230. A human in perpetual motion seeking a place to land
I used to think: maybe memory is all the home I can get. I have this crazy warped bias in my mind that I don’t deserve to settle anywhere because I live such a hopscotch life. It is no wonder that I was single for so long, no one wants to be with such a perpetual-motion human (that’s what I thought anyway). Someone who keeps their life in a semi-packed state, emotionally and literally. I used to joke that I could fit my entire existence into a suitcase, but the truth is that it never felt funny. It felt like evidence. Evidence that I was meant to stay portable, unattached, “light.” As if wanting anything sturdier would expose me as greedy.
The older I get, the more I realize that I don’t actually want to be this drifting satellite forever. I don’t want to be charmingly nomadic or romantically elusive. I don’t want to be the girl who always knows where the coolest hostels are. I want to land.
I’ve always wanted to. That’s the part I used to hide from myself. I’ve always wanted to be with someone I love-properly, consistently, without a visa countdown clock blinking in the corner. I’ve always wanted a family- in the small, lived-in way: someone calling me home for dinner; the warmth of a household that doesn’t expire.
Also— I’ve always wanted a kotatsu. That stupidly specific dream of building one in my own home, a real home, not a sublet with thin walls and borrowed furniture. I picture myself sliding under the blanket, legs toasty, writing postcards or sorting through my rock collection that finally gets to stay in one place long enough to collect a respectful layer of dust.
I want a life where my trinkets and clothes don’t migrate with me. Where I don’t migrate so much, either.
Maybe memory isn’t the only home I get. Maybe it was just the one I clung to while waiting for the real one to appear—the one I’ll build, slowly and stubbornly, in a place I choose and stay.
~ homely,
<3 K