Time = rate of change

Guatemala City is enormous, loud, and covered in Christmas. I had forgotten, of course. Its imminence should be obvious, but by now I'm used to that confusion; sometimes I genuinely have to decide whether it is May or November.



Every roundabout along Avenida Reforma radiates light. We pass a Gallo Cerveza tree, the traditional angel at the summit replaced with the beer company's neon cockerel head. Then a Coca Cola tree, perfect twinkling cylinder of red and white. Kind sponsors of Christmas around the world.


Krista and Mindi are my companions in the car; two in a long line of deep friendships formed over the course of this year. Friends like these are few and far between, or so I used to think -- I have probably made more good friends this year than in my entire twenties. They surround me like cushions, peppering this continent with little conversational havens.


I have left a lot of people behind in my life, especially recently. I like to think that the best ones are glued on, and time has so far proved that to be true. But inevitably, in anyone's life, let alone in one like this, a few of them have to go. I am making my peace with that.


Home is no longer the place I think it is. Friends drift away, connections fade. People have joined the drifts of belongings in my wake. Every time I shift, physically and mentally, there are one or two who move just a little too far away to touch. I realise that it is perhaps emotionally easier for me to reduce my connections over there. But at the same time, never have I felt so completely in my element, never have I attracted so many like-minded people.

Regardless of mental space, I have put myself in a position whereby my main form of contact is email. Despite my sometimes irrational condemnation of technology, I depend on it. If this flow is not maintained, a relationship without deep foundation can dissolve. And thus, without really understanding so at the time, my move away from the UK has inevitably resulted in loss.

I believe I can be easily misunderstood, despite the level of intention I place on my communication. To most, I have run away. To me, I am still running towards. But all I can do is stay true to my own understanding, and keep an open enough mind to allow others in with it.

Everyone has their own path, and everyone has companions who walk it with them.

Those I once counted as part of me may morph into something impenetrable. Those I once trusted may become something else, and this distance might be too big to discover them anew.


But for all the shifting connections that may surround me, right now, in the centre of this torn city, I feel completely safe.


Time is a rate of change. I stand at the window of the mall and look out over the throughway, my eyes tracing cars in bewilderingly straight lines. Streams of traffic and lives blur around me in bright trails, momentarily blinding me.