Trip

-short summations of thoughts and ideas I wrote over spring break in Chicago-

There's this respite between starting point and destination. I'm unable to make substantial thoughts because of the displacement of not being locked down to one location.
It's freeing.
There are no good thoughts or bad thoughts.
There is only the now. The sights and sounds unfolding before my eyes.

I have thoughts of her but they are fleeting. I feel like in leaving her behind, she will remain frozen in time. Not time will pass, no doubts about me will cross her mind. When I return, we'll pick up where we left off. It's uneasy, yet pacifying.

I lay here awake, staring out the wall-sized window at the overcast Chicago skyline. A constant flow of cool air grazes the parts of my skin not covered by the blanket.
My friends are sprawled across the floor below the couch. One of them stirs, looking out into the same overcast melancholy. We meet eyes and relate a similar feeling of contention as he falls back asleep.
Sharing moments like these is yet another reminder of our humanity. It's a moment I'm sure he won't remember, but it was an intimacy I retained as I too slowly drifted back to sleep.

Chicago is a place, like any other place. Its roads are paved with the same asphalt, its buildings built with the same bricks, its wind blowing just as fierce as the next towns. But its people are different. They exude this association with the place. They are walking to a destination.
They are living out their dreams.

I'm complacent in waiting for her.
God help the dreamers.