The other half of Adam's conversation.

Visiting the Tri-Cities melts away more than just stress from this lazy body.

What's in the Tri-Cities, you ask?

Adam and his wife live there - and you see, Adam is damned good friend.

Mulling over our lives and our respective philosophies has turned into something of a tradition on these visits. And for no small reason, really.

It seems like we always come away from those chats with a different outlook - our paradigms get shifted. And that's a rush in addition to being useful. :)

This latest weekend I mentioned a string of dreams featuring an old crush of mine. These dreams would usually fly under the radar for me - I don't usually think of myself as all that romantic. But ... when I wake up, I feel my heart break. I get torn up and I can't manage a smile for hours. :S

I told him what I thought they meant, too. My life up until now has been a rather cold pursuit of the very specific things I want from life.

By cold I mean that I'm frequently distracted from this course - by complacency more than anything else. And that cold terrifies me. It means I may find myself stuck without what I'm looking for - and I can't stand the idea.

A month or so ago, I got another chance at college, you see. I grabbed it up and it's working - I start in the Fall.

I'm ecstatic, but ... suddenly I feel I have to put the axe to my already lackluster love life. I've had only one girlfriend, and that was something of an accident - and that was years ago. I broke up with her for the same reason I've avoided further romance:

Women are scary! Lol ... well, maybe that's one of the reasons, a little bit. But no, the chief reason is this: I believe that the presence or absence of true love can be masked by a temporary high that accompanies new love.

It's for this reason I worry about "accidental" marriage. :S

So here was my supposition to Adam: I'm dreaming of this woman (this woman that I believe has come to symbolize women in general for me) simply because I don't know if I can commit to another 4, 5 years (or whatever) of living a lonely, solitary life. But I feel I have to.

Adam was quick to voice his extrapolation of my romantic future:

I see you meeting a woman and falling madly in love with her, building on her dreams AND your own. You've talked about living in Japan f0r a couple years - the two of you can do that in your 40s, building a solid financial plan for that sort of lifestyle now, and embracing all the adventure you can in the mean time.

Well, something like that, anyways. I've played with the idea of finding a lover with similar dreams of travel before: but never in the distant future.

It's always been difficult for me to imagine a woman that would willingly abandon her life - and for one of my silly dreams.

But couples that have been married for years travel all the time! In fact, it seems like it would be fun to wait with someone I care about.

This may not seem like it changes much, but it takes away one of my biggest worries when it comes to this stuff. I means that once I've transferred to a city I can see myself living in for an indefinite number of years - I can LOVE. With abandon.

I trust myself to be fascinated only by those women I meet that dream the way I do:

Big.