Hello, Dear Memory.
My mind is full of jostling thoughts, and I am not sure which way to begin.
However, it is not painful. Not the pain of uncontrolled and vivid fixation. Not the pain of unfeeling or feeling too much. It is a bumbling confusion after sleep, for I only recently woke up... Thoughts and priorities, possibilities... The haze and confusion of trying to choose which things to do today, and which things to do first.
By the notion of my counselor, and of kitten mother, in order to make this strategy work of pushing away your memory into the future and avoiding being ambushed by it, I should take time to think of you intentionally, without being driven to it by madness or pain. And so, when I woke today, for what seemed like the sixth or seventh time in a sleep full of interruptions, but awake enough to stay for now... Laying in my room, not really looking at anything, for I think my eyes were still lolling and unfocused then, I decided that I should think of you for a while. I am not driven to out of madness or pain. It is simply that for now, the tight deadlines have passed and I have more time, and it seems like a thing to do.
Dear Memory, I looked around this basement room and thought that is is quite a bit bigger than the bedroom I shared with you for a while, or the one you shared with me. I wondered what it would be like for you to be here, looking around inside of it. Although, I suppose, if you were, it would be annoying for you, since it has such a low ceiling. I wonder, did I ever mention on this blog that I am moving in January? There is a lovely house right across from the college that I was able to take a room in for only $500 per month. It's more than I pay to live in this basement, but still on the low end of what a student seeking room rental can expect in this city, and it is not a basement, nor a patchwork of low ceilings with dripping in the vents and an old, fussy furnace.
I have been going through some of my things, sorting. Keep, donate, trash. It is a good time to thin my collection of things. That way, I will have a bit less to move into the new house.
I think about my plan for the future. This hazy, strange plan built mostly of wishes so desperate and shy that perhaps they would waver when I examined them, or began to write about them here... But although desperate and shy, they are too strong to waver. Hm. Perhaps that is like me.
The plan is to leave all this behind, really. Take only those things I can put in a couple of suitcases. A supply of clothing, of personal effects and tools that I feel it's important to bring with me. But most of it, to leave behind; give away or throw away. I feel as though... for most people, that would be a fearsome thought. It is part of the plan, so that when I meet you again, dear memory, you are not possessed of any misconception that there is a place back in Canada to which it is important that I return. It seems as though you may have thought so, last time, and through such thought may have been convinced that you ought to push be back towards whatever was home for me.
Although I have tried to express it, perhaps you do not have the frame of reference to understand. The process of leaving the bulk of the objects I have built my nest of behind and leaving for the next adventure... This is more my home than any mere place has ever been. Houses have been places that I am tied to out of convenience. Houses have been places I am fond of as well, do not mistake that. But houses have also been prisons to me, with parents as wardens who have sought to keep me from leaving. My mother, at least, who was a tyrant to desire escape from.
I wonder... perhaps others who are so happy as to have enjoyed the support of loving families with whom they could get along better cannot understand what it is like for home to be a toxic, poisoning thought, and the uncertainty of the road to be better. Not every home, I certainly hope. But I did develop a habit of leaving, and of leaving being a bright and wonderful thing. The objects of comfort and habit, from which I built my nest, they are not evil things. But sometimes my nest grows confining. Too small for me, or not the right shape, and so I leave it behind like a shedded skin. There is no other time when a serpent's scales are so healthy and shiny as when the husk which bore most of the accumulation of dirt and scars has been split off and left behind.
To leave a home behind, for me, is a process of renewal. I say all this because it seems important to me, to convey to you, Dear Memory, that although I plan to leave much of my worldly possessions behind to seek you someday... You should not feel guilty for your memory having driven me to such great sacrifice. For... it is not so great a sacrifice, for me. I am glad of it. When I have something toward which to adventure, it feels like a Story Worth Telling, which is a thought that means much to me.
The plan is... In the future, when I am ready, when I have prepared... To come to Ireland with all I should need to arrange to stay permanently. Find a place to rent by my own dollar (or euro, as the case is there). Set up some interviews to seek employment. The plan is, once I seek you out, to present you with as pure a choice as I possibly can. See, Memory, I want to be able to tell you: I intend to stay. I have set it up so that I can stay as long as I might wish to.
I will not approach you in a position of weakness from which you should see any obligation to rescue me, but strong and self-sufficient and available.
It seems important to me that you should know that at least in terms of money and property and law, I will be well able to support myself alone, should you turn me away; and there will be nothing that you are taking me away from that I am unwilling to leave behind, should you welcome me back. I think that would help to present a pure choice, so that you can simply decide what you want, and not be bullied by feelings of guilt either way. At least, not any more than can be avoided. There may always be some guilt in turning away someone who wishes to be welcomed, but I don't think there is anything I can do about that.
I write, in scattered thoughts and long digressions of explanation. I write to you, Dear Memory, and I hope to myself that someday I will read you these things I wrote, thinking of you, and perhaps now long ago. I wonder, will you be embarrassed of how much I thought of you? I wonder, will I find reasons why I should not share these blog posts with you, even if you have welcomed me back? I think... I think I might not have written that here, but it seems important that I do, because I should affirm to myself that that desire for the future, like all desires for the future, is a thing of the present. It might not hold through time. And that is alright. I write it here as an artifact of what will be the past, so that it can have had its day now, as musing and hope, even if it does not ever come to pass.
I wonder if you think of me. I wonder if you ever have vivid memories of the time that I was there, and cry because I am not. I do not think it likely that you would write diaries about it. I know you are not much disposed to writing. So perhaps even if you do miss me so, there might be no record of it save your own memory, with all the warping and unreliability of memory.
Or perhaps you do not think of me much, just another part of your past that you might look back on thoughtfully from time to time among other things, like your thesis, or your time at Magic: the Gathering tournaments, or past years' celebrations at the Macra. Or other things you never told me about.
But I think to myself that I should not be angry, if that were the case. It is only a mark that you are peaceful where I am driven, and prepared to leave the past in the past while I plot to return in the future.
I can readily believe that you might not think of me often, or with much longing, but still welcome me back when presented with the chance. Even if you had not wanted me desperately, you might be happy to recieve me like an unexpected present.
I really cannot say what you think. I find it doubtful that you would not think of me at all. I am sure I left a mark on your life. And I wonder what shape that mark has grown into over time; past and future, over the time until I will see you again.
The other day, not long ago, I was thinking of canoeing, and wondering whether you would ever like to go canoeing with me. I should like to share it with you sometime, if you think you would enjoy it. I was thinking of skating, too, but I already know the answer to that one.
Perhaps a me who reads this to you in the future would have forgotten to ask, and this can be a friendly, casual reminder. Perhaps it will prompt a canoeing trip. Perhaps I should stop speaking in a way that might seem prescriptive or creepily predictive to my future self, and your future self, Dear Memory.
Perhaps then I have written enough, and I will go now. I think I might go down to the Gibraltar Trade Center. It will have its weekend market open, and I wanted to visit Forest City Surplus, which is next to it. See if they have any more of the incense I bought there.
Here's to you, distant and dear memory, wherever it is that you are now, and whether or not you will ever know that I have written you these words.
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