Lord of the Rings

I started reading "The Lord of the Rings" for the second time since I've been in Germany. My Flatmate Luke is also a fan and Wednesday night, much to the perceived annoyance of his German ladyfriend, we began discussing the Trilogy and how it has reflected and affected our lives. I said that Frodo's journey out of the Shire was much like my journey out of Salem. Hurried, rushed, almost secretive. Cutting all ties to the old life and walking away without looking back, ready to take on all of the unknown challenges and difficulties. After returning in December for the holidays, I realized what it meant to not be able to come home and look at it as the same place. We've had many discussions about this transition. Leaving home and looking back on it fondly and longingly, even though, maybe, it was never as great as it was before. I sometimes think that everyone has a time when they leave home and change and then come back, a different person. Their old friends and towns stay the same, but they look and sound different; then I remember that maybe only certain people take the "hero's journey" into the fabled Belly of the Whale, to emerge on the other side changed and ready to face the difficulties of life that they had for so long hidden from. Which brings me to Aragorn. My flatmate said that he related more to him. He's the exiled hero, unwilling to take back the throne. I feel there's some truth to that in my own life. There's a mess at home. There's always a mess. And even there wasn't, there's always the looming, formidable foe called "Adulthood" waiting to be fought and conquered. Many people my age are running for that very reason. After college, our parents sell their house and move into something smaller, perhaps in a gated community and our rooms turned into manifestations of pictures in Southern Living or Ikea Magazines. Where are we to go? Wander in the woods without a guide, looking for a place to call home; moving every year as soon as our lease runs out, looking for roommates and other people wandering just like us. We hike, we camp, we work shitty jobs, we talk about going back to school, we spend our first, second Christmases away from home, buy our very own Christmas tree and start our own holiday traditions with what family we can find. For now, I'm hiding in the depths of Middle Earth. I got spooked by a phone call with my sister and had to hide. Home and adulthood and other decisions loom ahead. School, work, living, eating well, TV, movies, CDs, cars, equity, loans, mortgages, relationships, friendships, love, hate, lust, desire, loss, gain, profit, family, depression, laundry, perpetual cleaning. All of these things can be ignored or eluded. However, things things can't be hidden from forever. We must all at some point take responsibility and action for what life throws at us. It's scary because we're unprepared for it. Who is out there in the woods with us that can help us? We're all out there alone to figure it out on our own. But I feel ready to one day pick up the sword of Isildur and grow up. But for now, the Ring is heading toward the darkness of Mordor and the three remaining of the Fellowship, seek to find two small Hobbits in the Riddermark. The wool is over my eyes...