Get the memo I’m cutting the strings Gepetto

It’s been two weeks in Minnesota, away from my dear, warm, activity-filled Florida, and I am on the apex of my last afternoon in my true home. I will be here for another 24 hours, and I feel like reflecting on what I’ve learned.

It’s funny you should be able to learn so much in two weeks, but it’s not necessarily the amount of time you’re there, or even the place, but how you spend your time and how you live your life. For the last two weeks I’ve been living as a luxurious vagabond, roaming from warm house to warm house on friends’ couches and beds, really riding a wave of hospitality that I hope to someday return.
The hardest times are when you feel like you’re imposing. You don’t want to do it, but sooner or later a time will come in a fortnight when you and your benevolent hosts have conflicts of interest. These are usually small tiffs that heal almost instantly among good friends, but they are there and they are annoying. In some way they help you learn more about yourself too. For example, if I’m imposing myself upon the kindness of my sister and her fiancée, I have to eat at their table, sleep in their bed, use their shower, and follow their rules. Fortunately, they have very few rules and are about as laidback and fun as hosts can be, so the only strings attached are usually mine. Some times I just don’t feel comfortable lounging around someone else’s house while they go and nine-to-five their day away. Correction: I didn’t feel comfortable.

I feel like I’ve reached a new level in not sweating the small stuff that can potentially hold a person back. I feel like I am more willing to approach an old friend I haven’t seen in years and really didn’t know well to begin with, and try to find something in common. I feel like I’m mending partially burned bridges in an effort to reclaim friendships that have had so much unrealized potential for so long. I feel like I have less anger at the world and more hope for the future than I have in a long time, and more than most people have all their lives. I feel like doors that were once locked tight have now opened up or I’ve found another way in. I feel like avenues too far and dark and narrow have now opened up and I can see the end clearly without missing everything along the way. I see more beauty and purpose in everyday things and people than I have in years.
This was feeling was related incomparably well in a way that only hip hop can with the track “Get Fly” by Atmosphere:

And I can tell when you’re mad at your past
Because you tend to take the turns just a little too fast
And I can tell how you push your foot on the gas
that you already knew that you was gunna finsish last
Slow it down and take a little time
To look up at them clouds with the fake silver lining
Up in a tree knowing damn well you never reach the top
But you don't stop, you keep climbing
Well okay, it's settled
No more nights in this weed and thorn-infested meadow
Uh-uh, from this day forth, only forward I pedal
Get the memo I'm cutting the strings Gepetto