Author: Nic Olson

I am a man of many goodbyes. I see the importance in saying goodbye so I seem to make a subconscious effort to do it two or three times in each place I am at. I do that by flaking on ‘set itineraries’ and staying in town for several days longer than ‘planned’. This has occurred more than once in the past few months. And it re-happened this past week. Any psychologist or half-observant friend would cite this to a difficulty with commitment. My problem with committing to noncommittal visits. Before arrival I knew Vancouver would be difficult to leave but didn’t think I would be broken so easily. I thought I had honed my ability to say goodbye without a second thought thanks to the last three months of weekly practice. The one-week-in, one-week-out life of an oil-rigger, a diamond miner or a bus rider allows for attachment that isn’t concrete but still real enough so that goodbyes are like letting go of a limb or a really nice ottoman. I should’ve stuck with the one night stand.

Before I left, I awoke from my nightly unconsciousness with a story ringing in my head. The story included myself forgetting bags and missing buses and purposefully enjoying myself sliding down steep city hills instead of deciding to get to my next point of transit. A dream of the difficulties of leaving. Two days later, in real life, I failed to leave. Whether it was fear of the forty-two hour trip on the Godhound, or fear of what was on the other side of settling, or fear of leaving the city with the most friends I’ve had in years, I was easily convinced to stay in bed. Two days before, my subconscious mind knew it would happen, and so did those in Yellowknife.

So far the reuniting hellos have been more enjoyable than the woe of the separating goodbyes, so the trip still makes sense. When the depression of departure is greater than than the joys of arrival, then it no longer makes sense. The gap has been closing.

Soon I will set my clock to the place where the clock never changes; with Central Standard Time as our reference we’ll have to see what happens a week and a half in. I will undoubtedly go through a raging case of ‘Goodbye Withdrawal’. If I seem distant and withdrawn, more than usual, just say goodbye to me and give me a hug, and it will probably feel just right.

Some call it God. Others call it Truth. I call it the Greyhound. The most obvious incarnation of the universe. Reteaching me patience, humanity, humour, insanity, etc. I begin to foolishly rely on its efficiency. I begin to trust its schedules like a child trusting an alcoholic parent to pick him up after his soccer game. Waiting at the bus station with my eye constantly on the end of the block and soccer ball nervously shaking in my hands. Each and every time I remember that the Greyhound will exceed my expectations in letting me down, even when I expect it to already be an hour late. I simply don’t know its divine plan.

And then, a new and revamped model enters my life. Leather seats, wireless internet, leg room, less stink. And my hope is temporarily restored. It will only be a matter of weeks until I crave what I am feeling right now. Between Portland and Seattle, ass sore as if a paddle was taken to it, stomach growling in competition with the last twenty American dollars in my wallet, eyes stinging with sleep and recycled air. I will always, we will always, humans will always, try to please what disappoints them.

While waiting for my alcoholic enterprise to meet me in Sacramento after soccer practice, CNN repeatedly showed the Presidential address to Congress. Before soccer practice, that is, before San Francisco to Sacramento, I heard the address live. Or at least what I thought to be live. When I heard the exact same broadcast an hour later, Wolf Blitzer’s inflections and Anderson Cooper’s black framed glasses, I began to doubt that it was live the first time I heard it. The thing that was highlighted, however, over top of the President’s empty hope to ‘jolt’ the economy with his ‘Job Plan’, was the imminent terror threat for the anniversary of 9/11. A serious, credible, but not confirmed report. I guess you confirm a report of terrorism once a few hundred thousand people die. The words serious and credible and unconfirmed, obvious shallow shots at uniting patriotic Americans in their hate for the unknown. To further unite them as they remember the event ten years ago that brought them so much closer together with full body scans and up the ass security checks. That is unity.

So I ignored it, got on the bus, and sat leg to leg, shoulder to shoulder with a man praying to Allah, washing his feet on the bus, clapping his hands in a trance-like methodology. The threat to America, washing his feet peacefully on the Oakland to Portland bus. And after him, I was scolded by a firsttimer for having my seat all the way back at 3am. America, where America knows best.

The Godhound continues to amaze me. A bus full of strangers becomes like a bus full of beautiful demigods, parts of the traveling Supreme Godhead that is the Godhound. The man next to me, the God of Destruction, his mustard stained pants and glare out the window through his sunglasses have destroyed several onlookers. The driver, the God of Attitude, drinking espresso and making jokes about gummy bears and bus crashes to lighten the mood through heightened levels of stress. The woman next to me, the Goddess of Entitlement, warning me to never stand up in front of her again, even if it was for the betterment of the The God of Destruction. As we glide through a universe without direction, the fifty-five demigods inside of the Godhound unite to give it all some sort of beauty and purpose.

I never want to leave the realm of the Godhound.

Yeah, I’ll miss the tacos. And the cheap beer. And the gourmet ice cream sandwiches. And using my friend’s Netflix. And telling people where I’m from and them having no clue where it is. And brooding far from home. But with only nineteen (19) days left of free (free…) travel, the clock has run out. Being in California for over a month, I came to feel as if I had moved here. As if my very marketable skills of doing dishes at people’s homes and doing laundry only once a month had gotten me the proper papers to move to the American west coast, the place so many songs are sung about. But, as I knew this entire time, living other people’s lives could only last a limited amount of time, and the time has crawled slowly to its end.

Sometimes you get lost in the ichiban and banana sandwich dreams that cloud the mind so. Sometimes whatever form of ‘work’ that I pretend to do while unemployed makes me feel like I’m actually doing work and that I am in the middle of something I need to fulfil. Then, in the end, always, it is evident that it is just time, and that holding on to your once great dream in the name of ‘work’ or being there for others is just a selfish desire to be comfortable and to continue to eat tacos. Sometimes, no, always, you’ve got to go.

There is a feeling that I get regularly when things are going well. When things are going too well. Caused by my past month of events occurring too perfectly, this feeling, the one of imminent disaster, or at least looming reality, was with me. This disaster hasn’t yet hit, reality may have winked at me yesterday morning, but only to prepare me for her undoubted return, and I had one of the worst mornings of the trip because of it. That is all relative, however, because the worst morning of my trip I was still sitting in a hammock on the beach in Mexico, but mindset can take a beating wherever, whenever disaster or reality decide that he or she want to remind you that not everything is simply an ice cream sandwich in a hammock.

In an attempt to avoid reality from her full frontal that she so badly wants to show me, I will flee once again. All the while wondering if it is considered fleeing if you are fleeing in the direction of where you grew up.

Things that I do not deserve include, but are not limited to, the following: Drinking cold beer poolside in Phoenix with a lime tree providing us with pool toys and tastier beers. Ten dollar baseball games that include free fireworks. Cold water. Sleeping on the floor of an air conditioned room. Families allowing me access to their fridges. Extra spending money.

I said aloud several times this week that I did not deserve the comforts that had been bestowed upon me. That I do not deserve the comforts that are still being bestowed upon me. There is nothing I have done in my life to deserve comfort like this, and luck can only be attributed so far. Somehow, someway, I am living someone else’s life. This is the only explanation that I can come up with. But the good keeps pouring in.

Fishing for compliments is like fishing for fish. Except more desperate and uglier than a lake trout with crossed-eyes. I am not fishing for fish or compliments, nor am I hunting for pity, nor am I gathering my attributes into one place to comfort myself. When we decide that we are not worthy of the good things that happen to us, humility is born. Once we begin to believe that we deserve the good things that to happen to us, then we think too highly of ourselves. We deserve nothing. When we believe that we deserve the bad things to happen to us, then a karma-like philosophy can encourage us to be better. This is a negative man’s attempt at positivity: admitting that there are a series of positive things happening in his life, but denying them as chance, more or less unexplainable.

Using the concept of ‘blessings’ seems like these blessings were well-deserved. I was blessed because I earned these blessings through financial gifts or living a good life. Like a utopian karma that doesn’t recognize the negative. A childlike karma. To credit my own decision making ability would be to knock the decision making ability of others, and to neglect the circumstantial events that change other people’s situations. My decision making is not why good things happen to me.

Self-deprecation: An extreme form of modesty or criticism of oneself, often used in jest. The opposite of pride. Such an extreme opposite that it could be a different form of pride. Neo-arrogance, maybe. But I do it, in my mind, because it is the only way to humble myself. It keeps me honest. Realizing that you don’t deserve the good things that happen to you, maybe it is humility, or a skewed version of it, or maybe it is a lack of self-esteem, but I think it to be an important step in fully appreciating the many good things that happen, and wisely accepting the bad things that inevitably arrive, so as not to allow them to overshadow the good.

Things that I do deserve include, but are not limited to, the following: Male pattern baldness, foot odour, buses that break down, bad eyesight, electronics that do not function properly, consecutive rainy days, a second toe that is longer than the big toe, parasites, painful childbirth, warm beer, loneliness, back pain, moldy bread, lost luggage.