The Goodbye Train

I validated my ticket.

I stepped out onto the platform.

I boarded the Goodbye Train.

Now I am riding along in this thing, making all the stops; picking up and dropping off friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances. For months I knew this train trip was coming, but it's only now that I have only a few more stops to make that I am really feelings it's purpose: saying GOODBYE.

Farewelling the people you love and spend all your time with is a strange and perplexing process. I'm not sure what my everday-life will be like without them. And I never expected to feel bad for the fact that some of them will actually miss me!

I am uncertain about how I will feel when I land in a foreign country where I have no family, no friends, no car, no income, and no belongings but the ones in my suitcase.

Basically, I'm uncertain about how I feel right now, and I'm uncertain about how I will feel then. It reminds me of a monologue from one of my favourite films, The Shawshank Redemption. I wonder if there is a way that I can turn this uneasiness into something a little closer to what Red felt:

"I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel; a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain."

Xerphile

It's not a real word;

It's pronounced ex-er-file;

And according to the Concise Tania Dictionary, it is someone who has an attraction to, affinity for, or obsession with X. Not X, the letter. X, the concept.

In his book, X Saves the World, Jeff Gordinier traces the origins of X back to Paul Fussell's 1983 book, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, in which the final chapter ("The X Way Out") describes,

"...a class beyond class - a group of people whose tastes and habits wiggle free of the old hierarchies of money and social rank... Fussell writes 'The young flocking to the cities to devote themselves to "art", "writing", "creative work" - anything, virtually, that liberates them from the presence of a boss or supervisor - are aspirant X people... X people constitute something like a classless class. They occupy the one social place in the U.S.A. where the ethic of buying and selling is not all-powerful. Impelled by insolence, intelligence, irony, and spirit, X people have escaped out the back doors of those theatres of class which enclose others.'"

After reading Fussell's book, Douglas Coupland gave the world Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. This book conveys X through a profoundly unpretentious narration about the experiences and attitudes of Andy, Dag and Claire; three GenXers seeking emancipation from Anti-sabbatical jobs and the Cult of Aloneness.

Although there is debate about the chronological boundaries of GenX, I choose the one that stipulates GenXers were born between 1964-1982, merely because I was born in 1982. However, definitions that suggest the GenX birth era ended earlier need not phase me because, as Coupland put it, "X is a term that defines not a chronological age, but a way of looking at the world."

X people are everywhere and even exist outside of "GenX", because it's a world view, not an age bracket. Some people in the 'correct age range' have sold out and others outside of it have caught hold of the mindset. However, although I'm sure Xers exist, they are an elusive breed that I hope to have more contact with in my travels.

With X-vision, I believe it is possible to transcend the consumerist frenzy we find ourselves in.

"Why work? Simply to buy more stuff?" (Andy, in Generation X).

A Place to Start

I'm not sure what this blog is about. I'm not sure if anyone will read it. I just decided to have somewhere different to store my contemplations since everything in my life is about to change.

In nine days time I am heading to Italy where I will be studying the local language for three months. What a random thing to do in your late 20's - I know. I have taken a break from my career and steady income in order to go somewhere unfamiliar and do something I've never done. Some people think I'm crazy; a lone girl heading to Europe where she knows nobody. They say I'm "brave", with a hint of alarm in their voices. However, the world was made for exploring and I was made for living in it. Seems like a pretty easy formula to me.

My motto is this: I can have the life I want. I can be the person I want to be

and;

Amelia Erhardt said: "The most effective way to do it, is to do it."

So that's what I'm doing. I'm going to see what else is out there in the big wide world. I have lots of questions that need some contemplation and if possible, some answers.

There are all sorts of things that I would like to know. For example: Why people choose money over happiness; why countries war when they have to sit down and talk it over in the end anyway; why people collect junk; why they buy teeny bopper pop albums; whether the media has turned democracy into a public image pageant; and whether writing down your thoughts in a format like this actually affords any benefits.

It remains to be seen.

I am a patchy journaler at best, so logic tells me my blogging may follow suit. We'll see...