jeg hedder ikke nom

As I marched up South Road (the stretch where it is utterly treeless and shadeless) toward the bus stop, sweat crawled up my forehead and out of pores that I didn't even know existed. I couldn't help but miss those chilly evenings in Copenhagen. I missed walking down to the train station at nine o'clock in the morning when the Scandinavian sun was just making its first appearance. I missed walking back home in the dark, accompanied by a drizzle that dripped from the sky for days at a time. Even as I crossed the busiest intersections, I was only surrounded by people speaking in undecipherable tongues while I continued on in my own little world. How easy it was to be content with simple thoughts and desires. I counted how many minutes it was until the next train came, when I should go visit Netto again to stock up on dark chocolate, and hoped that my host family did not cook medium-rare steak again for dinner. I was in the country that I didn't dare dream of visiting when I lied in bed reading Andersen's tales as a child. Yet there I was, promenading down the streets of Denmark all alone. I never thought of myself as the type to look for escape, to seek solitude and quietness, but somehow I found comfort in this frigidly unfamiliar place.

Here I was, back in the gentle embrace of North Carolina. I have everything that I could have wanted, and they are all bearing down on me like the sun burning over my head. I have a strange need to throw it all away, to relieve myself. What an easy life would I have then, with no expectations, no obligations, no ties, and no love.