finding out.

I am finding out what it was you meant. This place is different from all the rest, and whether it seems plausible or not – you shaped my frame of mind into expecting something about it, but I am not entirely sure what.

Yet, I didn’t have any expectations as I drove across the country, and I didn’t have any expectations as I navigated through the mountains towards the oceanside. As I crossed state lines, I didn’t think anything of it, except being present with it. I didn’t have any expectations from you, and none from myself – and perhaps I will be able to find what it is I’m after.

I didn’t know.

The colors, the smell, the breeze, the vast layers of concrete, mountain and ocean would be more than what I sought. And it turns out, there is so much to miss, and I can understand why something quiet one day could be what someone needs after this. But can anyone ever leave? Doesn’t it seem like part of you would be left here, or like you wouldn’t be able to separate this city from yourself?

It was only upon arriving that I realized how lost I’ve been. Despite having my life seeming to work out in the ways it should, the abundance of loving friends and family – I can’t shake that indescribable feeling that overcomes my arms and legs. Is it excitement? Is it lonesome? Is it loss? Or is it everything all at once… everything laid out before me; unknown.

IN THE MOMENTS I FIND MYSELF WISHING

that things had been different, the moments that I find peace in knowing somewhere in a parallel universe they are just that; you would be the one to find the best bibimbap and I would quietly float along next to you, both of our mouths watering. I would listen to you talk about the street names and you’d let me choose the music on our long drives. You would see my love for what it was, instead of what you thought it ought to be. There would be a quiet understanding between us, that there was space to breathe – space to grow and space to love.

In the moments I wish for so much, that I daydream about a distant place that exists perhaps only in my mind, I remember it all – and I am reminded that I was missing you all along. Which is perhaps why being in this city means something.