Preliminary -- What I Leave Behind
This post if pretty melancholy, and more personal than I often get. If you want more like this (or less), one way to ask is to go to https://www.patreon.com/sjcaustenite, become a Patron, and then exercise your right to request something more cheerful in the future.
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When I first made the decision to move to Prague, I focused solely on the opportuity it presented. Once the decision had been made, however, I started to think of practicalities. Like, how good is their internet speed? (About the same as the USA's, if not better.) How much are smokes? (About $4.50 USD--yes, I know I should quit, but I would rather quit because I want to rather than because it's too expensive.) What's the gay scene like? (So thriving the NYT did a piece on it.) Do they have Pizza Hut? (The chain is returning to Prague this year after a 13 year hiatus.)
Generally, the things that make my life not just tolerable but enjoyable will be available in abundance. Oh, to be sure, there will be things I miss, many of which I likely won't realize I miss until I am there for some time. On the whole, however, the creature comforts I leave behind I won't miss, and the ones I would miss, I will have. Win-win.
Moving is not the same as dying. Obviously. But the distance of the move, the duration of the move, and the time since the last major move can, at times, conspire to make it feel like the death of something. If not a person, perhaps the death of a life.
That said, before I left my home in Alexandria, I had a going away party. There, I said goodbye to a number of people, some of whom I had known since I moved to the DC area in 2002. Over the following weeks, this became something of a ritual. A dinner with this person, a trip to see those people, a visit with my family. All of these people who, among their shared memories, probably knew more about my life than I did. I have said godbye to almost all of them. For a period of time that, if my plan goes well, could stretch well into my 40s.
This past weekend, some dear friends come up to Philadelphia to see me and to see the city. We had dinner, went to museums, explored the city, as if we were just there to have a fun weekend. But as has often been the case during the past few weeks, a part of me was screaming, "DON'T YOU GET IT?! THIS MAY BE THE LAST TIME WE EVER SEE EACH OTHER! MAKE IT SPECIAL!" For the most part, as I have said goodbye after goodbye after goodbye, I have been able to quiet this voice, and just let the moments play out. On Saturday afternoon, either the screaming got louder or my will faltered, and it was all I could hear. As a result, I didn't act so well, and I let my frustration with the situation show. My friends and I talked it out, and we're still friends (I think), but it tainted what should have been a weekend of enjoyment and making new, lasting memories.
You never want your last memory of someone to be them crying. At the same time, both my ego and my sense of likelihood wanted *something* to indicate that these moments were different. My ego because I desperately want to believe that these people will miss me; my sense of likelihood because I know what happens when people move abroad. I would love it if everyone who said they would come to Prague actually did so, but that's not how life works. Few people, aside from family members, fly a quarter of the way around the globe to see someone. There are always other priorities for time and money and attention. That's just how life works. We lose almost as many friends as we make, most simply because time passes and circumstances change--and I am losing dozens at once, with one decision.
As I am a rational person, I keep reminding myself that *I* am the one who left, who is leaving. Neither my ego nor my sense of reality get to dictate how my friends react or what our final moments together look like. So, I'm going to try something--I'm going to try to forget all those goodbyes. Every single one of them, even the ones I haven't had yet. I refuse to carry those moments, and all the anxiety and fear and sadness that surround them. I am moving on to something new and amazing, but it is *not* because I didn't have amazing things already. I don't want the memories of fraught, sad, anxious moments to be the ones that dominate.
So, what I leave behind are bad memories of a difficult time--but not the good ones. Those I will take with me, and they will comfort and amuse and fascinate me every day I spend away. More importantly, I leave behind the memories of me held by everyone with whom I ever laughed or cried or shared a moment of connection. Between you all, you could reconstruct me, each contributing a share, reconstituting my hair and voice and laugh (oh, my laugh). What I leave behind are thirty-eight years of memories of me scattered among hundreds of people.
And now it's time to go and make some more.
**********************
This is the first "official" post of my Patreon project, which means that, if you're a Patron (for which I am grateful), this will count as your weekly post, and you will be charged at the beginning of the next month for it. There is still time to support this blog and get (hopefully) fun and engaging content that only Patrons will receive: https://www.patreon.com/sjcaustenite. Thanks for your support.
**********************
When I first made the decision to move to Prague, I focused solely on the opportuity it presented. Once the decision had been made, however, I started to think of practicalities. Like, how good is their internet speed? (About the same as the USA's, if not better.) How much are smokes? (About $4.50 USD--yes, I know I should quit, but I would rather quit because I want to rather than because it's too expensive.) What's the gay scene like? (So thriving the NYT did a piece on it.) Do they have Pizza Hut? (The chain is returning to Prague this year after a 13 year hiatus.)
Generally, the things that make my life not just tolerable but enjoyable will be available in abundance. Oh, to be sure, there will be things I miss, many of which I likely won't realize I miss until I am there for some time. On the whole, however, the creature comforts I leave behind I won't miss, and the ones I would miss, I will have. Win-win.
Moving is not the same as dying. Obviously. But the distance of the move, the duration of the move, and the time since the last major move can, at times, conspire to make it feel like the death of something. If not a person, perhaps the death of a life.
That said, before I left my home in Alexandria, I had a going away party. There, I said goodbye to a number of people, some of whom I had known since I moved to the DC area in 2002. Over the following weeks, this became something of a ritual. A dinner with this person, a trip to see those people, a visit with my family. All of these people who, among their shared memories, probably knew more about my life than I did. I have said godbye to almost all of them. For a period of time that, if my plan goes well, could stretch well into my 40s.
This past weekend, some dear friends come up to Philadelphia to see me and to see the city. We had dinner, went to museums, explored the city, as if we were just there to have a fun weekend. But as has often been the case during the past few weeks, a part of me was screaming, "DON'T YOU GET IT?! THIS MAY BE THE LAST TIME WE EVER SEE EACH OTHER! MAKE IT SPECIAL!" For the most part, as I have said goodbye after goodbye after goodbye, I have been able to quiet this voice, and just let the moments play out. On Saturday afternoon, either the screaming got louder or my will faltered, and it was all I could hear. As a result, I didn't act so well, and I let my frustration with the situation show. My friends and I talked it out, and we're still friends (I think), but it tainted what should have been a weekend of enjoyment and making new, lasting memories.
You never want your last memory of someone to be them crying. At the same time, both my ego and my sense of likelihood wanted *something* to indicate that these moments were different. My ego because I desperately want to believe that these people will miss me; my sense of likelihood because I know what happens when people move abroad. I would love it if everyone who said they would come to Prague actually did so, but that's not how life works. Few people, aside from family members, fly a quarter of the way around the globe to see someone. There are always other priorities for time and money and attention. That's just how life works. We lose almost as many friends as we make, most simply because time passes and circumstances change--and I am losing dozens at once, with one decision.
As I am a rational person, I keep reminding myself that *I* am the one who left, who is leaving. Neither my ego nor my sense of reality get to dictate how my friends react or what our final moments together look like. So, I'm going to try something--I'm going to try to forget all those goodbyes. Every single one of them, even the ones I haven't had yet. I refuse to carry those moments, and all the anxiety and fear and sadness that surround them. I am moving on to something new and amazing, but it is *not* because I didn't have amazing things already. I don't want the memories of fraught, sad, anxious moments to be the ones that dominate.
So, what I leave behind are bad memories of a difficult time--but not the good ones. Those I will take with me, and they will comfort and amuse and fascinate me every day I spend away. More importantly, I leave behind the memories of me held by everyone with whom I ever laughed or cried or shared a moment of connection. Between you all, you could reconstruct me, each contributing a share, reconstituting my hair and voice and laugh (oh, my laugh). What I leave behind are thirty-eight years of memories of me scattered among hundreds of people.
And now it's time to go and make some more.
**********************
This is the first "official" post of my Patreon project, which means that, if you're a Patron (for which I am grateful), this will count as your weekly post, and you will be charged at the beginning of the next month for it. There is still time to support this blog and get (hopefully) fun and engaging content that only Patrons will receive: https://www.patreon.com/sjcaustenite. Thanks for your support.
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