I revisited the University of Delaware, working this time, not just training. Eric picked me up from a Philadelphia hotel at 5 am to make our 7 o’clock schedule. My flight had arrived at midnight the night before due to delays but it didn’t bother me because not a lot bothers me at this point.

We pulled up in dense fog to a construction trailer that couldn’t be seen from twenty yards away. Inside we’re greeted by a jovial and bespectacled construction foreman who gives us the usual safety talk, but goes on to explain the “sexual sensitivity course.” The documentation goes on to explain sexual harassment in legal jargon and what it is and I just took the whole thing as don’t even think about the opposite sex because I can be sued for it. It made sense though. A bunch of dirty construction workers working on a college campus with possibly attractive twenty somethings. Then I realized that I’m balled into the same group as the dirty construction workers.

I walked around the jobsite in my business casual clothes. There was an orange safety vest on my torso and a yellow hardhat on my head. I was thinking about my travel arrangements, or flashing an ESN, or creating a database, or updating the processor firmware, or testing occupancy sensors in the locker rooms, or that QS wall station that wasn’t working. At points in the day I would see those college students and feel such a disconnect. I would think about what they were thinking about me. Probably nothing at all, or just some contractor, or some thirty year old doing his job, or some IT guy, or something, or something. They were thinking about a literature class, or a party, or maybe a boy/girl that they wanted to hook up with or already did, or something menial and unimportant. I thought of my great position, of money and opportunity and experience and travel.

And I looked at them, yearning only to be able to think of simple things, of menial things, of literature tests and finals.

Instead, I am thinking of qsprogramdevicefirmware,0,KEYPAD-DOM,keypad.s19.

I am thinking of my life as a thirty year old, as a twenty year old.

The weekend puts me in Philadelphia for my company Christmas party. I spend Friday night walking the streets of Philadelphia in places I probably shouldn’t have, enjoying the cold and the solace. I found the liberty bell at night and Independence Hall. I sat and looked at the sky without stars and watched my breath become vapor. What am I doing with my life? Great things. So many great things and great heights but how? What a strange turn of events but some strange fate in which I will see such scenes, so many things to behold. I do not deserve any of this, these grand adventures and prosperous outcomes, financially and emotionally and mentally. It’s obscene in its absurdity. And how is it that I can adapt so well? My peers are ten years older than me. I have spent maybe fourteen days in my apartment total. I feel like I’m falling apart in some ways, but those same thoughts become nullified by my apparent fortitude. It’s so hard for me to absorb anything, like I am numb to experiences, or rather I absorb them without realizing it. I have aged exponentially, all as a matter of fact and without realizing it.

Alison joins me the next day for the party. We spend the afternoon shopping and exploring. I purchase a blue velvet coat and a bowtie. I told Tim that I would outdress him and plan on succeeding. It’s comforting to see Alison becomes it’s nice to see a familiar face in an unfamiliar town but it’s odd because the town doesn’t feel too unfamiliar.

Alison looks wonderful and so do I and in the hotel lobby we meet our fellow partiers. I see Steve and his wife Jessica, who I have not seen since I stayed in their home. I see Joe, who I shared some deep moments with in Stamford. And I see Tim looking dapper, but not quite dapper enough. He looks at my bowtie and coat and lets out a whisper of impression. I realize that we are a company of beautiful people, and our beautiful convoy makes the walk to the restaurant.

Alison says she’s never felt so young. The funny thing is I haven’t felt more comfortable in weeks.

The night is food, and drinks, and bowling, and fun. It ends late and the night is well and I’m happy and Alison is happy. We do more exploring the next day and leave in the afternoon. Alison back to Texas and myself off to Ohio.

The clouds must have followed me to Dayton. It’s 27 or so degrees when I get there and a slight drizzle. Dayton isn’t foreign to me. I’d spent two weeks previously here.  I told my cab driver where the hotel was without using my GPS. It hit me that I know Dayton, Ohio better than I know Austin, Texas, where I supposedly live. It was a darkly comedic and sad feeling. This was followed by the realization that I have almost spent more days there than I have in Austin, Texas. There was no alcohol in my possession, but it was a thought worth drinking to.

Tim gave me a call, and we checked up on ourselves as we often do. I related to him my frustrations I faced in Delaware, of feeling so disconnected from my age group. I told him my frustrations of what little time I’ve spent in Texas, and other frustrations of my personal life. He listened in his Tim way and responded in his Tim way. “You sound bitter,” he says. He asks if I think I should be a student with those kids at the U of D. I hesitate and eventually say yes and I tell him I didn’t want to say it but it’s true. He said that we talk on the phone not because of business but because we’re friends and it’s ok for me to tell him that.

He relates to me anecdotes and quotes from classic literature and philosophy. He seems to reveal secrets as to why I was hired in the first place, even though this isn’t some grand secret or experiment or plot. He again touches on darker times that he had, and says to look where he is now with a woman that loves him unconditionally and a beautiful new baby. He tells me that I will come out on the other side and it will be amazing. He talks again of his faith. As I listen, I almost tear up because I start to feel so okay, and there’s that certain fraternal bond that I get with Tim. In response, he also tells me of his frustrations and I give him some my advice, as if that means anything but he listens all the same. In the end he says I was hired because I’m a young man of great ability and talent. He says that he only hopes for me to get from point A to point B, and thinks that point B might not be with this company because I can be greater than this company. As I’ve told him before, I think he gives me too much credit. He says that he doesn’t think so.

We talk more on the subject of me comparing myself to those students. I know that I have a unique and incredible opportunity doing what I’m doing, but there are those moments where for just a week, maybe I wish I could be twenty and live the normal life that comes with that. To this he says:

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

I went to bed completely content.

An aside: Thursday is my last day of work before I get my own little holiday vacation. Soon I will be riding a floating castle into Val Halla. Thursday can’t come soon enough.

This is a recursion or a relapse into something I don’t want. I always hated the way my mind would move, too many thoughts in a short span and they’re all bad. It takes a single moment. I feel no magic in travel right now. I feel no magic in my job right now. I feel no magic in writing. Just frustration. Life took a strange series of turns. I don’t deserve where I am right now. I got very lucky. I am sorry. I will feel better tomorrow.

I spent the week in the desert. Arizona. Maybe a kilometer from the border. It was a far cry from the gold and burgundy trees of the northeast, instead surrounded by reddish brown dirt, unnamed mountains off in the distance, dotted with desert shrubs like a pox, cacti, Spanish. The temperature was never below sixty or above seventy. The sky stayed blue. At times I would be fifty yards from the border fence, stretched across the hills and cutting the sky like the rusted plates of a stegosaurus back. I felt the southwest again. It reminded me of Big Bend and earlier in the year. I forgot about those times. I don’t even feel like that was me.

My initial flight to Arizona was something pleasant. I met a girl named Paige. She was a golfer. She talked about it with a confidence that wasn’t cockiness, but with an acknowledgement of ability. She was a journalism major, so we talked about that. And then we talked about psychology. And then religion. And then gender roles. And our upbringings. She said she wanted to be a sideline reporter for college football. I told her that would work, she has a face for TV. She smiled and said thanks. It was true. And I will never see her again.

Upon landing, I was greeted by LaMarr and by cacti. LaMarr and I have worked together on numerous occasions, and he’s nothing short of one of my favorite people. He’s somewhat quiet, but not out of shyness or necessity. He’s simply not loud because it’s not needed. He’s incredibly good at what he does. He thinks with his engineer logic. On the jobsite, he challenges any of my actions even if they’re correct, just to check my assuredness. I see this right away and I don’t give him the pleasure of catching me off guard. He keeps me on my toes and he teaches me. He’s the man that after working a busy day, we went to a machine gun range in Oklahoma City to let off some steam. We often talk about growing up in the South and the silly things northerners do. We laugh about many things.

Nogales, AZ had the desolate beauty that makes the southwest what it is. Grass doesn’t exist in this part of the country. Looking in any direction, you see mountains. At night, you see stars. The sunsets. Those desert sunsets that turn the sky to a purple I’ve never seen. The sun makes its retreat behind those desert titans, and the gold and purple sky is its last goodbye for the day. I remember feeling disappointed when it finished.

The jobsite itself was by far the most unique site I’ve visited. The country’s largest port of entry into the country from Mexico. A massive fifty acre project right on the border. We worked in strange areas. At one point I was climbing over and under pipes in tight underground tunnels that could hardly fit me and in other places that allowed LaMarr and myself to stand freely. Parts of the facility were operational while we were there. During the day, the air was heavy with the sound in smell of eighteen wheelers coming from Mexico. As the days would grow late, we would hear concerts and smell barbecue from over the border. LaMarr and I would joke of adventures we could have. Maybe next time, we would joke. I wore a hardhat and boots and a safety vest and I felt that importance that sometimes comes with this job, even if I’m not that important. One day, a Border Patrol official will reach for a light switch that I programmed. I have done my patriotic duty.

I feel bitter again. I’m not sure why. I have that familiar chip on my shoulder. Mad at the world and nothing at all. It’s a recession and regression to something I don’t want to be. Things have been so good lately. I had a wonderful week at home last week. There wasn’t a day that I didn’t love. My job continues to get better and better. In my social aspects, I’ve had good times. And I still don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m letting myself settle into an uncomfortable groove. I need something new. Isn’t that a shame? I’m in a new city every week and doing new things and yet I still feel unfulfilled. Give it a few days and I’ll feel fine, as is the usual par for this course. I keep thinking about things I thought I was done with. Dwelling on things I shouldn’t. About how I wouldn’t mind seeing Paige again. Ihop and Big Bend. I don’t write enough. I don’t workout enough. Challenging my self worth. And then I stop and I breathe and I think and I grow up all over again. One of my many faux inspirational phrases. It makes me think of you (and I’ve been thinking of you often.)

“I’m ok. Everything is ok. Everything will be ok.”