I'm sitting out on the porch in the 'warm'-ish air, feeling just like I did when I was 6 and playing baseball in a dirt lot in my neighborhood, where I used to go to preschool. The air here smells like baseball and childhood, citronella candles and sweat.
I've kept my joyous memories of pre-tween childhood locked away in a little treasure chest. As I've grown, and felt out the pain and pleasure of grownup things, I've forced myself upon the world and the world has forced itself right back on me. I've always wanted to know what this whole life thing is about, no matter what it cost me.
And I am sitting here now, thinking about where I have been and feeling where I came from at the same time and my heaviness is gone. I am, somehow, where I want to be. And that is so exciting that I can only sit here and feel it. I can't move my feet. I only want this one, timeless, moment.
I don't know where my family is.
Nostalgia is an opened wound that I can't resist licking. My mom and dad, and brother are scattered living whatever life they have half chosen. Those ppl are not the ones I used to know. None of us are the same. But when I think of my family I remember being 6 and playing baseball in the dirt lot in my neighborhood. I remember my dad's warm voice and my mom reading to me before I fell asleep. I remember my brother's unintentional
Somehow, right now, I don't feel any different.
I don't have a family anymore. Not even the one's I've made for myself; the boys from college, the girls from Thai Land, Brazil or the summer after highschool. Not my almost husband in Africa or my x-everything Loren....And there are so many more.... If I let myself, I love them all; these precious pieces of broken glass strewn across the globe. And if I could change anything about the nature of this world I might give myself a chance to live a whole lifetime with each of them. But I could not know any better than I do right now that a moment in time with any of them was enough. It has to be. It's all I get.
The minute I read your email about starting to look for land I felt sick about it. A desire to keep every door of possibility open has led me to fear, for most of my life, that a person cannot take a step in any direction without trapping themselves completely. I have learned that when I take any lion-hearted step, the doorways fall away and leave open sky. Still there is something so powerfully frighting to me about jumping into another land search that I could piss my pants, shit myself, die at 26 from an acute myocardial infarction. I don't know exactly why. I find a different explanation sitting in my chest every time I think about it. But tonight I see it doesn't matter. I want to take this step, whenever and however it unfolds. And although they may not last a lifetime, I'm open to new families.
I love you