Lone wolves

For a good portion of my life, solitude is something I've been well acquainted with. Perhaps the furthest memory I have of feeling lonely was at age 9 when I was separated from my mother and 2 older sisters for a period of 6 months. My father was never really part of the equation either, so in terms of having that higher father/masculine figure in my life, solitude was ever-present. Then came adolescence, where I was left high and dry, learning how to become a man through reading out of a book ways to tie a tie or how to shave without mutilating your face. After countless trials and errors, here I am, although still learning and attempting to master the ways of being in one way, shape, or form alone in the world.

This ever-present feeling of loneliness has had various effects on the outcome of not just my personality, but my life in wholesome. Since the age of 15, I've made it a constant effort to become a more approachable and social individual, and while I've been successful for the most part I've always had someone there to guide me through my interactions...be it a friend or just a family member. Two things that have taught me the most about myself since adulthood were my decision to join the US Army, as well as the experiences I had during my time there, and my time/experiences in college that I am ever-proud of as seen in previous blogs I've written. Nevertheless, living here in Europe for the past 7 months has presented me with a whole new challenge in regards to social interactions and keeping a solid state of self-awareness. Here, I don't have my best friends or family to guide me through the obstacles and difficulties varying days present me with; I certainly don't have someone to truly connect with me on a personal level that can actually keep up with my personality.

This past weekend presented me again with something I had experienced not too long ago. As you may recall, I attended a week-long course for work all of last week while I was aniticipating joining the rest of the people I work with during the weekend as we would all be gone for the whole month. However, after a few logistical misunderstandings, everyone left for our month-long exercise and I was left behind. Although somewhat adament at first, I decided to go out by myself on Friday night since all of my friends here were gone as well. Had you asked me about a year ago what I thought of people that went out to party or explore by themselves, I would have suggested they were friend-less losers and chodes. Funny how the cards turn on ourselves sometimes, I suppose that by my own accords I am now a chode and a friend-less loser. So be it, I wasn't going to let my own delusions stop me. I booked a hostel in Würzburg, bought a train ticket, and around 10PM I made my way.

As I sat in the station waiting for my train to arrive, a guy that I had briefly met only a handful of times in the past arrived to hop on the same train going to Wuerzburg as well. Fernand, as I found out, is a 22 year-old from New York City, although his ethnicity is Bolivian. Due to our rare hispanic backgrounds around these ways, we easily started conversation as our train began to make it way to our destination.  Most of our interaction during this 1 hour train ride took place in Spanish, and this was completely rewarding for me as it was the most Spanish I had spoken since being home last December with my mother. The lack of practice was evident and my vocabulary was worse than I remembered, and while he politely pointed that out, he asked if I knew any other languages (in other languages.) I quickly became impressed by him as I found out that he also speaks French, Italian, German, and Portuguese. All this time I thought I was the only person in Illesheim that possessed a true passion for languages and cultures, and here was this guy that is probably even more serious about it than I am. For the remainder of the ride, we discussed our mutual feelings of contravention towards US culture, particularly US military culture, and a plethora of other subjects. All in all, an enormously pleasant surprise to have met another person of such parallel views to mine.

Once arrived in Würzburg and having parted ways with Fernand, I proceeded to check-in to my hostel only to find out that they had messed up my reservation. The receptionist was actually quite nice and professional about it, and after having upgraded me to a better room she also said that I could stay the night free-of-charge due to their mistake. SCORE! An already good night quickly became that much better. While finishing up the necessary paperwork, I asked for suggestions of a good local beer to indulge in only to be interrupted by a faily good-looking girl that had walked up to the desk to place an order as well. As she made her suggestion, I took a quick yet explorative look at her and examined where she had come from. Just behind us sat a group of, for a lack of a better word, white people haha, that were huddled around each other singing and playing various instruments. So after having thanked her and the receptionist, I made my way to my room, placed my bags on my bed and qithout a second thought made my way back outside to the common area to join her group.

After having asked if it was fine to join them, I introduced myself to everyone in the group and sat down in between a guitar player from Finland and a German dude with an accordion. The night quickly became truly amazing because I originally expected to find myself wandering about alone to some bar or club in the city, but instead I spent the following hour or two jamming out with about 6 or 7 other people from different places in the world and exchanging information about each other. The German guys were actually really cool, one of them was in a traditional German fraternity, one that has been around for about 600 years and it was pleasant to learn the difference between true fraternities like his, and ours back home in the US. The guitar player was actually traveling around Europe with his girlfriend, they both said they were street performers (which I thought was really really cool, not only being as talented as they were, but also to have the spirit and will to travel throughout countries playing music on the streets.)

The cute girl (Nicki) that I had met earlier was actually from Vancouver, Canada, her and I spent a good portion of the night exchanging our long collection of horrible and cheezy jokes (and if you know me you know how much I truly appreciate these.) I also had the pleasure of meeting her friend Ara who lives in London although he's Armenian. Him and I also spent a good portion of the night deliberating much of our feelings and knowledge about ethnicity, our connection (or lack thereof) to our own heritage, and anything and everything from life experiences to the conficts in the middle east. Most of these interactions took place as we all drunkenly roamed that streets of Wuerzburg in the early morning, stopping from bar to bar, as well as getting questioned by the German Polizei for public urination. Hey, when you gotta go you gotta go!

I had been meaning to chronicle my experiences of this past weekend for the last few days, but having finally met up with everyone at work this week kept me from gaining access to a computer for an extended period of time. Last night I worked a late shift until 2AM where I found myself sitting in the middle of nowhere in the forrests of east Bayern, and I took the opportunity to reflect on where I was. While my reflections didn't pin-point me to my geographical location on this earth, they did direct me to realize where in my life I have come to. I looked up into the night's dark sky with countless stars up above, I felt the ground beneath my feet, and felt the wind blowing against my skin. I realized that it felt great not just to be alive, but also to FEEL alive. I am lucky to have gone through all the things I have up to this point in my life and still find myself learning. Although a lot of the time I feel like a lone wolf wandering about in a world of 6.4 billion others, last night I realized we all serve a purpose here, and that purpose is to find each other, learn from each other, and love every moment that we have with one another.