how this ends

i wish i knew what to say my last night in australia. i wish i had "the right thing" to say, that expresses my sadness about leaving behind so many great people in australia, and my excitement about reuniting with just as many great people in new york. i decided, the other night, that despite it all, i'm quite lucky; i'm leaving a place i really like, and i'm returning to a place i really like. you rarely get that double happiness.

while a final stroll down chapel st today reminded me that i won't miss the absolute war zone of pedestrians these sidewalks can be--pick a side, people!--i could say the same thing about times square, and the day will come when i'm trying to get to hell's kitchen with my sanity intact and i feel the same rage boiling up inside of me all the way to 9th avenue.

i guess, my point being, i want to leave melbourne on a good note, as a city that keeps bringing me back, even if i still don't quite know why, even if it seems to change each time.

jay made a point of saying that, lately, my blog posts have been sounding curiously like the first few posts when i was leaving new york. this sort of kind reverence, this gracious bowing out the door and onward to my next destination. maybe i fall in love when the drama's high, when the end is near, when the stakes are raised, when the emotions are peaking. i certainly didn't feel this way in, say, october or november. even if i was leaving early, even if february was still being tossed around, it wasn't for another few months.

much like how in the month or two before i left new york it seemed everything was gelling quite nicely, i can see that happening here. a number of people who i met on this trip have said, "you can't leave yet, i feel like we're just getting to know you." someone joked, "you'll be the one that got away."

maybe.

ivy and i were talking yesterday and agreed that sometimes, people are supposed to just come into your life to show you something, to tell a certain story, to be a meaningful cameo in your story, and that's all. to go back to my bible, "eat, pray, love," liz gilbert suggests a soulmate is not necessarily meant to stay in your life forever. they're just the person who most clearly reflects you back to yourself, shows you who you absolutely are, even if that means they never really show you who they are.

i'm not suggesting anything about soulmates on this trip--who can say until it's all over who holds that kind of role in your life?--but i think to piggyback on the point of the last post, sometimes you just have to accept and let go. i find myself repeating that truism from "six feet under": everything ends.

so this trip is over. someone else last night said, "you'll never know if you should have done it one way or the other." all i've got to work with is this, and no one can say i should have stayed longer, left sooner, or never come at all. just because it's painful, just because it's sad, doesn't mean it's wrong.

before i left for australia, i had a list of hopes for this trip. i wanted it all to be worth it. i realize now you'll never know that either. now i don't know if it's worth it to leave. i don't know what direction my life will take in new york, who i'll become as a result of this trip. i've decided to just approach it all with curiosity.

i'm exhausted of hello's and goodbye's. i'm entirely relieved by the prospect of a long-term plan, however long that may be. i'm starving for a routine. i can't wait until my feet touch the ground, and i'm not flying north, south, or any direction at all. these altitudes have left me far too light-headed.

but i don't regret it. i don't regret the days when i felt like i was on mars without a spacesuit as much as i don't regret the days when it seemed i had landed somewhere with people i was destined to meet, people who made so much sense to me. much like new york, it's all about the people. some of these people i'll see again; some i won't. as my yoga instructor said, just let it go.

so i don't know what to say, but that's about all i can say right now. i don't want to try to wrap this up into too neat of a package, because the journey isn't over. it keeps going in new york. it reveals itself in the aftermath. it comes to life in the questions. since i first decided to come to australia, it's been a life of questions. first it was questions about what i was doing going to australia, then it was questions about what i was coming from when i arrived in australia, and always it was my internal questioning of the point of all this. when i get home, it'll be questions about the experience.

but i guess what i've learned is there are no right answers. there's no "right thing" to say or respond with. the point is to keep questioning, keep trying to learn more, keep trying to understand. but never to arrive at an answer.

and with that, entirely grateful, thoroughly exhausted, and intensely curious, this boy flies north.