Crazy, man, how life just keeps on happening. sometimes I feel like I’ve fallen behind in it somehow, as if it were a race or timed-event (which I guess it is in a way). Sometimes I feel like I can’t catch up, like I never will, like it’s all too much to get a grip on.

I started on my walk over 3 friggin years ago, you know? I mean, this is a thing I’d been dreaming about for 10 years before that, nursing, nurturing, using as a security blanket in hard times, like a banner in good times. And then, almost miraculously for me, a guy who’s a certified genius in the art of not finishing what I’ve started and of not even starting what I’d like to someday finish…I actually started the walk!

And, damn, but it’s been incredible, the best days and nights of my life. Every day seemed to have some profound moment, some nugget of beauty so raw and real that crying seemed as common to me as breathing.

But I blinked somewhere in there and now more than a year has passed, has “happened”, since I’ve taken steps northward.

I fell in love back there along the way, and the “wow” in my world intensified exponentially and cloud nine couldn’t even hold me, I had to create a cloud ten.

I was in Patagonia, working alongside my love, happy as ever, it all seemed immortal, eternal, permanent. But of course it wasn’t, man, cause it was life for christ’s sake, and that’s one thing you can say about life: it’s consistently inconsistent. Bit by bit that other entity called “Us” that my love and I had created began to fall apart, aged right there in front of our eyes, cracks and lines and imperfections sprouting insidiously on every facet, while we watched, seemingly helpless but actually the cause of its demise, it was me it was her who were so slowly and subtley tugging on the strings that pulled “Us” apart.

But back there in Patagonia, it was still too early to see that, it was easy to avoid seeing the beginning of the end.

And then buenos aires for a month…that fucking HUGE metropolis. 15 million people jostling around in it, a craggy wasteland of 10 story apartment buildings, every thought backed up by a soundtrack of grinding metal gears and pistons, of shouts, screams and groans. And, you see, I love Buenos Aires, can usually dig on it, on its life, on its frenetic drive. But not this time, not when my selfish desire to be up on some mountain road in Bolivia or Perú, just walking in my own world, was there on my shoulder nibbling on me. Yeah, I hate to admit it, but I did resent “Us” sometimes in that city, unfairly named it as one of the reasons I was “here” instead of “there”.

And then my love and I roamed north, visiting friends and family along the way. Snow storms in Neuquen, crisp mornings in la Quiaca, festivals in Tupiza, the horizonless white of the Uyuni salt flats, amazing people and the mines of Potosí. And city of Sucre, dressed like a vestal virgin in white colonial buildings.

And on , then, to the tiny jungle village of Villa Tunari and the hope of volunteering at the wildlife refuge called intiwarayassi. My love now torn between obligations in the south and the adventures to be had here in this far-distant north. Long conversations about decisions, made and un-made, about goals, and hopes and dreams and responsibilities. “Us”, weaker now, and scaring us a little. 4 days at the refuge and then, suddenly, my love on a bus back for the south to face and fulfill those obligations. 1 day later…July 7th, 2005…me cutting a tree (click here to see that story) in the jungle, slipping as it fell, it hitting me so hard that it didn’t hurt. 3 broken vertebrae, a broken fibula. the rest of the month spent there in the refuge, recuperating, resenting my own body for failing me, for keeping me from walking. My every day from there on, while sweet…carrying something resembling bitterness in the background.

then home to the states to recover. My parents, my sister and bro-in-law, my sweet, sweet nieces, my friends. Subbing at my old school for extra cash, sliding into routine, but again, each day tinged with…with what? bitterness? yes. resentment? yes. frustration? yes. and ultimately with what? with guilt? yes.

Why am I so selfish? Why can’t I keep in perspective what a wonderful, fortunate and varied life I have? Why can’t I maintain in clear view how lucky I am to have such an amazing family and such warm friends?

I’ll just save the pondering of those questions for myself…

It’s just so easy to lose sight of things…goals, and dreams, and ideas, and courage, and the fact that my life is truly a fortunate one.

Not to sound too down, though, man…they were also incredible months, those at home…a lot of laughter and food, and warmth and learning and new possibilities, and reencounters and a strengthening of all of those.

But also, during all that, “Us” slowly suffocated, withering away with each uncomfortable phone call, with every misinterpretation and over (or under) reaction…with the distance and the separation.

And now I’m back down here. South America. Buenos Aires. Tomorrow I go south to meet with my love and what remains of “Us”, needing to find a way to give it all an ending that doesn’t also snuff out friendship and respect and support, and that foundation of it all, that genuine concern and love one for the other. I pray to all gods everywhere that this be possible.

From there, north again, a straight shot to La Paz…and after so many months, so much of life “happening” without a single physical step toward fulfilling my dream, I’ll once again be on the road, letting it wind me where it will, thinking on this last year, hopefully finding an answer to some of those questions I keep asking myself, and with luck and work, maybe even finding a less selfish me.