Monday 12 September 2011

Hometown Glory.

I’ve been a bit of a state the last week or so. If the growing collection of home ware in my old room at my mum’s house is to be believed, if the open suitcases and the new bank account and the goodbye dinners are to be taken seriously; I will be moving in a couple of weeks. Really, I’m in a ridiculous way.

People do move, however glorious their hometown’s might be. People do move away and they do have full and happy lives, long distance relationships can work, every other weekend does come every other weekend; I know all this to be true, and yet I can’t help but feel the truth is, in this case, particularly unsatisfying. I read a beautiful sentence a couple of days ago, ‘knowing that your longing is insignificant in the scheme of things doesn’t make it lose it’s bite’- hits my nail right on the head that one.

I think placement plays a big part in most of our happiness. Where we place ourselves, the place around us; we asses our progress on this basis. When people ask me what I’m doing right now, where I am, what my placement is, I’m not sure what I should say; I don’t really have one, anymore. Yet. Here are the things that have made me happy: night time arguments over stolen covers, after-work car journeys discussing mutual hatred for Radio 1 DJ’s, the feeling of that hand rested on my lower back to know that I’m safe and loved and out of harm’s way and will always be if I hold on to it’s owner. Here are the things that I want: language and people and experience and knowledge and independence. So I have two places to tell people about, two lists. My trouble is trying to amalgamate the two.

I know a lot of people who write lists. Words on paper are achievable and much, much smaller than they are in our heads. Here’s hoping that it won’t be long before I can look at my lists and laugh at how small they once were.