For the first two months, I walked staring at my feet.
I tried not to look behind in order to keep walking,
but I dared not to look ahead.
the life I had built had vanished in an 11 hour flight into nothing but uncertainty.
I found myself out of place in what I considered also mine.
I kept forgetting which way to look out for cars on the streets,
I kept being shocked from things that were supposed to be familiar.
I realized I had not been to a 10th store building in years, and I was frightened.
I was frightened and unsure and the days seemed to be getting me to no better place.
As I ran through Chapultepec park and the memories of my recent life flashed by me,
I could feel a curtain of tears covering my eyes.
I felt like crunching down on the path to cry,
but i didn't. I kept running.
I let tears run down through my face in malls, in the streets, in the subway, at the gym, in silence while in my parents' house. I could not listen to countless songs, I could not look at pictures.
Even in the urban landscape, I was surprised by how many things took me back to what I had chosen to make memories out of, instead of a continuous present.
I tried to swallow a pain that seemed pointless.
"No one knows what Ireland is like. No one knows how deep my roots went."
My house. My stairs. My running paths.
An entire life I built and shared.
And him.
There was always him, in the back of it all, and the one terrible question:
Have I made a mistake?
Have I chosen wrong?
And every day my body asked for a different bed, a different house, different rain.
I would wake up in angst because I could not find him next to me.
I looked for his voice, and his arms, and the sound of his steps coming down the stairs while I worked in the kitchen.
And in my sleep, I would re-live those last days in our house.
That pain, over and over again.
I got used to accepting a sadness that lingered. There were no pubs to go alone to. There were no endless packs of cigarettes. I sobered up and took the entirety of absence, of lack, of missing an existential limb to stand on, of missing an entire life, all of it as it came day by day.
I wanted a sign to give me some hope that this was my place. This, the "right" place.
In the end, I had to come up with my own.
I don't know when it started getting better.
I guess life continued to happen around me and it took me with it until I could sort of catch up with its pace.
Faces. Names. Interviews. Parties. Streets. Subway lines. Plans. plans. plans.
Somehow it all started taking shape, and I stopped crying.
I don't know if I'm staying. I wish I had some certainty of some kind, but I don't.
I stare at the walls, the streets, my reflection in the window and I try to recognize myself in what I see.
is this me? Was this me? Is this the me I wanted? Will I never be as happy as I was not that long ago?
I throw myself to the streets before the memories begin to fold me again and I let the city take me at its pace.
Day by day, and eventually something else will happen.
I tried not to look behind in order to keep walking,
but I dared not to look ahead.
the life I had built had vanished in an 11 hour flight into nothing but uncertainty.
I found myself out of place in what I considered also mine.
I kept forgetting which way to look out for cars on the streets,
I kept being shocked from things that were supposed to be familiar.
I realized I had not been to a 10th store building in years, and I was frightened.
I was frightened and unsure and the days seemed to be getting me to no better place.
As I ran through Chapultepec park and the memories of my recent life flashed by me,
I could feel a curtain of tears covering my eyes.
I felt like crunching down on the path to cry,
but i didn't. I kept running.
I let tears run down through my face in malls, in the streets, in the subway, at the gym, in silence while in my parents' house. I could not listen to countless songs, I could not look at pictures.
Even in the urban landscape, I was surprised by how many things took me back to what I had chosen to make memories out of, instead of a continuous present.
I tried to swallow a pain that seemed pointless.
"No one knows what Ireland is like. No one knows how deep my roots went."
My house. My stairs. My running paths.
An entire life I built and shared.
And him.
There was always him, in the back of it all, and the one terrible question:
Have I made a mistake?
Have I chosen wrong?
And every day my body asked for a different bed, a different house, different rain.
I would wake up in angst because I could not find him next to me.
I looked for his voice, and his arms, and the sound of his steps coming down the stairs while I worked in the kitchen.
And in my sleep, I would re-live those last days in our house.
That pain, over and over again.
I got used to accepting a sadness that lingered. There were no pubs to go alone to. There were no endless packs of cigarettes. I sobered up and took the entirety of absence, of lack, of missing an existential limb to stand on, of missing an entire life, all of it as it came day by day.
I wanted a sign to give me some hope that this was my place. This, the "right" place.
In the end, I had to come up with my own.
I don't know when it started getting better.
I guess life continued to happen around me and it took me with it until I could sort of catch up with its pace.
Faces. Names. Interviews. Parties. Streets. Subway lines. Plans. plans. plans.
Somehow it all started taking shape, and I stopped crying.
I don't know if I'm staying. I wish I had some certainty of some kind, but I don't.
I stare at the walls, the streets, my reflection in the window and I try to recognize myself in what I see.
is this me? Was this me? Is this the me I wanted? Will I never be as happy as I was not that long ago?
I throw myself to the streets before the memories begin to fold me again and I let the city take me at its pace.
Day by day, and eventually something else will happen.
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