Sad man's town

Some people aren’t made to conquer the world. I’m not sure if anyone is. It’s hard to be sure; people will only report on their highlights. My highlight? I was born to be home. It just takes a lot out of me to do too much. Though for the past 10 years, I’ve thought about travelling more. And now my girlfriend keeps escaping, so I have to, to keep up. I’m very stubborn. which I credit with part of my highly valued uniqueness. My art really is mine. And my thoughts are too. So when we travel, I will want to walk my own route. I don’t like being in groups -- I don’t want to feel like a tourist. Of course, I want to see all the touristy attractions. That’s why we’re there, right? So I will walk through weird alleys whenever possible. We went to Maastricht. If you arrive by train, as we did, you’ll have to first walk across this big bridge; the road leading to the bridge is filled with a million people, so we took a turn and ended up at this Church. It was quiet, which, coming from such a crowded street, felt uncomfortable. There was a man in the front, silently praying. We don’t know how long he’d been there, but he’d stay until we were done. He was certainly no tourist. Unlike me, my girlfriend feels others’ faces -- she’d later point out how lonely he was -- surrounded by only tourists like us. Next to the church was a beautiful alley with a great perspective on another monument. I heard the rushed steps of two other tourists, excited to see what else the city had to offer them. They were too busy to see the beauty of the street, next to the church, with the lonely prayer. But I saw -- for the rest of the day, I felt like that old man. But I knew I wasn’t; I’m just a fraud aiming to find lonely streets, to feel better about neglecting the beautiful crowded ones.