It's been four years since China, but it seems like a lifetime. I feel like I'm reading the words of a stranger. The years I was in China were some of the darkest of my life, but you wouldn't know it from reading my blog. I was an idealist. An optimist. There was always a silver lining, even when my lifefelt like it was falling apart in the summer of my second year, and I was drinking half a bottle of rum every other day. I remember coming home one afternoon from the grocery with a bottle of rum, a jar of peanut butter, and a loaf of Chinese bread, and thinking, "God damn, buddy, you are drinking waaaay too much. This here is the diet of a man who is making poor decisions." I remember laughing, and thinking with that foggy logic of a man with a perpetual hangover"But at least you'll have learned to sympathize with those who have drinking problems."
What the hell happened to that guy? I miss him. He wrote terrible poetry and reveled in it. He wasn't ashamed by his love of writing or books. He believed the world could be made into a better place if just one person was willing to believe in goodness hard enough. He wasn't nearly as friendly or as outgoing as I am, but he wasn't half as bitter either. How can I be bitter or cynical? I'm only thirty. Surely I haven't seen enough of life to be bitter by thirty.
I need the good parts of that guy back.