Padlocked. (Temporary Autonomy And Quantum Immortality).

July 2009.

The gates are padlocked, lights are out; someone has spray-painted "Gone To Croatan" on the fence. You briefly consider tossing a brick through the glass, settle with just flipping off the sad, dead, empty shell of the building that housed so many of your recent happy memories.

You're angry, but you're angry because you're scared. Older and older you're getting, and once again you have to start all over. You're wonder if you still even have it in you; the thought of what used to seem adventurous and exciting now makes you nauseous and exhausted.

You think these things as if you have a choice. The waveform has collapsed, and you have arrived on the other side. You can't go back.

Maybe you need to go for a walk. A long walk.

The windows are getting smaller and smaller, you wistfully realize; those moments where you feel you can express yourself and actually be understood. Whether with peers on a warm summer back porch with a cooler of beer to share, or one-on-one, lying blissfully naked, the two of you gazing dreamily at each other; these are things that are happening markedly less as time goes on. You've found yourself discouraged and bitter lately; demanding understanding you haven't properly developed from people that, in some cases, may not even be capable of it.

"Do you even want to go through this again?" you think. New places, new people; being terrified all over again about what you can reveal about yourself, how you can explain it?

You think these things as if you have a choice. You haven't found it yet. The only choice is to keep looking.