Why Don't You Just Come Back?

** Becky, I'm sure you already know, but this post is not about you **

I smell like smoke and tears and so much fear that even walking to my bed seems too frightening of a task to complete without perpetual self-talk. As I type these words, they seem so pathetic and I find myself shaking my head. Again. I'm not even sure why - am I shaking my head because these words won't be enough to help you comprehend how I'm feeling? Or because I'm still reeling from information overload and emotional bulimia?

3 words should give you an idea of where I'm at: I got out.

I'm here in Medicine Hat, a city of memories and disappointment and shame and unrecognized potential. My friends all have babies - beautiful lights that dance and sing and scream glorious nonsense that only a mother could understand - and I cry for them. Don't get me wrong, they are fabulous mothers and their children are loved in a way that all kids should be - but they aren't happy. They cry to me and we talk about them getting out of this city and moving to a new place where they could start over. "It's not that easy" they say, "I've got kids to think about; family to take care of".

I flashback to a conversation I had with my stepmother a week before I left this place to seek refuge under her watchful eye in Regina: "You know Jenny, you're going to have to work really hard to prove yourself now. You've made some pretty big mistakes and I'll help you fix them - but I need your word that you're ready to make a change - to put all this behind you and start again". Between sobs I manage to choke out "I'm ready - I'll do whatever it takes" and in my head I'm screaming "Please, please don't give up on me - I can't do this alone".

I sit with my friends and I want nothing more than to pack them up and drag them to my car - to take them back "home" with me and provide a better life for them. I desperately want to be for them what my Stepmom was for me. But I can't. I hold myself back because I've created something beautiful and I'm afraid to let one life bleed into the other. I'm afraid to let the colours run. I can't blur the lines between my past and my present - I can't take the chance that I'll fuck it all up again. I won't sacrifice my progress for their potential happiness.

It sounds cold, doesn't it? It's okay - I know you're thinking it. Chances are, if you're reading this you are one of my closest friends so a part of you is relieved, "Oh thank God, she's come so far - they're only going to drag her down again". And you're right, I have come so far and the odds aren't good that if I was to immerse myself in that life again, I would come out on top. Now, with that in mind, imagine you're me - sit on your friend's couch and listen to her cry about wanting a different life for herself - for her kids - see the fear in her eyes as you tell her "It's not always going to be like this - things are going to get better" and then get up, walk to your car and pull away, shivering because your voice betrayed you and her eyes exposed you - she knew as well as you did that if she didn't get out soon, things weren't going to get better.

I'm at the point where I've chosen to sacrifice the role I want to play in the lives of some of my friends, for the certainty of my own success. No matter how you spin it, it's selfish. Smart, yes. Mature, absolutely. But even in the name of self-preservation, it's heart breakingly selfish. It's not easy being that person.

Scatterlings of Africa

Meredith recently wrote about feeling like a "sell-out". I can't imagine why she would feel that way as I see her as so much more than she does. But I'm going to take this moment to write about potential. Sometimes I wonder if I'm meant to be living a grand and epic adventure. I look at the next 3 years (or so) of my life and they are pretty stable - school, work, friends, - summer, winter, fall, spring - and so on. I have a great life and if it was to continue the way it is, I would count myself even luckier than I already do. But what about all of those missed opportunities? The expanse of my future stretches before me and the plane is soft and flat - while I find that lack of threat very comforting, I squirm at the thought that I'm missing out - that I could be exhausted and excited, exploring something or somewhere that could change my life. I find myself willing a giant fucking mountain to spring up in the middle of that plane and turn my world upside down.

I don't want to miss out. I know that I have potential and I believe that I am meant for something "more" than this life I'm living now, but God help me - I want to see things. I want to be knee deep in new experiences, terrified and burdened with the knowledge that there's so much more "out there" and I don't have the time to fall in love with it all. Unbridled exploration of rivers and rainforests, people who live in trees, people who have nothing, people who have everything, the Taj Mahal, the Sistine Chapel, the Parthenon, new languages, new countries, new food - drinking myself silly in Tijuana, surfing (yes, surfing) in the Caribbean, early morning coffee in Colombia, a journey to Mecca, a journey to the mouth of an active volcano, a journey to an underwater biosphere ...

A journey to the center of everything and everyone I've ever wanted to experience. A life lived in fullness. I refuse to accept anything less.