really matter to anyone else.  Sometimes it does.  It's not anything I wouldn't tell any of my friends, it's just a matter of who wants to know about it.  You're still reading this blog so I would hope that you give a ripe banana about what I'm writing.  If not, eh, that's your choice.

Another of my trust issues -- and perhaps one of the more irrationally understandable ones -- is that if someone gives me any reason whatsoever not to trust them, I will tend not to, especially in situations where serious injury is possible, such as being a passenger in a car.  If I know the driver has a history of less-than-intelligent decisions, I will automatically feel uncomfortable no matter how safe of a driver they actually are.  I don't quite know how I developed these trust issues but they're there.  Maybe it has something to do with the Minnesota Vikings.

So what am I missing?  I have no idea.  Maybe it's my family.  Maybe it's friends that I don't spend enough time with.  Maybe it's a trustworthy companion like Shadow I can share more than just smalltalk with.  Maybe it's that character in my story I just killed.  Maybe it's something completely different.  All I know is that if I'm going to sit around waiting for some famous, attractive girl to walk up to me and hand me an apple it's going to be a long wait.  The sad thing is, though, that might be what I'm waiting for.

Current NaNoWriMo Word Count: 43,047

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I started working on a new sonnet but because I'm posting earlier than usual it didn't get finished in time.  Perhaps I'll post it later this week.

If you're in the United States, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Enjoy the food and the company of your family and be thankful for all the things in your life that make you who you are -- both the good and the bad, the triumphs and the failures, the known and the as of yet unknown.  Happy Thanksgiving!  Until next time.  -NLD

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Unpublished material, ©2013 Neal Digre