Migration West

A letter of lost time

Dear X,

I’m sitting on the plane, so many thousand miles in the air, and my emotions are still spiraling. I worry that I wasn’t mentally prepared for this, that this past weekend and the days preceding this trip were too emotional to end my time at home. I know. I’ve wanted this for years, ever since I first stepped onto California soil, but it’s like my body is only just catching up.

I woke up this morning in the comfort of my own bed, in the bedroom you and I argued and laughed and grew up and in and out of, in the same bedroom mom and dad renovated, floorboard by floorboard, until the Sharpie doodles and names of our childhood sweethearts were paved over completely. The same bedroom I learned how to play the piano and pluck a ukulele, where I listened as dad wailed on his own stringed instruments below me, tapping his toes, ticking along — the only way he knew how to keep time — and mom, as she buzzed around the living room, rearranging, refurbishing, and redecorating — a thrifted painting here, another funky lamp stacked upon some antique books over there — pollinating the dander of our imaginations and nurturing the hive we still call home.

I remember moving in. How we laid on the indecorous blue carpet which spanned the room’s entire length and seemingly disappeared under baseboard heaters and into the tight corners. From our peripheral, an infinity pool melting into the sky-blue walls.

I was four. You were seven. Your extended arm, tangled in a mess of my yellow strands. Your toes rested on the windowpane above, and it wasn’t until this moment that I realized how much older you were, how much further you could reach — because you never made me feel small — whether right-side up or upside down. We gazed at the tree that would protect us from the neighbor’s sight and serve as the first sign of snow, an excuse to stay sheltered in the four walls we would paint over pink then green until crimson marked your move North, as I hung magazine clippings of Caribbean shorelines to hide the clumsy divots and dents of our childhood. My vision blurred into the collage as you started the manual Wrangler you didn’t quite know how to drive.

I woke up this morning to a packed suitcase propped against that same wall, now gray, a hue as quiet and lifeless as the room was about to become. I considered canceling my flight. I browsed other flights further away. Next month. Springtime. Summer. Maybe then I’d be ready. Because right decisions shouldn’t feel so wrong. Our desires shouldn’t scare us so much.

But it’s not a fear of failing, or flying, finding a job, or meeting new friends. I’ve been crying so much — hell, I’m even crying now! — because leaving makes me realize how lucky I’ve been all along. And, while I know that you know how much I love you, and you know that I know how much you love me, I worry that I’ve taken you for granted. I worry that I haven’t been truly present with you, day to day, week by week, year after year.

And I realize that this detachment came from a yearning to get away and a resentment of my own excuses to stay, which I blamed on everything and everyone but fear. It was shaped out of shame for never challenging myself enough to be frightened, or uncertain, or unprepared, or alone. For always playing it safe.

And I didn’t want to admit to myself, or my co-workers, or friends, or to you, that the idea of leaving terrifies me. Almost as much as my fear not to.

And what terrifies me, even more, is this. Say, I finally move to California and it isn’t everything I hoped it would be. Say I never get settled or find my people. Sure, it’s not the end of the world. But then what do I do? For the last three years, I’ve thought incessantly about making this move. I’ve talked about it, dreamt about it, I’ve researched all the places in San Diego that I could see myself hanging in and out and around, becoming a better, freer, and more courageous version of myself.

But what if there is no better version? What if this is it for me? What if the person I am now is all I’ll ever be? What if the thing that makes you a genuinely good person is appreciating what you have, making the most of what you’ve been given, despite your location on the map? And if the grass out here is just as green as the grass back there, well… then what? I come home, sure. But what if this hunger never goes away? What do I do then? Because, sometimes, Plan B doesn’t work either, and no one really talks about Plan C.

But, then there’s Vitamin D. And my body feels like it’s hibernated a thousand northeastern winters.

So, what I’m trying to say is that you don’t need to worry about me. I won’t get stuck in a rut of longing or anxiety. I’m going to learn and play and explore. And through escaping my comfort zone, I can finally understand just how lucky I am to have one. And that’s you. You are my comfort zone and it wouldn’t be so goddamn hard to leave without one. And I’m grateful for that. It brings me to tears, really, feeling the magnitude of your love. I hope you feel the magnitude of mine.

They say the wind above our heads moves from West to East. You’ll be three hours ahead, but I’m never far behind.

Sincerely, O

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