The Contrast That Can Save A Life

Over the next 2 months I will see corners of 3 countries. I'll sleep in a tent most nights, hostels only for the shower once a week or so. Yeah, so maybe it is a romanticized adventure, but it's me and not me in every way. I'm terrified to be honest. But that's not the point, nor has it ever been.

This is me, ready as I'll never be.

For tonight, this is my summation:
Sometimes I can't believe myself, which is fine, as long as I keep believing IN myself.

These words depict, what seems to be, a fine line. But in reality, I think the contrast is quite enormous. I believe it's easy, even thrilling, to not believe yourself. To make decisions that the you you knew yesterday may not have made.

Yesterday, as the water in the tub slowly drained at my feet I caught my reflection in a pool of water. Held back by the flattened arches of my feet, this improvised dam contained me. When it's not purposeful, seeing yourself can be all the more realistic. Examining the length of my hair, the age of my beard, I was seeing more truth in a focus-starved, Monet inspired puddle of water, than the foggy mirror just to my right had ever so disclosed. There I was, bathed and bothered by the facts of my decisions.

In a funny way, I couldn't believe where I was standing. Not just in a cast-iron bath tub, but the cast-iron bath tub in a prehistoric townhouse, in Argentina, in South America, in every latitudinal difference as can be...naked.

In another way, I couldn't believe that my time in this specific spot was almost through. That I was about to give up all of this, in order to put myself in a starker situation. I was scared, and I saw it.

I couldn't believe myself in a roll my eyes, you've got balls, not again, sort of way. And that's okay. Because I've got the other half; the contrast that can save a life: I believe IN myself. In ourselves. In each other.

...I opened my feet and the water fell fast.