“turn and face the strange
ch-ch-changes
pretty soon you’re gonna get a little older
time may change me
but i can’t trace time”
-bowie
in an attempt to make this new apartment feel like home, i perform my morning ritual - sucking down a hot coffee + chicory and firing off the homework my therapist lovingly assigned me - and i wonder what i can add to the queue to strengthen my bond with these walls.
i moved into my first apartment when i was eighteen. thirteen years ago. in those thirteen years, i’ve moved fifteen times. i snort and wonder if it’s not everyone else who has the commitment problem.
when i moved to chicago, i sought stability and found something similar for a whole two years - probably the longest i’ve ever stood in one place. a graduate program helped, as did a fluke relationship with someone whose preferred survival technique was opposite of mine. they got me to stay still until i couldn’t bear it any longer, and i dragged them across the country with the promise that adventure made life sweet. after some time there, they were happier. they grew away, but grew happy. and they chose to stay. and i chose to leave. there remains debate as to who actually left, but at least i had been right. they found their way to happy.
if my purpose is to love someone through to their authentic selves, until they love and find themselves, a kind of liberation they can’t help but explore completely independently of their former self, of which i am too close to and therefore too heavy to pack, i suppose there are worse destinies.
i am a cartographer - building maps and leading the lost until they’re found. i release them into the wild so they can lead someone else to water. they never look back, and good. they deserve to be full of joy and free.
my hope is that all of these little maps i’ve scribbled that occupy my months and my years are the insets.
change doesn’t scare me. ideas hit my brain like meteors, lasso me in and i follow their lead. i don’t know what i believe about relationships and their constructs but i do know i don’t want to be alone. i know i’d rather be alone than accept anything less than a true partnership - the freedom to grow as individuals and together - unwavering celebration of who the other person is or isn’t at their core. i know that i’ll keep trying, but at least i’ll stop begging. something i promised myself.
i moved to an apartment far enough from my best friends that i spend the majority of my time alone. because something in my gut told me it was the next stop on the map. whether that’s my own map or someone else’s remains to be seen.
i’ve read a lot about why people are scared to commit to things (an example of my over-intellectualization of emotions), and there’s an existing pattern of thought that suggests we have to be our best selves in order to try. we can’t leap into the unknown because it’s just that - unknown. we’re not good enough at something yet so we can’t pursue it. we can’t apply to that job because we don’t believe we’re actually qualified. we can’t fall in love because we don’t love ourselves. i fall in love with you every day - on days i am rotten and days i am radiant. i will love you when you are salty and when you are sweet and when i can’t distiguish your honey from tar.
if we believe ourselves only worthy of love when we are strong and whole, we punish our humanness. depriving ourselves as such belittles our nervous system, corrodes our muscles, crumbles our bones, and the cycle begins again.
i’ve learned to love the unknown. i feel most comfortable and most alive drenched in it.
if we limit ourselves to “don’ts” or “can’ts”, we succumb to injury. it’s in the unknown that we grow, and grow together. it’s how we trace and traverse the map. it’s the reason i’ll keep moving and grooving when and if the universe calls. with every change, i see myself more clearly. the fog along the path lifts. and maybe in the end, the road forks and we let go of each other’s hand. but maybe the adventure keeps beginning. and we begin and begin again.