Epik Wino...Epiphany in London

Love this picture.

On my way into London on Saturday, I saw some graffitti that totally made my day. The scrawled script read, "EPIK WINO". Honestly, sometimes the stuff I see just makes me laugh right out loud. Love you, London.

Aside from that hilarity, the weather was pants, and something was not quite right. I was feeling...something. I can't really explain it: down; blue; melancholy. I guess all those three will do. Someone at school said that we just survived the longest week of the year at school, so maybe that's it: summer is officially over and the madness has begun again. I volunteered for another year of this...was that sheer insanity? I feel profoundly exhausted and no amount of napping today has shifted that heaviness. Anyway, the bad mood didn't lift when I got to London Bridge, discovered that the Northern line was closed and I had to do some shufflin' to get to where I needed to go. Argh. Then it started raining and I couldn't remember if I had water-proofed my shoes and it was just going from bad to worse. Seeing Erik of course made the day markedly sunnier, but something was still up. We went retro university/Korea in the evening when we played drinking games with his roommates. Shockingly, before you question it, I'm not too old for those kind of shenanigans, though I do have to admit that I was exhausted and ready to hit the proverbial sack at about 11. We made it out to Soho for some drinks...what a shame it's now habit to forget my camera at home.

Somehow I survived and spent the day today in Wimbledon, holding hands and hanging out. I'll take it. Still, something wasn't quite right. I heard this song by The National and something made sense all of a sudden.

Leave your home
Change your name
Live alone
Eat your cake.

Man it's all been forgiven
Swans are a swimming
I'll explain everything to the geeks.

All the very best of us
string ourselves up for love

Hanging from chandeliers...
same small world
at your heels

All the very best of us
string ourselves up for love...

(interesting interview with the National here)

I realized I had done all of it: I'd left home and changed...hell, I'd changed it all. I'd lived alone and done exactly what I wanted to for a whole year. I met and spent time with the kind of people who changed who I was and formed who I'd later become: the kind of person I wanted to be. It was a year of healing-turned-happiness and it was a difficult one. Man, it's all been forgiven...finally.

It's a metaphorical plunge: the euphoria of the free fall mingles with the paralyzing apprehension of taking that leap.

I guess I just recognize this feeling of hope. Hope springs eternal in my life...I'm am so notorious for just TRUSTING that it will all work out. What makes this time so different?

And in the midst of this existential crisis (mid-train ride), I passed this neon sign:

"FIND COURAGE"

And just as it happened in Texas when I saw that, "Go There, Lex" sign that prompted my final decision to give Korea a try, I blindly, wildly trust that once again this time will be different.

Suddenly, the dark cloud that has been around my head for the last three days has lifted. I knew an epiphany had to be right around the corner (it's been awhile since the last one)...I just didn't know this is what the cloud was all about. I didn't know I had to figure this out.

"The stars appear every night in the sky.
All is well."

--Korean fortune cookie thanks to Alex Bland.