Three days after I wrote about how in love with Kevin I was, he decided he didn't want to love me anymore. I don't know what to say about it really. I'm devastated, that much I know. I put a lot of faith in that relationship, and I am stunned in a way that I cannot confront right now. It's weird to me how a broken heart can pause a person, de-root them, and change the trajectory of their life. I don't think most people are like that, but I am. For instance, five days after Kevin spit on my heart, I quit my job, gave notice to my roommates and booked a train ticket to San Fransisco. Like I said, I don't think most people would react that way, but I do and I did. I'm not sure what it says about me, but I figure I'll think about it on the 52 hour train ride from Chicago to San Francisco, which departs in less than 48 hours.
I know that while I love Chicago, I quickly found that I wasn't enjoying my time here as much as I thought I would. Perhaps it's because I transferred jobs to get here, a job that I hate so much it has made me cry like a baby, and that because I was doing the same thing here, not much changed. What did change was how I got to work. I walked a mile in the freezing cold to a bus stop where I waited for a bus, sometimes for half an hour; and then rode the bus for 20 minutes, got off and walked a half mile to my job that I hated. But that can't be it. That can't be the reason I was still as unhappy as I was in Kansas City. Then I thought, perhaps I haven't been happy because of my living situation. I have been living with 7 people and let me tell you if you at all require alone time (which I certainly do) living with 7 people destroys any sense of calm that home has for me, always provided.
That can't be it though, living with 7 people can't be the reason I'm unhappy here. I have been unhappy for a long time and I think it is because I have not accomplished anything big and I want so badly to accomplish something big. I want to be an author, I want to have art shows, I want to strip off my layers of artistic timidness within me and create something so heartfelt that people will cry as I have cried and that people will laugh as I have laughed. I thought Chicago was going to change that, I thought it was going to all happen at once and that I would accomplish all of my life goals instantly. What happened was I fell in love with someone who loved, for a short time, me harder than I have ever been loved. And that for me did change me. This city has not.
This city has taught me. It has taught me that walking 3 miles can be done in less than twenty minutes if you let your body take over and quite your mind. It taught me that strangers are not strangers at all and that you can share a laugh with someone next to you on a bus or someone you meet in passing waiting for a subway. I feel very connected to this city, it works as one and while there is crime, murder and an unfair amount of ill distributed wealth, at the end of the day as the sun sets behind the towers this city is whole and every person within it's walls is within them together. This city pushed my body harder than it has ever been pushed. The city taught me that there are so many people like me. People who are unsure, free, and searching and while I interact with those people I do not feel alone. This city has taught me that a city cannot change you it can just teach you, and that change is so fucking hard at times that it's easier and more tempting to not change, and to stagnate.
I think the allure of San Francisco for me is that I have no expectations for it. I can start over without the expectation of change or of love or of enlightenment. I do not regret moving here, I don't think I'll regret leaving either because I can accomplish anything I want, anywhere. It doesn't matter if it is in Chicago, California or a corn field in Kentucky, because I will always write and I will always create. I have so much work to do on myself, so much to figure out and accept and to forgive. When people tell me I ran away to Chicago they are right. I was running from those things within myself, running from the work I need to do to fulfill myself; and lets face it, not only is that type of work really terrifying, but I'm also really lazy. And while I know I am running away to California, I'm running there with the understanding that I am ready to confront myself in a way that I was not ready to do in Chicago, and that I'm on the verge.
All I can do at this point is be thankful for my time here, and hope to God it all works out. Isn't that what we're all doing in some way. Just hoping it all works out? Well if I've learned anything I've learned that hope and hard work fit into a suit case easily and you can carry them with you across the world.
I'm going to carry my hope accross the continent.
No comments:
Post a Comment