A Passing Feeling

I am going through the motions. It's a feeling I am familiar with, one that is utterly dangerous for me and my current existence. It evokes a sense of panic in me, this notion of stagnancy. As soon as it hits I wildly plan my escape. Nothing is safe.

It began about a month before my holiday to London, which, by the way, was incredible. I've always been in love with London and unwavering sense that it's where I belong. Some of my happiest memories in my life have taken place there. I don't really know how to put it into words really, about why I need the city, about why I can't live without it, or why I am alive there in a way there that I am nowhere else. It is the only place that I have been 100% truly happy. I have always related more to my British heritage. All I know is, all of my life, it's as if everything makes sense when I am there.

The city itself offers everything that I can get in NYC; a fast paced dynamic environment, culture at my fingertips, excitement, exorbitant prices (hehe) but it also offers a few things that NYC doesn't...a deep rooted sense of contentment and belonging that comes with years invested there and, of course, my family. I guess those two go hand in hand. In London, I have the best of both worlds...the city and everything it has to offer and the comfort and security of family. I realized how much I miss the little things, things like popping round for tea with people who have known me my whole life, who understand me, who I can just BE with. Something I couldn't get in NYC despite being surrounded by friends I'd known for a decade or so. London has been a part of my life since my first trip there at the age of two months, and my relationships there are beautiful, genuine, and effortless. It is the only place in the world that I could never give up, that I will never walk away from.

I am good at that, walking away. I've always said that I'm not, but the more I examine my life the more I realize that I might be (initially) reticent to dive into new waters but once I'm in, I never look back. That my entire existence is temporary. No matter how attached I seem to anything I have a remarkable ability to not only leave it behind and move on at a lightening pace.

Not for the the first time I seriously look within and worry that something is deeply wrong with me. I become so enamored with the RIGHT NOW and throw myself in it until it stops becoming fun, until I've gotten everything I can from it and then one day the glitter wears off and all I can think of is what the next thing is. What will captivate and fulfill me. I am struck by the irony that despite being a loyal and dedicated individual there seems to be an underlying sense of lacking the ability to truly commit to anything, mainly myself. I've often felt like I keep chasing the impossible.

Until recently.

Being in London changed things for me. As I said, when I am there, things suddenly make sense, and this time was no different. I was struck with bolt of clarity about what it is I want and what I need to do to get it. My life plan is no longer a tangled mess but has a straight path. How long it'll be until I start down that path is another story, but I've started carving it out.

In all honesty, I have known that I'll end up in London. I've spoken about it my whole life, and unlike every other life plan of mine, this one hasn't changed. No matter what I've done or where I've lived, London was always in the back of mind, and it wasn't a question of if but when. To an extent, I have always resisted living there for more than a few months at a time because I knew once I set up a life there that I'd probably never leave. I knew that I had a nomadic restless element in me that I needed to get out of my system. I needed to explore and DO THINGS. I wasn't ready for any kind of permanence in my life, the kind of permanence that London will bring. Perhaps I'm still not, I may have a few years left of wandering about and exploring before I board that one way flight to Heathrow. However, what I do have now is a sense of knowing what I want. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, or perhaps I never quite realized the value of family before, I don't know. All I know is that I finally know what I want, where I belong, and what I can't live without...

(even if it takes me another several months or years to get there)