some people leave and other people stay

I keep finding myself at a crossroads.

Yesterday was an important day for me. It marked the "last" day of the rafting season for 2009 at River Runners. The staff was a skeleton crew of Peter, Fred, Myself and the Lulla's who visited. The rafters/customers were a wonderful couple of groups: some from LA with a bunch of singing, happy youth and an additional brave couple from San Jose (on my boat) who were married and seeking a little thrill before the fall begins to drop its coloured petals. The day was important because it rang with such honesty through every beating vein of my existence. The cool autumn air and empty river bends spoke to me of all the quiet and eerie realities that hide behind any location sans human interaction. At night, when the camp is at a usual bustle of voices and campfires, there were only Peter and Fred and myselfcleaning the last of the dishes and turning off the awning bulbs before the dark. There was a moment where Peter and Fred had both left, and our camp was mostly vacant under the stars and the glowing moon. I looked around in the early at the dark fire pit, the empty benches, the black kitchen, and a sadness swept over me that I've felt before.
When I was 16, my brother Matt left to attend BYU in Utah. I lived at home, with my parents and Joey, having my own room in the back. I remember one fall morning Matt was packing to leave in his Renegade truck to take the journey across the states to Utah for his career as a student at BYU. He gathered all his things, packed his truck, and with my two parents and myself standing on the edge of the driveway Matt waved goodbye and drove away down the steep hill Roosevelt Street. Mom and Dad walked back into the house, but I jogged out to the center of the street to look after him. I saw as his truck reached the stop sign, turned on its left blinker, and in seconds veered left and disappeared from my sight.
That night at the camp, I realized a similar experience: I was alone. Everyone I loved so much was gone. The adventures of the summer, the excitement and the warmth and the sweet freedom, was over. And as that fireplace lay in it's black ashes with the benches waiting quietly under the clouded yellow moon, I felt alone again.
Two months ago I was sitting in an outhouse along the riverbank of the Tuolomne River. Looking around while doing my business, I could see old rolls of toilet paper and scratched up cement walls. I had this thought about how this particular outhouse, a place I had never seen until that very moment, had been waiting alone through all the storms, winds and howling wilderness for the day that it would finally make itself my very temporary home. The outhouse had been right there, on the bank of this wild river, at the bottom of that steep cannyon, all alone. It had seen every night, every storm, every early morning that I had seen this last year. And, like me, that outhouse had withstood it all too. It had weathered the storms, slept through the nights, braced against every wind on every day that I too was weathering, bracing and sleeping through. And in a moment, I could see that all across the world, every rock and every single other thing is similarly alone.
Watching my brother's truck turn the corner filled me with a sadness that I hadn't felt yet in my life until that moment. My chest began to clench with a welling loneliness, knowing that as Matt, a brother I admired and looked up to so much in my life, was leaving and I was going to stay. I felt the sadness of difference, knowing that I could not bring back the love and lessons and experiences that we had had together and that he was going to simply be gone and I was going to simply be staying. I, in Placerville, alone. And he, on the road to Utah, alone. The difference between us was that he had a goal he was searching to achieve, and I had nothing but the silent home that stood, empty, behind me.
The River Runners camp is my home. And 3/4 of the year it is quiet and empty. Beaten by the freezing winds and pouring rain and swelling river. That Outhouse by the Tuolomne is also my home. It stands firm against the treacherous wild in its lonley hole by the river. Santa Cruz is my home, and as soon as college was over it was a place that was as empty and as lonely as the street on the day my brother left for Utah in his Renegade.
I am at a crossroads again, much like that day my brother left for college. When he had gone, I stood there on the street looking after his empty image. Tears filled my eyes. Here, I told myself I was never going to let myself be alone again. I was going to follow the people in my life so that I didn't get left behind again. I was going to search for a future where I was the one leaving while other people were staying. I committed to myself to never be truly alone.
At the crossroads now, I don't quite know what to do. I've been left behind, but not by everybody. I feel hopeful about a lot of things. I have goals I've created for myself, and I feel like I'm still going somewhere. But I'm scared that me leaving could lead me to a new place where I'll face another new loneliness.
I don't quite know where the next River camp is, and I'm hoping it finds me soon.