Another Winter Morning

It's been so long since I've written. So long.

And so many times my fingers have delicately, hesitantly reached for the keyboard, only to shy away with a, "not important," or a "you have too much else to be done," subtly snaking it's way in between.

But, in the end, I write when I always write: when in desperation & when I have no one to talk to. Now, 'no one to talk to' is a lie. A blatant fallacy. I have, most especially at this point in my life, many very good & kind & lovely friends & people whom I can talk to. In fact, I have been talking to them non-stop for weeks now, sounding thoughts, fears, ideas truths & opinions in an almost constant stream of babble & emotion. To all of them.

And yet...

I have 'no one to talk to.' Because, no matter how much I talk, the talk doesn't cease; it doesn't resolve. Because I feel helplessly trapped by my own motions forward & I am doing nothing to stop myself.

I ask you: What is home?

A place where you rest your head; the city or town you work in; where your friends & family live. 

 ..."Home is the place people send your letters to."

I have written in the past addressing the fact that I have never felt as though I had a home. This has not changed much, although I felt closer a few times over the past 2 years, in different places. At the moment, I am in the town I 'grew up' in...only for a few years when I was a very small child...and yet, this town is my earliest & only memories of a 'home.' 

Coming here as an adult, I thought it would be much different. I thought I would be stifled; suffocated by the smallness of the town, by family, by a lack of freedom; a lack of escape.

I was so, incredibly wrong.

The things I have found here, in this town, I cannot even begin to count...the surprises, the people the beauty...and most of all, the pieces of myself I am cultivating & uncovering while here...are beautiful & immeasurable.

And. On Sunday afternoon...I leave.

...WHY? 

I have a job. A great job. Multiple jobs. MANY opportunities...in the ONE place I never want to move back to. NEVER. I have no reason to be there. It's a JOB. They are JOBS...And yet, I'm going. I reached out here, afraid there was no work to be had: that my excuse for leaving would simply be, "AH, well I have no money & I have to go where the work is." But in the last week, I have had two calls about interviewing for positions in the area....money. Work. HERE. 

And, for some unreasonable fear that I cannot quite articulate, I have not called them back. I say it's because I do not want to betray the people who have already hired me & need someone now...I say that, but it's a lie. In my core, at this moment, I am filled with such feelings & terrors, I could care less about any of that. I want to be selfish.

I'm saying these new possibilities are not good enough positions. That they would not supply me with the training & the cash that I want. But that is not true, either. I do not even KNOW what they are offering. I have not checked.

I know that I'm going & I know that it is forward motion I am generating myself, but I cannot fathom why. 

I have never  lived in a place for any stretch of my life, when I was not already planning my escape before the boxes were unpacked. None.

Until now.

I have no need to leave here. Not yet at any rate.

I do nothing but fall more in love with this place & it's people every day.

It's a place that could, eventually, afford me the opportunities to go on adventures & still have a home to come back to. A place to escape to not from.

...A home.

So WHY on earth am I uprooting (it feels like being ripped from the ground) at this particular moment & pushing myself into a city that feels to me like going into a dark room? A place of memories of despair, but more a place that doesn't not in any integral way feel like a part of my future? It goes against every motion in my body, most of my thoughts & all of my feelings? WHY am I going?! Now? Or ever?

It feels wrong. So...why?

Why? But forward I go...

And what frightens me, almost more, or saddens me desperately is that this place-- this tiny town in the trees that I have for one more, sweet day as my 'home'-- truly feels like HOME. Now. And if I stay, I truly believe it could for a long time (or even forever). 

But while my friends all say, 'You can always come back if you want, later,' once you leave, you are not the same. Nor is any one or any thing in any place. Change occurs: that is the only thing that is certain & steady.

...The truth is, you can never go back. Only on.

And this moving, this is not the truth nor the future I want. Yet...here I go.
God help me. (If I will not help myself...but maybe I am & I just cannot see it right now).