Reading, finishing, and now finally processing The Time Traveler's Wife has transformed my way of thinking... at least for now. I'm thinking about having one person be such an anchor in your life and having to leave them anyway, even though they're the only stable thing in your existence. That leads to me think about why we leave at all. Why do we run? From bad, it's easier to understand: hope for a new beginning, hoping to forget. But leaving when things are good, leaving because you can, because it's a choice, a selfish choice... why does anyone do it? Why do we willingly subject ourselves to missing someone? We know it's coming, we know that goodbye is coming, we know it's gonna hurt, and we know that someone will cry, but we want it, we selfish beings welcome it. Maybe it's comforting to go away from what you have, knowing how great it will be to come back to. Maybe it's a truly selfish move, wanting the people you care about to miss you. Or maybe it's something else, something more. Maybe there's a reason we feel the need to get out, to leave, to experience. Maybe it's not leaving them, but finding you that is essential. Maybe that's why I'm leaving.
When I say maybe... I mean it is. I am leaving on a selfish quest to somehow find myself where I've never been. Seems counter intuitive to this, self-critical, self that controls my thoughts at the moment, but it still doesn't feel wrong. I have to go... that has been my constant. I need to leave. I need to be as physically lost and unaware of my surroundings as I am on the inside. Perhaps I will find some kind of harmony or solace in this lost-ness... or perhaps I will find something else, something more permanent. Maybe I'll find me. Or some version of myself that I like, some part of me that's been missing that I can bring back like a souvenir.
You are every reason.
Every reason in my life.
You are the reason I'm leaving,
You are the reason I want to stay.
You are what I fear losing.
You are what I fear finding.
You're the reason I go to sleep thinking that tomorrow has the potential to be glorious.
You're the reason I get up when the morning is not.
You are every moment.
You are every breath.
You are the reason I'm not satisfied with what I have.
You are the reason I have to go.
You are my past.
You are my future.
You are me.
And I am you.
Leaving isn't always running away is it? No, it can't be. Leaving is taking the next step and creating a future, a real life. Leaving is how you get to the places you need to be so you can bring back pieces of yourself and of sanity and create a home. For so long I've been homeless. How long will it be until my heart feels like it's home again?? Maybe it never will. Maybe you only have that innocence once, maybe you only have one shot at having your whole heart feel anything. Because once it breaks, it never goes together quite the same... though efforts from glue and tape and more conventional things like hugs, friends and ice cream seem to mend it for a while, it is always more prone to breaking once it has that first crack. The first cut may not always be the deepest, but it leaves the most devastating scar.
Why am I leaving?
It made me laugh when my family warned me not to go abroad and fall in love. I am in no way looking for love. I am far too young to be as jaded as I already am. I will not search for love again until I'm sure I could handle it if, God willing, I could actually find something resembling the crazy, idealized version of love I have created in my head. But no, the point of England is not to fall in love with some marvelously accented British boy, but if it is love I find, or seek, I pray that it is love within myself, renewed love for words, love for the countryside, or for warm beer. Romance has it's place, dear God, let romance have it's place in my life, but I am not looking for soulmates. Soulmates in any sense. But then again, I wasn't looking before.
The point: I am not going to fall in love. I am going to experience life. I am just looking for some fun. Some carefree, no one here knows me and no one back home will know anything but what I choose to tell them fun. Lord knows my life will not suddenly turn scandalous unless travelling across the Atlantic erases morals like an etch-a-sketch or something crazy like that. No, I won't be out of control, but as of now, I am choosing to let go of all control. The primary goal is to let go and to not care... as much as I don't care about things here, I want to be able to let go of the things that do eat me up. I want the freedom of not being responsible to anyone else's image of me, or even my own image of myself. I am going to be like Peter Pan... bear with me on this, it may be a bit of a stretch (everyone is going to Disneyland and I want to be there!)... when Peter finds his shadow and tries to glue it back on... I feel like I'm Peter and I'm looking for that other aspect of myself, when I find it, I'll have to try to glue us together and form some kind of a person, some kind of balanced person.
I guess that's what I'm looking for... balance. But balance within myself.
Haha. Let's be honest, I don't know what I'm looking for.
"Someday I'm gonna find it, wish I knew what I was looking for, inside the disarray." -Lifehouse. Word.
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