Today as I'm packing to

Today as I’m packing to leave I feel like this is the end of it all. I’m going to leave and nothing will ever be the same again. I’m scared of that new world too. Will my existence be even more marginal than it already is? Why am I so determined to till blighted soil and not seek out greener pastures? Each day feels like a struggle to find a purpose or reason for my existence. I wasn’t defined by Leia or the people in dfwblogs but their collective loss has left me reeling. I don’t know why. They never felt that important to me, certainly they weren’t a hegemony over my existence. I can only conclude that it is the weight of every loss in the course of my life that has collapsed on top of me. I look back, and like anyone who is 28, a mesh of souls both living and dead have alighted briefly along my path. Each one giving and taking according to their need or generosity. However, today it feels as though it’s all been about leading me to this crossroad in my life.

In The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles wrote “Because we do not know when we will die we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well and yet everything happens only a certain number of times and a very small number really. How many times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your life that you can’t even conceive of your life without it. Perhaps four or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many times will you watch the full moon rise, perhaps twenty, and yet it all seems so limitless.” I think about that quote often. When I first read it I was awed by the idea of how limitless anything can seem. Now I find myself thinking about the small steps. I feel like I’m slowing down and realizing that nothing is limitless. With each step forward I take some part of me decays and becomes useless making it harder to keep going. Now I’ve reached the point where I feel I can count the steps left. That’s what I think when I read that quote now.

I guess I’ve got some contemplation to do for the trip ahead. I feel really weird. It’s a sense of dread mixed with a peaceful resignation. (How’s that for some cognitive dissonance?) I really have no idea what will happen. For some reason though, I don’t feel like I’ll return the same person I left. I’ve only felt that a few times in my life.