Prolog

13th of august, 2011

The lonely mountains awaits. It's way past 3 in the morning and i can't sleep. I can't find a rhythm in this meaninglessness. I've read somewhere that it's destructive for you to lust for things. The idea of looking forward to something can be good of course, but to actually lust for this is negative because you miss out on what's going on around you. Destructive maybe isn't the proper word, but it ain't constructive at least. It's now August and I'll be leaving for Nepal in a month. I've been lusting for this since last year.

I can't seem to get up in the morning, there's not enough to be done, no motivation, no goals, not enough meaning. All I've got on my mind is the big mountains of Nepal. It's probably nothing like that, but I have this amazing picture of big cloudy snow-white mountains in my head, most likely created by DiscoveryChannel and movies. I've got no idea what to expect, apart form these big cloudy snow-white mountains, all I know is that I'm supposed to teach English at a monastery. It's ironic. I've just learned to spell monastery, I always seemed to mix up the a's and e's.

It could be time to start reading up on Nepal, read some history and geographic, get to know the culture from wikipedia, hear the national anthem and learn the name of the president or king. Then again, I've never payed much respect to knowledge collected in secondhand. Of course you have a chance of knowing more what to expect if you read about it, but with an already filled up mind, how are you supposed to be objective when arriving there? Maybe I'm just being dull and lazy. I've done everything else on my "To Do"-list, everything except googling Nepal and packing my bag. Maybe I should at least get to know the climate so I know what to pack... But there is an entire month left until departure, that can wait for later.

Since this meaninglessness is driving me mad I figured some activities could fill up my mind. I took a boat trip for a couple of days, went out to our country house, drank a lot of alcohol and met both old and new people. I did everything I could think of to make the time go faster and found the alcohol to be somewhat of the best way to do it. I did it way to often and to be fair; it didn't helped that much anyway. When reaching a certain level of drunk I often space out and lock my mind on what ever that is closest. The lonely snow-white cloud-covered mountains of Nepal. Therefore I booked some other trips, both to London with my sister and to Dublin. Unfortunately we never came to London due to the major riots that started just days before departure. My sister is still angry with me for cancelling the trip, even thou her temper is slowly regressing. Probably.

With most my friends I know most of the gossip. I just love that, it feels like I can trust them. No charades, we don't have to pretend something when we're around each other. I really love these people, which makes it sort of unfortunate that there is no one I'll really miss. Sure I'll miss my ex-girlfriend, but that's a complete other and pretty predictable story. With her I had the most trustful relationship I've ever had. Maybe I can learn to trust the monks at the monastery that much? Sure, that'll probably work out equally good.

I'll be leaving for Dublin, Ireland, in a couple of weeks, to travel the amazing landscape and see the fogged summits of Wicklow Mountains National Park. I did the same trip this winter and I've been dreaming of returning there ever since. Not lusting, just dreaming. I did this by myself last time and it was wonderful, just as beautiful as I wanted it to be. Plus I got to get pissed with the National Irish Chamber Choir who I ran in to at a bar. Even thou I last time thought it would be nice to have some company, I don't think I'll feel lonely now. It's a different feeling this time, I've started to say goodbye to friends and family. Right now all I want is to see the wide stretched mountains and fogged summits of Wicklow.


31st of august, 2011

I sometimes realize that I'm not made to travel. The last couple of adventures all went horrible, like last time when I forgot my ticket. I'm afraid to fall asleep on transfers, losing stuff or get lost to mention some things that makes travel not suited for myself. It's basically the ordinary discomfort of traveling and every time something goes wrong I realize I'm not made to travel. Then there is this amazing thing I know as human goodness, which most of the times solves all my problems. Therefor I realize equally often that traveling is the most fun I ever have.

I've been visiting my grand-parents in the hometown both my parents. Maybe it isn't as small as I'd like people to believe, but I love to make colorful descriptions of how ridiculously small this town is. It was weird being here this time since I've actually came to say goodbye. My grandma isn't doing that well and somewhere I thought about this visit as a chance of saying goodbye if she passes while I'm gone. It was hard, even grandpa opened up about how he felt about their situation. I've never heard him speak of feelings before. In the three days I was visiting we kept the conversation to limit of about seven topics. To list a few of them: my dad isn't here but he's coming this weekend, the day of the week it was, what I will be doing this upcoming month and things grandma thought she remembered but that was the other way around. I tried to ignore it but I could feel that grandpa was struggling. I noticed that I've already distanced myself from whatever was going on at home, that I didn't want to be liable. I even said goodbye to the town like I never was to return. Hopefully I was just being overly melodramatic.

On the way back there was delays and I got to spend some time at a tiny little train station somewhere in the middle of nowhere. It took two minutes to be as bored as a nosy little five year old. But what to do? After just an other eight minutes I'd thoroughly examine the two floors of the station, four of them spent in the bookstore. It ended with me taking the stairway up and down until my next train came, with final count of 42 completed laps.

I love that I do these things. Right now all I want is to be 40, in a steady relationship and watch my kids grow up. Besides my happy kids, the most important thing in this scenario is for me to have done stuff, to have stories to tell. Sure I've got some time left, but then my list of stuff to do is long. Being a monk at a monastery is one of these things on my list and it's partly therefor I searched for a monastery to work on. Then there is only one question; will they accept me? As preached before, I've got no idea what to expect.

... The lonely mountains awaits.