The Beauty in the Breakdown

Tonight I found myself laying in the parking lot of a 24-hour breakfast place at 1:00 AM, looking at the stars with one of the few people I have ever selflessly cared about. I dropped everything--work, sleep, sanity-- for a late night angst-fest with someone who needed it more than ever. So we stuffed ourselves on greasy waffles and bad coffee with nowhere to go afterwards but the parking lot. So we laid there and stared and talked and stared some more. We were perhaps, for that moment, the most cynical people in the world. We watched each other break down, we marveled at how all things fall apart, we felt the pieces of the sky fall down around us. And then we laughed at our own hopelessness, if only because there is not much else to do at such a time.

I have spent a lot of time wondering what life would have been like had I never gone to Norway. I would not have become the person that I am, I would not have had to do some of the things I've done, life might not have hurt so much, I might have been happier with all of my naivety. But tonight I realized that the whole thought process is useless. I am the person I am now for a reason. I had to leave for a reason. And even if the only reason was so that one of the most important relationships of my life could turn into one of the most important friendships of my life, even if the only reason was so that I could find myself laying down in that parking lot tonight... then it was all worth it.