Boxes litter the magical space that housed me for five years. I say magical because within this 18-square-meter abode is where my dreams feel most alive, most within my reach.
Today, I am retreating to my parents’ place… for good. For now. There is an ache in the hollows of my chest. I was steadfast on not moving back to that sleepy city. Every fiber of my being still protests. But my pride must relent.
The dull metropolis of my childhood is a living, breathing contradiction. Filling its streets are dull crowds with colorful minds, miserable people with hollow hearts and sharp tongues. Privy neighbors satiate their restlessness with their unwitting victims’ latest conquests. Buildings have stayed the same for decades. Dreams collect dust on top-most cupboards.
That city is a museum for the nostalgic — frozen in place, refusing to ride the flow and ebb of time.
Most who stay only do so because they fear the unknown. Most who leave refuse to come back. But those who do? To be fair, there are those who left their hearts there; those who have seen it all and done it all that its slow, steady pace serves as salve to their battered souls.
And then there are people like me: those down on their luck, forced to tolerate the humdrum of provincial inertia.
It’s not so bad, I lie to myself. My family’s there, at least. It’s not so bad. It’s not so, so bad. Rinse. Repeat.
My family is the Sun, and my heart is the Earth. But where there is love, there is also drama. And I thought I had successfully escaped it. No one tells you blood-borne grief has a penchant for pacifists. Running away is futile.
Silly, silly me.
There are things still to be packed. I drag my feet in an effort to stall the inevitable. To my right are wine glasses, glinting in the afternoon sun. To my left lays a half-empty soju bottle, begging to be rid of its wild limpid spirit.
So, I toast. I mourn. I celebrate. I say thanks.
I toast to me and the wars I have won in my balmy solitude. I mourn the hopes that were never born. I celebrate the dreams I was lucky enough to witness take off. Finally, to this 18-square-meter beachhead, I say thanks.
I gained proper footing inside your four walls. In the wars I have waged against conformity, you were a strategic piece of blissful heaven. I have found myself in you.
Even though I am raising my white flag, it is not in defeat. It is in hope for better things to come. Life is funny like that, after all. You win some, you learn some. You get everything you have ever wanted, but not all at once.
You were my home. While I am choosing to leave, you will always stay that way… at least in daydreams.