By far, the most enjoyable part of my travelling has not been what I’ve seen but who I’ve met along the way. If I’d stayed in my hometown in England I’d never have shared a joint and a few cheeky lines with inmates in a cell during a prison visit in Ecuador, or had a conversation with a freight-hopping Brooklyn vagabond in the alleyways of New York City. Never played a thousand hands of cards with an eccentric Panamanian hostel manager who had drunk Las Vegas dry and escaped the US owing thousands of dollars in medical bills. From drinks with a ’60s Slovenian pop star to a night in Thailand with a Hawaiian pot dealer, for sure, it’s all about the people.
Such a shame I’ve either had to cut the meetings short (I should have gone to the golf club in Ljubljana), or missed the bones of an interesting conversation (what was the moral of the homeless man’s tale again?) If I hadn’t had Crow cawing in my ears, maybe I’d have learned and experienced more than I have. But then again, if it wasn’t for OCD, I probably wouldn’t have sold my home in England in the first place. Mind you, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to.
I sometimes lament those jagged conversations, talking to someone in the real world but at the same time having a chaotic battle of chess in my mind. Dissecting thoughts and taking too long answering a question, experiencing awkward silences because I didn’t quite catch what was said. Three minutes of dialogue dead in the water. Standing face to face with a man I met on the train, listening but struggling to hear a single word he’s spoken all morning.
“Sorry Lorenzo, I was miles away.” I’d blame a late night, say I’m a prolific daydreamer, or, “That joint really hit me hard.”
I’ve missed a million punchlines this way. I could have had the answer to life explained to me in glorious detail but was too busy thinking about killing myself in front of my grandmother to heed the advice. (Did he say forty-two or forty-three?)
Sometimes I didn’t have the mental strength to join the conversation, or expand the question, or debate it, or anything at all because the black feathered Prince of Doubt was pecking holes in my head. Words frequently spilled from my mouth but it was usually a rant or a cascade of stupid jokes.
I never once mentioned my OCD. But maybe I should have.
The greatest problem with OCD, for me, is that big fat O – Obsessional thoughts that fight for my absolute attention the moment I’m semi-conscious. The alarm clock explodes and I open my eyes, and there it is, breakfast on the bedside table – six-inch nails on toast. Of course, most people experience dark thoughts every day, but for me, with that bastard crow for company, and for the millions of others with imps, monkeys, and demons perched on their shoulders, it’s not just every day, but every second of every minute of every hour of every day. It’s not surprising that we miss things.
But believe me, I can talk. Always loud when I was with my friends from school (a means not to dwell on the questions buzzing around my head,) it was no wonder I took the tactics into adulthood. It was at home that I was the quiet one, lying upstairs ruminating for hours, pretending to be on my computer. One evening in my late teens, my parents came with me to the local pub. They hadn’t witnessed my coping methods while I was out socialising as an adult before. “You were the loudest person there,” said my mum. And it was a busy night.
I still talk a great deal but it’s less to silence Crow, more because I want to. Another difference is that these days, I also listen.
ocDETOUR 