An Elaboration of Previous Sentiments

Sometimes things happen in life that take the things you have spent some amount of time thinking about, be it large or small, and shift those very things into being the point of reference from which you begin to accept that the things you wanted — or did not want — have become the situation in which you find yourself. What is less predictable is when these things happen as you are exiting a club at 6:30 in the morning, your body confused by the fact that you are still drunk but the sun is out anyway, paying absolutely no attention to the fact that you have still not managed to schlep your way home and crawl into bed before becoming hungover later – or at the very least, thirsty and feeling vaguely disgusting, as though it were some sort of personal affront. It doesn't matter though, as you all look out onto the sunrise from the miradouro, in awe of the beauty of the previously unknown hour of morning, in the company of a group of people with whom you feel perfectly comfortable to be and do just as you naturally would, throwing all reservations to the wind.

Such is the irony of that moment that the individuals involved are together in a happenstance, temporary manner, some less so than others. The general idea, however, is that the course of where things are going has made way to allow for a sense of social comfort and awareness makes room for the ability to think about those all-important life decisions talked about previously on this blog in small part. Despite the fact that a good friend and many others I am acquainted with here are in the same position as me, staying for an extended but short period, and that even some of my lovers in the city are trying desperately to leave the country for better working prospects elsewhere, my sense of social stability in this particular moment in time allows me breathing room to reflect on life and the opportunities being presented in it, to make the decisions necessary to carry through other decisions that up until this point were hypothetical things that I spent time wondering about but not having a realistic or pragmatic sense to take completely seriously.

The city itself, moreover, has become utterly familiar much in the way that Denver has, despite the fact that I have yet to see or do absolutely everything that there is on offer. Much can be said of both places, frankly. It is in just such a way that Lisbon has come to feel like and, really, be home, a place where I live in the comfort of familiarity and knowledge of my surroundings without so much as being able to be completely familiar or know everything or, indeed, most things about the city and the country. I'm able to become more intimately familiar with the city as the stress of not being completely familiar with how routine, day-to-day things work here versus how I am accustomed to doing them in the United States fades and my perspective on the use of language amid all of it changes. I have begun, in small part, to scratch beneath the surface of how the city lives and breathes, what places there are to see, what things to do, what foods to eat, and so on. Progress comes in many forms. Those who know me well understand similarly well that I feel best and am able to excel in the things I endeavor to do when I am engrossed in a routine in a setting I hold no antipathy toward. It is no coincidence that my greatest productivity upon returning to the United States last summer happened sitting outdoors over espresso in the most urbane environment Denver has to offer. It is perhaps also no coincidence that I had been unable to take full advantage of the time when my classes were in limbo and I felt as though everything was in a state of upheaval.

I don't yet know in specific detail how exactly what I have in mind to do after graduating will happen, but I have a general idea and I've got the feeling that it will come to happen much the same way the rest of the things are now.