Craving a Completely New Experience

Sometimes. Usually when I'm lonely or down or have too much on my mind. Too many of the wrong ideas, thinking about the wrong things over and over. Unable to choose what I want to think about and only able to repeat to myself things that bring me lower; I'm driving home at night, or lying in my bed or my parents couch when I'm on vacation. I'm thinking. That I just want to see what another life would be like. Not permanently.

I've lived my life, the same life, a common life to me and most of America - middle class, white male - and I'm not saying that if I was a different sex or race I wouldn't feel the same - I don't know. I want to move to a poorer neighborhood and live for a month with completely different friends, family, and food. Completely new living conditions. Live in a house dirtier than I'm used to, forgetting my obsessive cleanliness, though admittedly, I'm not nearly as clean as some people.

Or I want to drive off to another city and stay with a friend for a month at a time. Get a new job, one that doesn't mean anything for my future, but teaches me about people. Experience a side of town, a side of the country, continent, and world that I haven't been in.

It's a feeling that most people feel when they leave the country. I went to Italy for six weeks a few summers ago, but I didn't feel anything new. I just felt like I was in another America with people that spoke a little different. Every person I met knew English anyway. The only time I felt uncomfortable and even a little scared on the whole trip was the layover in Toronto. I didn't want to talk to anyone, I didn't know anyone, and it was all weird.

I imagine that Italy and the rest of Europe I toured, not as much as I will eventually, would have been just as shocking if I hadn't been with other people from my school. If I wasn't waking up for scheduled classes taught by the same teachers from home. If I didn't run into students from nearby colleges on every train I got on. The world is way too small, in Europe, during the summer, at least.

I visited a number of locations I had seen a hundred times in photos. I'm sure I've written reports and essays on half of them through grade school. Sometimes new places are not new at all.

But, if I hadn't stayed in a five start hotel with all of my classmates, it would have been different. If I rented an apartment from an Italian landlord, met and drank with new people, spent time alone in small nooks of these global hot spots, maybe I would have felt that wonderful shock, that deep dread in my stomach I felt at the airport in Canada.

What would it be like to enter a new lifestyle, instead of touring it?

Even if I moved to a city not a few hours away, something that offers only a slightly different experience, but with completely new people, I could be moved. Do I really want to, though? All through my college career, I hear people talk about how they can not wait to leave Atlanta. They can't wait to get to a new city, one that doesn't remind them of late homework, poor examination grades and stress-stress-stress.

But I rarely feel that kind of stress. I do well in school and I like the majority of my teachers. I am in no way sick of Atlanta and I plan to enter graduate school Fall a year from now. I trust my teachers and the path my school offers.

That's why I only feel this way when I go deep within my head. Approached with conflicts I can't begin to know how to resolve, some small, some life changing, sometimes I can't figure it out. I just sit, deep in my chair, my hands, my bed sheets with the lights off, deep into loud music or deep into sad music - the music that only amplifies the way I feel, a welcome and helpless experience.

I feel pressure in my head and under my eyes. If I write any more I may cross over, I may let a tear drop or at least let my face contort. The answer for my problem is far from me, and my obsessiveness brings hopelessness. When I can't figure something out, it drives me insane. There must be a ready answer for everything. Usually, if I don't have the time, brains, or effort to come up with a solution to my problem, to make a permanent choice enabling me to forget the question, I just find a way to delay it. It may be procrastinatory like 'I'll make that decision when the time comes' or just stupidly despairing like 'Whatever happens, happens.'

The stupidly despairing solution is ironically similar to optimism, which I undoubtedly follow most hours of the day.

Sometimes I just want to lie down on a rug that I've never felt. Feel the fibers against my face and in my hands. I'm the kind of person that touches anything that I'm curious about. Not gross like stroking ant larvae, but feeling every wall and surface in every new hotel I walk into.

Honestly, I don't know how long I'd last in another culture. If I prearranged a way to keep myself there, I'm sure I'd make it, but I wonder if, as soon as I'm a step out of the darker gray parts of my mind, I would just opt-out and return to a more practical lifestyle. My life that is learning and going places, keeping myself and my mind busy. I probably wouldn't like my choice to completely change my life and my surroundings. But sometimes, I get so bored.

Boredom is healthy and unhealthy. It gets you to try new things, do things differently, and keep the world fresh. But it can drive you away from things you love and are meant to love. You know you wouldn't be happy for long with a new girlfriend, but sometimes you think about it. Sometimes, it bothers you.

A guy doesn't want to do any harm, he just doesn't know what to do. Every now and then, this guy gets the urge to change everything about his life. But, obviously, he's too scared, or smart, to change some things. I only hope the people around me can cope with, forgive, or understand me. Everyone is given different gifts from birth, or different genetic subtleties that boost a performance in different areas, and... I just think too much sometimes.