A Restart

By Johnny Nghiem

September 4^th, 2018

"How much does a polar bear weigh? I don't know but it breaks the ice." - First Dates

Exploring is part of this delicate accent that, if appreciated, many lessons come about. Some lessons I'm waiting for, not expecting, but look forward to crossing when that time comes. For now, I can only speak about a few that has come full circle and ones that were close and evidently, ones I'm not quite ready for yet.

While travelling from Naples to Rome with one of my best friends (Zach), there were moments I knew were irreplaceable; paying homage to Mount Vesuvius, watching a thunderstorm in Caserta while stranded under an aqueduct, and being weightless in the Ponte dei Lapilli cove on the Adriatic Sea.

These emotions brought up dreams that made my mind wander into complete joy.

I'm not such a lucky person but sometimes luck can be fair and recently, it has been.

Sometimes we need small reminders, little nudges that helps keeps you directional. Fortunate for some that that's true and unfortunately for others, it isn't. I like to think of myself as being in the grey area in between both.

I'm completely lost, but precise.

On my most recent trip back to Toronto, I was surrounded by a collection of thoughts that I thought were extinct or at least endangered. I never wanted to lose touch with home but home seemed to want to lose touch with me, or so I thought.

I struggle with the idea of what love is and I can blame my childhood, the spread of divorces among my family and extended family, and various heartbreaks, but it isn't about any of that.

It's the long-lasting struggle of the ever-changing definition of what that is. It can't remain the same, it shouldn't, it should always be growing and learning.

I struggled with that for a very necessary period of time.

I like to think that I too can also grow and learn and be just Johnny.

These days I seem to think a lot about the things I forget to do and one of them is saying thank you to my past and present and a thank you to my future.