The Beauty in Leaving

"She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes"
- "Wide Open Spaces"
Dixie Chicks

I know there is a word for it, yet I don't know what it is. It's actually probably not a word, per se, but a psychological term or syndrome. Whatever it is – I have it and I'm feeling it.

From the time I was seventeen years old, I've moved as many times as I could count on both hands. The irony is this is that I never moved as a child – until seventeen, I was pretty stationary. I would be lying if I didn't spend the majority of those years counting the minutes until I could get out and start a new life for myself. I fancied escapism since the age I knew it was a viable option.

I wanted to go to college in California or Hawaii, as far away and as divergent from Long Island as humanly possible. My parents rejected that idea outright, and I soon discovered that Georgia was about as far away as they would let me go. Needless to say, reality did not meet up to my ideals and by the end of my first trimester I was ready to leave, to try something new. To be honest, if I hadn't met my college boyfriend at the beginning of my sophomore year, I doubt I would have stayed.

I insisted that I wouldn't return to New York after graduation, and I did, due to lack of opportunity elsewhere. I spent eight months living at home, working in the City, and going out every night in an effort to escape my dissatisfaction with the life I had.

The first opportunity to move again, I took. I packed my belongings and relocated to Charleston. With my dream career on deck and the promise of a bright future, everything was supposed to change. I tried every possible combination over the next few years: coupled, single, career-type job, waiting tables – yet nothing seemed to totally click. I would lie if I said I wasn't comfortable in Charleston; the job situation simply made it impossible to stay there.

So I moved back to New York, once again in search of opportunities and more room to make ever greater mistakes.

I have that feeling again; the feeling that if I don't make a change soon, it will become impossible for me to exist in my own world. Yet I know that it is the wrong time for me to leave – that moving and starting over would only present bigger problems.

Each day I feel as though I lose more of my faith, in things and people. It gets harder to look forward to the possibility that things can change. I feel like I am becoming more jaded, more cynical, and completely negative. It just feels impossible to be optimistic – to believe amongst all the chaos and bullshit that something real does exist.

I'm tired of being disappointed by people that I wrongly put faith in, trusted, or gave credit to. I'm over being hopeful about things that may never happen. It seems like the perfect time to pick up and go, to get away from all of the negativity that surrounds me and the people I need to get away from.

But does it ever really change anything?

"Some things you have to learn them all on your own
You can't rely on anybody else
Or the point of view of a source unknown
If it feels good and sounds nice
Then it's your choice
don't doubt yourself
Don't even think twice
Pull the hair back from your eyes
Let the people see your pretty face
You know they like it when you smile
Find a reason to smile
Try not to focus on yourself
Share that love with someone else
Don't let the bitters bring you down"
- "Sooner or Later"
Michael Tolcher