we'll start all over and we'll start again

at the beginning of every month, like some sort of lunar cycle, something new happens or comes into my life or begins. i arrived at the beginning of august, i moved into my place the beginning of september, i began the russian roulette of employment opportunities in october, and now it's the beginning of november. i have about two more days for something else to come along and steal the spotlight, but i think i know what the new thing is.

i'm starting over.

jay would read this and think of the treacly melodramatic self-help reality show we watched in junior year together every afternoon, and it is a bit like that, except no vomiting into a bowl of pine cones, getting yelled at by a drill sergeant while i clean a dirty car, or dressing up a mannequin in the attic named miss mabel with all of my symbolic baggage. (it would take much too long to explain, and i'm essentially just beating jay to the punch by saying, "i know, i'm starting over, just like the tv show, 'starting over.'")

i have no other way to put it but to say that i'm starting over. i arrived in australia three foggy months ago, and it's been nothing of what i expected. in some ways, that's been a pleasant surprise, and i don't discredit that at all. but in other ways, it's been a pie in the face.

i say this echoing my sentiments in the last post--i would hate for anyone to think i'm not fine--but i haven't been fine. i haven't been myself these days. i don't know if it's just the money situation. i think it's been bigger than that. but i'm willing to find out. i'm not turning to my old vices to get away from the sadness--the shit i pulled a year ago to get away from my pain still amazes me--and i'm not running.

i'm sitting right here with it. i could pack my bags and book a plane ticket and make a mad dash for america--"when the going gets tough, i get going"--and what a shame, what a loss of an opportunity. and what a mistake. do i really expect i'd feel any more settled moving back in with my parents, and with the remains of my savings, rebuilding a life in new york and telling everyone who asked, "yeah, australia wasn't working for me, so i came home"? what am i going to do when things don't work out 100% in new york? where will i run to then?

so i'm starting over.

i have some sense of what that means, but i'm going to mostly just let it reveal itself to me as i go. it means forgiving these past three months. it means letting go of a lot of ideas of what i think i should be doing, or how this should be working out. it means being open to whatever fate has in store for me, even if it doesn't seem to follow the map, no matter how basic, i wrote up before i got here. it means being grateful for everything i have right now.

i think the reason things finally worked out for me in new york is because i started to be grateful for everything i had. i didn't acquire anything new. i just said, "okay." i just said, "thank you." i stopped resisting new york, hating new york, insisting it wasn't for me. i cleared away my delusions and my fears and my resentments, and i carefully removed all of the blockages that were keeping me from, at the time, leaving for australia with some peace, but actually, were keeping me from living anywhere with some peace.

something got lost in the last three months. and that's okay, because i'm finding it again. the first step is realizing you've lost it. the second step is inevitable.

you just start over.