repurpose.

This was never intended to be solely a place to write about travel. The double meaning of work was as much about "belonging" as it was "earning money". I've always loved drastically different meanings to the same word. For years I've been wanting to change my name - more as a symbolic snip from my church-or-war family name, but many hours have been spent combing over my mental micro-dictionary to find the perfect new me. (Same as the old me?)

I ended that search with one of the most displeasing names you would find in a Baby Name book. The word "wage" remains one of my favorites - both an incredibly intentional, committed action as well as a passive, limp swear word used in arms-up surrender to our freedom machine. But there's no romance to that word, and what good is a new name if it's ultimately an in-joke with yourself? Who am I kidding about flow of the tongue - I'd so name myself wage if I could come up with a banging last name to sit beside it.

I closed this book abruptly, a year ago. I skipped over all of the details, as if those years beyond 2010 were somehow devoid of life. But the reality of coming back home was incredibly tough. I'd felt quite distant from everyone but my closest friends - a 9-month play-by-dropbox game of Fall From Heaven 2 was the most constant of connections outside of my tumultuous affair with Facebook. I pulled all of those belongings from that small crate on my doorstep and asked myself what the fuck I was doing.

My impatient attempts at dating went sideways, I found myself in a short-lived relationship with the wrong woman, and one day hit a very specific calm in my romantic life. This hasn't been the first suddenly-permanent revelation that I've experienced - in my youth I was struck down on a very specific Sunday that I was no longer innocent. While the 20 year-old me went in search of an open tattoo shop, this one resigned himself to the tragedy of his comfort - I would truly be okay if I never fell in love again. That medicine sat thick in my throat and took me a month to swallow. But it was true, and I was grateful to realize I didn't have to keep throwing myself against the rocks of bad odds. The realization that I could live a completely satisfying life, alone.

That, and putting everything I had towards the finish line, was my spring of 2012.