Dear Bourdain 2: Leaving is Hard

Dear Bourdain,

I’m going to miss the things I leave behind when I’m abroad.

I know travel is the best of things, but that doesn’t quite cover the anxiety about being somewhere unknown and getting to adventures.

Or the anxiety that I won’t; I’ll be stuck in some rut, somewhere else, wasting the precious few minutes playing Brawl Stars on my phone, but just to a Shanghai rush hour backdrop.

Or the fear of what happens when I return. When does the money run out, and will that be before or after my dreams can be manifested into reality? What will that job even be? [and real, job hunting is literally my least favorite thing ever]

See, travel doesn’t solve things, that’s not the point. Travel is to find new circumstances, and discovering your priorities with newfound freedom. It doesn’t change you, it reveals you.

The timer starts now. And I’m already dreading the sand specks that descend plinko style forming a little pyramid. Not a pharaohs tomb, but building a humble and equally grave finale.

But here I am. Going towards a future.

Or something. Truthfully I don’t know what tomorrow brings, and uncertainty scares the shit out of me.

Another round, barkeep! Keep’ em coming!

Let me start with: It’s truly a blessing that I can be leaving behind wonderful things.

People and places and events and structures and friends and support that I’m just up and leaving for a year; purposefully walking away from the amazeballs life in New York.

I’m so proud of the things I’ve built here.

I love my office job at Bank of America. My colleagues made every day an easy routine. They were fun and fascinating and smart and thoughtful and caring. They had families they would light up over. They would spend weekends volunteering or sailing or at shows or biking races or intense bikrim yoga or hiking in crazy mountain ranges. They were smart and thoughtful on their processes, open to questions and learning sessions. I had a structure that would give me many opportunities to grow and develop. A manager that was a boss, role model, friend, confidant all at once. It really was idyllic, especially considering it was a Fortune 500 bank.

The Open Mic defies easy explanation, a mis-mash of the most beautiful things that doesn’t so much come together-last-minute but is in fact perfected by measure of its imperfectness. The network that comprises the system around me. How they grow and expand. How they’re talented in so many measures, beautiful in the spotlight, hardworking to boot. That what I can contribute to their stories of personal growth is worthwhile and solving the problems.

That’s why I’m here on this earth. To solve problems. To help people rise up. To work on their parts and pieces and make magic and when we all believe in that magic together, then use it to make more things.

See if I focus my best on raising and valuing and loving all of you, then someone here will break through, and when they pull me along, I’ll be hoisting up so many friends, we’ll all make it to the platform.

That’s why it so hard to leave. Why would I want to leave this? Why wouldn’t I feel the loss of another year reveling in their magic? Why wouldn’t I mourn how another year could see us all grow to higher heights; and later collectively reminiscing on the struggles and successes that the time could give to us.

I see the last year. I see the potentials of the next one. I’m sorry to see them off as I jump into the unknowns, modeling myself after a smoking, drinking, harrowing demon [read: you]. The badboy cook, who spent so long blunting his edges, that his voice comes out butter smooth in immortalized words and videos.

I don’t even have to, I want to.

At the very end of it all, I want to go. I want to explore. I don’t know if it will serve me, and I definitely don’t know if it is the right decision.

But I have to trust myself. And I have to find success in my decisions, regardless their outcome or determinants.

I hope your explorations are good. I hope they let you smoke up there. I mean what is it going to do? Kill you? Are the Ramones concerts good? How’s the Campari?

Gimme a sign if you get a chance.

Love,

Winston