Writing this from the backpackers inn. A little hostel that gives you a bed and free internet for 22 bucks a night. So far so good. If I get cooties I’m leaving. I hope to see my master’s supervisor tomorrow for lunch at Carleton U. Hard to believe that I’ll be spending the next two years here. It’s a cute small city. Funny that I’m already seeing the same people twice…

I’m feeling happy these days. It could be that I’ve fallen in love. That might have something to do with it. Life hands you these wonderful little gifts from time to time. This relationship, thus far, qualifies as one of them.

Guys have often gotten the reputation of being commitment phobes. At one time I thought I was one of them. Turns out that I only needed something that I wanted to commit myself to. I find that the fear that comes from contemplating “the rest of your life” tends to paralyze. You wonder, “how can I spend the “rest of my life” doing this or that, or with this person, or in that situation”? But the “rest of your life” is an abstraction. You can’t experience it. You can only imagine it. And we imagine it as some huge monstrosity that lives in the basement, as a thing that we have to run away from. When I realized that the “rest of my life” didn’t exist, except in my head, I wasn’t afraid of it anymore. I can only live “the rest of my life” the way I have to live everything else: one moment at a time. And that isn’t so hard to deal with. Is it?

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