The long Journey Home

At the end of an era, you cut your losses and make your way back. You go back to what you once conceived of as your ‘authentic self’. You’re constantly trying to define yourself by holding up the content of your life, the people and ruling ideas, against your murky past; you try to find something cohesive. Like looking at negatives in some expansive dark room, we’re trying to find some image that makes sense and is consistent. That’s it really. So easily I can sum up all the machinery and emotion that one arrives at when he stares into the face of the road ahead, stretching from that door just closed to some infinite darkness, but all the knowledge in the world couldn’t make it any easier.

You simply go through the motions, once again, and you marvel at all the constancies you can draw between this time and the last time. Then, you become suddenly afraid at all the inconstancies, at how time has, without your approval, decided to change everything, all the old rules of engagement and social codes. Now you have to learn everything again. What was certain, only moments ago, is now undeniably unclear. So you bounce, like a skipping stone, from one minor tragedy to the next, all the while unable to piece together enough similar threads from each to make something to cushion the fall with. The wisdom you obtain is mostly too abstract or too case-specific to ever use again, which, grimly, you appreciate.

The only thing I really lament about the process is the initial stage of overwhelming doubt and the sense you’re being crushed on all sides by a shapeless lack of foresight. Stupidly you peer into the dark distance, stooping a little bit, slightly changing your vantage to no avail. Meanwhile, you know the only way you actually get anywhere is a constant battle of trial and error, catch and release, and so on. Too weary to try something different, you embark on a meaningless grace period of simply ‘being’. Maybe you drink too much, or play too much Grand Theft Auto, either way, you decide to waste time till a better idea becomes available. When it does, you’re life is so different you don’t even notice.

The real tragedy of our lives is this exchange between one version of ourselves and the next; they never really get to meet. It lies in that telling moment when you look back at a period of your life and wonder, why did I do that? Or, why did I feel that way? Somewhere, in some lost dimension, your self right now is furious at your future self for becoming someone different and forgetting the beauty of her past. For all my nostalgia I can never really connect with my past. A veil, it seems, obscures images that, at one time or another, were clear and vivid. These are the transgressions of a momentary lapse in comprehension; they are the infinite inconsistencies of human existence and the trials of our modern lives - whatever that means.

So we push on in our travail toward satisfaction. Perhaps, if we don’t change so much the goals are easier to obtain. Or, if you change in just the right ways, stop making the right mistakes, you can go back and fix what you’ve broken. However, by that time, chances are you’ll be someone else entirely. Unfortunately destined to soldier on some different path you didn’t consciously chose while your old self tries desperately to reign you in again. Then again, what do I know? I’m back there with you, looking into the oppressive darkness, stooping dumbly, trying to change my vantage to no avail.