January 26

1/26

We Skyped again tonight, this time for more than three hours. The topic of the evening was transience. Christopher insisted that he'd ask the questions this time. I rebuffed some of them, but answered most, and it was strange to hear myself telling him thoughts I've never admitted to anyone but these notebooks.

Still I managed to keep him talking the majority of the time. Right before going to college and taking on the backbreaking loans that will cripple me for the rest of my life, I convinced myself that the untethered lifestyle I've always wanted was just a teenage fantasy, immature and impossible. I wanted to know what it was like to have proven that it is possible. It sounded something like a sickness.

“I can't stay in one place for more than eight months,” he said. “I think that's my limit. Eight months and I start getting to this really low place. That's how long I could work at the country club. And I'm coming up to that limit here in New York.”

I calculated and realized that the limit would be over before my spring break. “Where are you headed next?” I asked casually, although I felt like I was sinking.

“Denver,” he said. He didn't have to think that time. He was going to the University of Colorado to do his Master's in Engineering.

“Denver? Why would you want to go from New York to Denver? I heard it's really boring.”

“I heard it's great.”

“You know, there's one thing about your style of transience I don't like,” I said. “My desire for transience comes from a desire to avoid close relationships. But you, you have this desire to get deeply involved with everyone you meet. You get people attached to you, tied to you. And when you pull away, those ties break. And that hurts people.”

“I'm just not an exclusive person. I have like a million best friends. I don't want to hurt people.”

“You may not want to, but you do. What you're doing, really, is collecting people, like Pokemon cards.” I remembered the fan of business cards at Goldman-Sachs. I felt collected.

“I don't know. Maybe you're right. Do I really make meaningful connections with any of those people?” He sipped thoughtfully. 

“You know, your questions … you make me think about myself like I've never thought about myself before.”

“Yeah, you do the same for me.”

"As long as I make you feel something," he said.