NOV. 4, 2009-May 13, 2011

What if she could? What if she had to?

She would run away. That’s what she’d do and she knew it, from the first day. If they broke up she would run away. She’d run back to the life she was leading before he came along. Back to the life which was hers, a life before love was found. It was as if that life was on hold. Like the pause button had been hit and was waiting to resume, right where she left off. She was too scared, or perhaps to aware, to give it up fully. To let it go completely.

So she held on to fragments of a life she once thought would be forever. A seashell from the beach in Puerto Viejo, a faded photo of a boy whose name she could no longer recall, a lapiz lazuli necklace no longer worn, but kept separately in its own special box, a postcard she never sent. These trinkets remained, while her life in the states moved forward.

That life she once led was not bad. In fact, it was all she knew until him. It was her trademark, this running and going. It wasn’t that she was running from something, like everyone would ask, but rather running to something. She was running to the newness, the adventure, the possibility. Though this time she would most certainly be running from him, and from this and from whatever horrible thing would have to happen in order for a break up to occur. She knew all this from the first day.
It wasn't such a bad thing to run from something she rationalized. At least one could run when things got to be too much. She looked it running as a type of resource, if all else failed, here was this option here, she could run. It was something she already knew she was good at. Too bad she couldn't put it on her resume, under skills perhaps.

But love happened, and loved seemed as good a reason as any to stay. She never counted on love. Not for a second really. In fact, she had pretty much adjusted to a life without love and was able to fill it with everything else good; like adventure and culture and the thrill of new places and things and people. This thrilled her; she did not need love to be thrilled, she had told herself, though she knew it was simple an excuse.

What she hadn’t known, because she could not know, was how different a thrill love was. Love knocked her off her feet. It made her stay in one place for the first time in her life. And most of the time she wanted to be there. So what if that will be the reason? So what if her passion for life and travel will be the cause of their demise?

Everything is temporary. If you really think about it, everything ends eventually, she thought. Nothing lasts. She had always had a very keen sense of the temporary-ness of things. Sometimes it is a blessing, other times a curse. When you live with this knowledge you begin to recognize the good times and enjoy them more, because, even if no one else knows, you know that this too will end. So she would enjoy it while she could.

“This too shall pass,” an adage that people give as advice when others are going through rough times, brings on a whole new meaning when you think of the temporary-ness of life. She knew to use it for the good and the bad. She didn’t get wrapped up in good times, because they too shall pass. She considered herself lucky to have come to this realization so young. The whole idea that, without hate there is no love, was prominent in her mind. The natural progression of that was to understand it in all situations. With the great times comes the bad times. We must not get too comfortable.

She adopted a cat. A week into their relationship, she adopted a cat. She had been planning it for a long while. She had searched on line at all the different shelters until she found the one. She showed up early at Petsmart and brought a friend. Good thing, otherwise her cat, the one she had picked out on line through pictures, would have been snatched right out of her hands whilst she was filling out paper work.

If he had known her better then, he would have understood what this truly meant. He would have known that though she was the biggest animal lover anyone had ever met, she never had any of her own. She was ok with simply loving the various cats and dogs and rabbits that came along with the roommates whose lives she came in and out of. Not having animals meant being able to leave when she wanted to. She would never leave an animal behind. Never take on the responsibility only to let it go when she needed to leave. So, even though she longed to have a companion of her own, she gave up the most important thing to her, to have the next: the freedom to come and go.

If he’d known her better then, he would have understood that adopting her cat meant more than life with hairballs and meows. That really, it meant she was finally going to stay in one place for a bit. Because now, in her leaving fantasy,she had to some how figure out what she was going to do with her cat. And leaving her was never an option, nor was putting her on a plane and risking the mistreatment she might incur.

What gave her satisfaction, was knowing that this decision to adopt, and thus stay in the United States, was made before he came along. She had been planning it since she had first returned to the country. She was making decisions for herself and they included not leaving for the first time. They included staying and making a life and putting down roots, something her mother had wanted for her all along. And, for the first time, she truly believed she did not need, nor want, to leave. Of course part of this decision had to do with the fact that she actually did want to find love. She knew that the more she kept leaving, the less likely she was to find it. And she turned out to be right.

He was beginning to change the way she saw the world. And she had seen much of the world. She was beginning to get wrapped up in the good times. There seemed to be so many of them with him. But she knew that with the good times, comes the bad times. And though they were minimal the idea of them happening, which surely they would, terrified her. So she held onto the mementos of her past life and would take them out of their hiding places any time things began to get to be too much or too small. She'd sit with her cat on her lap and tell her stories of a life not so long ago. Remembering every detail she could as she sorted through the keepsakes.

She had found that people soon tire of hearing stories of the glory days, but her cat never did. She had stories no human had ever heard, though she longed to share them with him. She knew they were a burden to those she shared them with, a reminder of a life not chosen, stories to make you wish you were there and then regret every decision that led you to this life and not that one. Regret is such a funny thing she thought. She was happy she had none.

No one ever understands the difficulty of staying when they've never left. Staying for them is a relief, not a burden. She was finding it harder and harder to remain. Not because things were bad but because things were ceasing to be new. Many people are comfortable with the same 'ol same 'ol, but a traveler can never be. Perhaps it is the curse of the wanderer; feeling at home everywhere, except where you should.
So she holds on, she remains, she dreams and she wonders. And things are just good enough to every so often forget that this too shall pass.