Newest weirdness: Walking around a place knowing you're leaving soon. I guess the last time I really had this happen was my senior year in high school, and I wouldn't say that I was all that aware of it then. Was anyone? Did anyone walk down a hall and look around thinking, "Man, one of these walks will be the last one?" And if they did, was it with a sense of nostalgia or more of a getmeouttahere kind of feeling? Maybe it was both. Personally, I can't even tell how I feel about it. Sometimes, I'm thankful. I think that I won't miss the cold showers or the bugs that fly into my computer screen if I turn it on at night. I have been glancing around at the thorny catch and keep vines and the splintery boardwalks and the fishbowl tents that hold ghosts I haven't let go of yet and I'll catch myself thinking, "A year from now, I won't have to deal with any of this ever again." And then I think, "Damn. A year from now, I won't have to deal with any of this ever again."
The song I am listening to right now just said, "Live through this and you won't look back." Three times.
I lie to myself daily. That never works for too long, does it? Eventually the front of your brain catches up to the back of it and you're screwed. Lie revealed and demanding to be dealt with. It's like telling your mom that you don't know who finished the cookies when you have melted chocolate chip evidence all over your 5 year old face. It's a joke. The truth is, I will miss the cold showers and the boardwalks. Even the thorns, and those are certainly not limited to thorns on vines. I left once, so I know this to be fact. You miss everything. That does not mean it's not what is supposed to happen, which I have found to be a very important distinction to make. Like those ghosts you sometimes think too fondly of, things change and disappear and it's almost always sad and almost always the right thing, anyway. Even if it feels differently at the time. Even if it feels differently forever.
And now I am here with chocolate chips all over my face and I am wondering what, exactly, protocol is here. I have been through my last Maho Christmas now. And the last Maho New Year's Eve. The last beginning of season. The last January swell. It will be a season full of lasts.
The thing is, Maho has been a pretty heavy place in my life. Most people have a place at least a little like this. Maybe your first car. Or those high school halls. Or that house in your college town, which was decorated with what you thought would surely be the best 4 (5? 6?) years of your entire life. This is where I fell in love the first time. It's where I felt what was it was like to have my heart break into a thousand cracked slivers. The only bone I have ever broken can be blamed on a loose rock at Big Maho beach. I learned to run here, and to lull. Televisions exited my life and I found out that I actually hate them. Because of this little place, I can tell you what a tamarind tree looks like, what time of year the mangoes are ripe and where most of the frangipanis are. And what a frangipani is, for that matter. Very simply put, I met myself here. I threw out some of the flaws and vices, gained a few new ones and pretty much figured out how to be someone I like at least most of the time. My life is less ordinary because of Maho. I am, as a direct result, happy. And in fewer than twelve months, I will be leaving.
Leaving places happens. I read somewhere that the average person will relocate eleven times over the span of his or her life. I'm at 12. This isn't something sad. It's not depressing. It's something I am proud of and I would not want my life to have gone down any other road. I have lived here longer than I have ever lived anywhere, which could give me some insight into this wanderlust thing if I ever bothered with it. 12 and counting. I can not wait to see where I will land next and I am happy to continue not knowing where that next place will be.
Still, there is always going to be that one place, isn't there? The one you think about when you're bored or daydreaming or looking for sepia nostalgia. And the unfortunate luxury of knowing what that place is as you are leaving it is a year of sepia moments smack dab in the middle of an otherwise technicolor life. You miss it before it's even gone.
My goal is to rest calmly in between rushing around feeling like I'm losing something and lazily ignoring that I need to soak all of this up. I am happy to leave before I am bored.
That I can not predict what comes next is invigorating and this feels right even as it gives my heart a small stress fracture. I will pack my bags, walk through the ghosts and bite my lip so I cry less. And move on to the next place I can fall desperately, senselessly in love with.
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