 london diary 12.27.00 On Leaving How do you say good-bye to a place that you never asked to know? How you say good-bye when you are terrified that you might return, terrified that the good-bye is presumptuous, assuming a finality that might not actually be? For Christmas my younger sister gave me a self made CD; on the cover she wrote out the lyrics to a White Snake song: "Here I go again on my own/ like a drifter born to walk alone"... the words struck me, haunt me, challenge me. They are words that I want to use to describe myself, longing as I do for a bohemian lifestyle of spontaneous mobility and self crafted freedom. They are also words that scare me; words that add to my distrust of my gipsy-like childhood and make me wonder if I am somehow ruined now: that now comfortablity will never satisfy me, and that home is an ever growing elusivity. I am happy to go. It has been something that I have dreamed about for a long time, perhaps since before I even arrived here in this strange, unwieldy city. Unlike what I had assumed, this leaving has taken on an unrecognizable shape– these good- byes are unfamiliar to me, they sound hollow and restrained. I have realized that this leaving, this journey, has become a completely new revelation--- that in this journey I am no longer looking to find myself, but rather, I must try to destroy myself. For now, today, in this moment I am certain of what I have been suspecting: that it is not a search that is making me leave Philadelphia, my home of five years. I had assumed that wanderlust was defined by that search for indefinable, be it identity, passion, home... No, I leave now because I cannot search anymore, because here, in this place, I am unable to look for my identity, my passions or my home. In Philadelphia my search has become dulled, as I have become dulled. In the stagnancy of place I have lost myself. I distracted my initial unhappiness, and then mere boredom with frantic nights and slept away days: I became crippled. As I, Christine, slowly closed off, my need to question, to ask, to search became masked. I hit rock bottom. Unlike hitting rock bottom when involved with drugs or depression, this rock bottom was not glamorous. Rather, it was deadly-- despicably-- boring. One night in a bar I ran an idea past a dear friend... perhaps it was time? He nodded, and I flipped a coin, just once. It was heads. And so, here I go again on my own, leaving home, family, friends, and a stability of sorts. I leave now to find my need to search. I leave to break down the assumptions-- the fear-- the boredom that has built itself up so strongly around my lungs, heart and mind that I can no longer unbend my knees or straighten my back. I leave in order to breathe alone, to stretch and not touch anyone or anything. I leave in order to break myself down into an absolute state of non-being so that slowly, slowly, I can begin to think about beginnings. And then I will search. In that moment, in that place, wherever I might be in the world and whatever I might be doing, I will be able to see that it is in the journey, in the searching that one finds herself. I will question again and look againėtrying to find my identity, my passions and my home. I leave Philadelphia now to end leaving, so that someday I will be able to begin. |
London's
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