1.12.18~Vegas
We made it to Vegas yesterday at around noon and I've loved every moment since. The veteran's village we're staying in is modest, to say the least, but beats living on cots by a landslide. We have beds and doors that lock and laundry in our building. Jasmine, Keeley and I are sharing a room with two beds, that we spent most of the day yesterday decorating/unpacking/making feel like a home. Being able to actually unpack all my things without fear of having to move in a day is a wonderful feeling. I don't have to live out of my red bag anymore, I can actually settle in somewhere and make it comfortable, and this small sense of stability brings me great comfort. Jasmine covered our fridge in pictures of our adventures and we filled our shelves with books. There was a minor setback later on in the day, when I rolled around on the floor and stretched for a while and got bitten by bed bugs... but this issue was semi-addressed.... As in Rohan and I killed the ones we saw on the floor and haven't really had a problem again since. Our neighbors are all veterans, mostly old men. So far, they are all very kind and are happy to have us in their little neighborhood.
Las Vegas is beautiful. The sun shines brightly and I haven't seen a single cloud in the robin's egg blue sky. It's a perfect temperature of about 65 degrees every! day! I'm so grateful for having that little taste of winter in New York over Christmas break but I must say the warmth in January is kind of amazing. This sunshine is doing great things for me so far.
Currently, I'm sitting in a starbucks soaking up its wifi and coffee, smiling to myself like an idiot reflecting on my very short time here. Last night the over 21s, even !MIKE! (and Rohan, who likes to pretend he's 21), all went to Fremont Avenue, which I guess is the "old" Las Vegas strip. We all bought gas station beers and put them in brown bags like scallywags and just walked around with them because apparently that's legal here! The amount of sensory stimulation on that strip was crazy, I felt like I was in the heart of consumerist, flashy American culture. But I kind of loved it, and felt like I was glowing from the inside out! Like the lights permeated my skin and lit up my insides too. We went to a few casinos. I've never actually been to a casino, they're weird places. People from all walks of life chill in there, and I met a few very interesting characters, including a scary albino man whom we called Jack Frost that tried to hit on Rohan and persistently offered us a free ride to his strip club nearby (sketchy). I didn't actually gamble at all, thank goodness, mostly because I didn't feel like trying to figure out how the slot machines work. I just walked around and watched Mike play blackjack. I also spun in around in a lot of chairs. Casinos are very spacious, leaving a lot of room for activities and for sharing what's on your mind. I had a lot of interesting conversations with my teammates where we shared a lot more than we would in normal life. Roy and I talked for a LONG time about everything. About our families, about forgiveness, about how to muster the strength to deal with what life throws at you. We talked about how suicide has affected our lives, all the people we've loved that we had to try to convince to keep living. How there's nothing harder than seeing the world in someone who doesn't want to see the world anymore. I talked about Jerry and how I think about him all the time and all the people he touched so deeply in this life, including myself. How much it pains the people I love that he can't be here anymore, how he never got to see things get better.
It would change so many lives if you could just show people, somehow, someway, the enormity of the love that exists for them in the world. If you could wrap that feeling up in a box and give it to them to open any time they feel alone. I'll never forget when Patrick was in the hospital and he actually tried to do that for me. He cut up a paper bag, turned it inside out, and taped it up again. That way, everything that was once on the outside of the bag (i.e., everything in the universe), was now held within the bag. He gave it to me, covered in hand-drawn puzzle pieces, filled with pages from East of Eden, a religious pamphlet titled "Shining Star" and a letter. He told me that I am his shining star. Pat literally gave me the entire universe in a bag and I can never forget that.
Everyone needs that paper bag in their heart filled with all the love that's there for them that they can't always see. We all hold the entire universe inside of us. Maybe we're way bigger than we think we are. We each have an entire WORLD, we are all the center of the universe. and it's incredible. We have the power to recognize how incredible it is. Holy sugar plum!
I say it all the time and beat the heck out of this dead horse, but life is so good. so so so so so good.
Pce & lots of blessings
~V
Las Vegas is beautiful. The sun shines brightly and I haven't seen a single cloud in the robin's egg blue sky. It's a perfect temperature of about 65 degrees every! day! I'm so grateful for having that little taste of winter in New York over Christmas break but I must say the warmth in January is kind of amazing. This sunshine is doing great things for me so far.
Currently, I'm sitting in a starbucks soaking up its wifi and coffee, smiling to myself like an idiot reflecting on my very short time here. Last night the over 21s, even !MIKE! (and Rohan, who likes to pretend he's 21), all went to Fremont Avenue, which I guess is the "old" Las Vegas strip. We all bought gas station beers and put them in brown bags like scallywags and just walked around with them because apparently that's legal here! The amount of sensory stimulation on that strip was crazy, I felt like I was in the heart of consumerist, flashy American culture. But I kind of loved it, and felt like I was glowing from the inside out! Like the lights permeated my skin and lit up my insides too. We went to a few casinos. I've never actually been to a casino, they're weird places. People from all walks of life chill in there, and I met a few very interesting characters, including a scary albino man whom we called Jack Frost that tried to hit on Rohan and persistently offered us a free ride to his strip club nearby (sketchy). I didn't actually gamble at all, thank goodness, mostly because I didn't feel like trying to figure out how the slot machines work. I just walked around and watched Mike play blackjack. I also spun in around in a lot of chairs. Casinos are very spacious, leaving a lot of room for activities and for sharing what's on your mind. I had a lot of interesting conversations with my teammates where we shared a lot more than we would in normal life. Roy and I talked for a LONG time about everything. About our families, about forgiveness, about how to muster the strength to deal with what life throws at you. We talked about how suicide has affected our lives, all the people we've loved that we had to try to convince to keep living. How there's nothing harder than seeing the world in someone who doesn't want to see the world anymore. I talked about Jerry and how I think about him all the time and all the people he touched so deeply in this life, including myself. How much it pains the people I love that he can't be here anymore, how he never got to see things get better.
It would change so many lives if you could just show people, somehow, someway, the enormity of the love that exists for them in the world. If you could wrap that feeling up in a box and give it to them to open any time they feel alone. I'll never forget when Patrick was in the hospital and he actually tried to do that for me. He cut up a paper bag, turned it inside out, and taped it up again. That way, everything that was once on the outside of the bag (i.e., everything in the universe), was now held within the bag. He gave it to me, covered in hand-drawn puzzle pieces, filled with pages from East of Eden, a religious pamphlet titled "Shining Star" and a letter. He told me that I am his shining star. Pat literally gave me the entire universe in a bag and I can never forget that.
Everyone needs that paper bag in their heart filled with all the love that's there for them that they can't always see. We all hold the entire universe inside of us. Maybe we're way bigger than we think we are. We each have an entire WORLD, we are all the center of the universe. and it's incredible. We have the power to recognize how incredible it is. Holy sugar plum!
I say it all the time and beat the heck out of this dead horse, but life is so good. so so so so so good.
Pce & lots of blessings
~V
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