After I sold my house a year ago, I didn't know where to go.
I felt homeless.
So, I traveled the globe looking for options.
I thought perhaps it would be good to go back to where I was born, South Africa. I could get citizenship there if I wanted to, and I hadn't ever been back. "Perhaps these are my roots?" I thought as whizzed through the sky in a huge man made machine, looking down at fluffy, white clouds underneath me.
South Africa felt familiar and strange all at once. There WAS something of me there. A tiny part of my history. But it was not where I belonged. Not now, anyway.
Then, after much travel, I decided on Portland. Partly because of my sister. She'd been wanting to move here for years, and I truly loved the city when I was coming to "scout it out".
But now, after a few short months, I know that Portland is NOT where I belong right now, either. I feel like a ghost here, and that's quite something for ME to say. If you know me at all, you know that I am not a shy or introverted creature. I did not feel like a ghost in Bali or Paris or South Africa when I was traveling there alone. Not in Amsterdam or Scotland.
Something about this beautiful place and I - is just not clicking.
AND....I do feel, after many conversations with my sister, that perhaps both of us were running away from something at the beginning. She certainly was and is. And maybe I was, too. From family - from perceptions of both failure and success - from my past....
But I've come to a glorious and wonderful new enlightenment.
I don't WANT to run away!!! NOT FROM ANYTHING!!!
I WANT the messy family stuff - the lovely, complicated, complex relationships that make us who we are. I want it ALL. I want the drama, the stress (sometimes) the laughs, the love, the food... I want to see my little cousins and my niece grow up ...I WANT IT ALL.
So...I am packing up my car once again. getting rid of even MORE stuff (a serious shedding)...and heading back to my roots, and my family in Texas. Of ALL places.
I felt homeless.
So, I traveled the globe looking for options.
I thought perhaps it would be good to go back to where I was born, South Africa. I could get citizenship there if I wanted to, and I hadn't ever been back. "Perhaps these are my roots?" I thought as whizzed through the sky in a huge man made machine, looking down at fluffy, white clouds underneath me.
South Africa felt familiar and strange all at once. There WAS something of me there. A tiny part of my history. But it was not where I belonged. Not now, anyway.
Then, after much travel, I decided on Portland. Partly because of my sister. She'd been wanting to move here for years, and I truly loved the city when I was coming to "scout it out".
But now, after a few short months, I know that Portland is NOT where I belong right now, either. I feel like a ghost here, and that's quite something for ME to say. If you know me at all, you know that I am not a shy or introverted creature. I did not feel like a ghost in Bali or Paris or South Africa when I was traveling there alone. Not in Amsterdam or Scotland.
Something about this beautiful place and I - is just not clicking.
AND....I do feel, after many conversations with my sister, that perhaps both of us were running away from something at the beginning. She certainly was and is. And maybe I was, too. From family - from perceptions of both failure and success - from my past....
But I've come to a glorious and wonderful new enlightenment.
I don't WANT to run away!!! NOT FROM ANYTHING!!!
I WANT the messy family stuff - the lovely, complicated, complex relationships that make us who we are. I want it ALL. I want the drama, the stress (sometimes) the laughs, the love, the food... I want to see my little cousins and my niece grow up ...I WANT IT ALL.
So...I am packing up my car once again. getting rid of even MORE stuff (a serious shedding)...and heading back to my roots, and my family in Texas. Of ALL places.
I found my way here via okcupid. I think this is a wonderful experiment. I always wanted to create a blog...felt like I had something to say but fear that it was just self indulgence. What if no one come by and no one read what I have to say. My mom tells me that she worries for my sanity because I talk to myself sometime - out loud :-). So would writing a blog that only I read going that one step further or is it no worse/different than a personal diary that you happen to just put out there for someone to come by and find? Would anyone find anything I have to say of interest?
ReplyDeleteI wonder though if you can truly be honest - not "self edit" - if you know people may be reading? Write like you would talk - with all the nuances and randomness of thoughts and feelings as they come - or would you still feel the need to edit - would you need to present your views/self positively? It could even be subconscious? I think if I was blogging, I might find it difficult to be truly honest if I felt that I may have an audience.
BTW, I also feel as if I'm running...not sure if it is away from something or toward something not yet found. It is strange to be 47 and still have to say that I'm "looking for myself". I always thought that was just nonsense - something an immature 20 something would say but I find myself in the same place right now. I thought my life was set - done - cooked - I knew who I was/am and where I will be/should be, but...something happened to shake the world, spin it in unexpected ways - kind of disorienting like when you grew up seeing water flush in one direction and moving a few thousand miles north and seeing water flushing in a completely different direction - the world is not right in some subtle ways - you know intellectually what happened but it is still strange to experience it. So now I no longer am sure of who I am and now I'm running - hopefully not away but toward something still to come. Ah...but isn't that just self editing? Maybe I should be truly honest, to myself at least, admit that I am running away - the things that happened, the disruption that shook my self definition - that's what I'm running away from...it could be just perspective, there is something out there that I'm looking for and when I find it, then I can say at last that all the running in the past has been toward this something, not away from that other thing.
Thanks again for sharing and inspiring me. Maybe I will at last start my own blog and just put down my random unedited thoughts and see if it is truly therapeutic :-).
Your blog must be YOUR way. You can self edit any and all that you like, or even fictionalize....that's the beauty of writing!
ReplyDeleteGood luck, and HAPPY WRITING!!!!