Feelings

When you're paragliding it feels as though you're truly flying. The wind on your skin, the earth down below - the closest we'll  come to knowing how a bird feels I imagine. Freedom.

Then, your feet hit the ground.

When you're sitting outside watching a french film by candle light with the lake behind the screen and a beer and pizza in hand, it feels like you're in a dream. A romantic dream taking place in a romanticized Nepal....

Then the movie's  over and you have to figure out how to get "home."

When you realize you stupidly forgot about something and now it's lost, you feel like it was all for naught and you're super irresponsible. It feels like you can't  fix it.

Then, you realize it's not all that important and you can figure out a way to replace it.

When you're floating down the river on your back holding onto the handle on the raft, sun on your face, blue skies and white puffy clouds floating by, huge green mountains looming on either side, it feels as though you could stay there like that for forever - like nothing else in the world seems to matter.

Then, it's time to get out and you have to hike up from the riverbed in wet clothes.

When you're stuck on the bus, jammed between bodies,  sweating profusely because though the window is open the air is stagnant, it feels like it will never end and the busted truck tire that caused the total stand still on the one lane road will then become a traffix jam due to a rockslide, then roadwork - sitting on this bus might be how you spend the rest of the week in Nepal.

Then, the guy pulls your bag through the aisle and off the bus and into the dusty street. Just like that it's over and you're here...wherever here is.

When you realize you've been duped and what you thought you had signed up for turns out to not be so, it feels like you're an idiot and the culprits are the devil incarnate.

Then you realize this is kinda how it works here and you're not the only one. And they're not evil, just entrepreneurs of a sort.

When you get charged by a 2 month old baby elephant who is roaming free at the breeding center, it feels like he's probably gonna break your knee caps and though it would make for an entertaining story, the Nepali hospital stay would not be fun.

Then, the calf starts playing in the mud and seems to smile at you. It's all good. ..he's just a baby!

When you're sitting on top of an elephant in the middle of the river and she's splashing you with water from her trunk, it feels like you're getting a bucket of water thrown in your face - like  it would be fun if she were playing and you were friends. It feels as though you are "King of the World" sitting on top of that giant majestic animal...

Then, the guy with the rod pokes her violently and you feel sorry for her and start petting her soothingly instead of playing in the water. When you look in her eyes, it's clear that it's not all fun and games.

When you watch the Chinese tourists in their flip flops and dresses trying to hike, it makes you feel indignant and isolated.

Then, you make an effort to get to know the girls and they're awesome and you  find out you have a lot in common!

When you sit a top a giant elephant with 3 other tourists on a safari, it feels oddly like you're  kid watching yourself at the zoo or the circus...on a ride that is all too real.

Then, it gets uncomfortable,  the elephant is working so hard, and the kid manhut seems tired...it loses a bit of its magic.

When you drink your Everest beer while watching the sunset over the river, it feels as if all of those feelings above were in either  a dream or a nightmare. 

Then, you know, with certainty, it's all of these feelings that make you alive.