Departures
I think it’s safe to say I’m over this set of classes and long for upcoming stress-free days. I’ve been doing pretty well to this point. I think I have shots at As in all my classes. If I get a B in anything it’s due to the initial adjustment period that was shaking off 15+ years of cobwebs accumulated collecting life lessons outside of classrooms. Going forward, for the foreseeable future, I should be fine. As long as I don’t procrastinate. That’s always been the issue. Along with ‘I can’t’ or ‘I don’t know how’ or ‘I’m frustrated to the point of inaction.’
Thankfully, I haven’t fallen into the trap of ‘Wow, I’m an idiot. I should have done this years ago.’ And while that statement is true in ways I won’t contemplate, it doesn’t matter anymore. I tend not to think in terms of everything happening for particular reasons, at least in terms of divinity. I think people go where they need to go. Sometimes it’s a series of decisions that lead them to a place, a person, or a precipice that forces a decision. But I think subconsciously we all know know where we need to go. These desires, wants, needs, one way or the other, bubble to the surface until ignoring them becomes futile.
For me, before I got in my car and drove 4200 miles west, there was a period of debate. My head weighed the pros and cons of looming sea change. Once I’d come to the conclusion I couldn’t go, that leaving would be running away from things, leaving would represent failure, leaving would be giving up – worthlessness, uselessness, pathetic, pointless – all that was left was My Truth. Someone once told me to get out of my own way. I realized the fact that I was even at the point when I could make that decision, the one to go, was just another event in the long, difficult process of getting out of my own way. Whatever was within driving me to do the things I’ve done and yet aspire to do wasn’t going away. The knot in my stomach that remained post-decision to stay promised me it would stay too, and that it was all I’d have, and all I’d have to cling to for many years to come.
I thought about how insane that was, and how I couldn’t do that to myself anymore. I’d come too far, and it was time to take the next step. I packed my car with everything I thought I’d need for my journey the night before. The following afternoon, I left. I said goodbye to three people. My mom. My father. My best friend. My father was a phone call, on the entrance ramp for the Long Island Expressway. I’m leaving. I’m putting this all behind me. I’m not coming back.
