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.

and i try to make this kind and clear

this is not to say in the final throes of australia, my life is coming together. but just that finally--finally!--in the eleventh hour, it's softened around the edges for real, not just all those pretend times in the past that ended up as eyes in storms. everything's not perfect--i wouldn't know what to do with perfect, except hold my breath in hopes of it not toppling over before i got a picture--but i think this is just what it's going to be. you eventually finally learn to accept reality for what it is.

i spent so much time in australia thinking, "if i just get a job or start traveling or go see this play or go to that class or meet those people, all of this is just going to come together!" and i don't think it's that nothing came together, but i had no idea what i meant. i think sometimes i was hoping that all of these very different ingredients would create the same life i left in new york, or would create some fantasy life that just wasn't possible. why not? i don't know, because it wasn't meant to be. because i wasn't meant to stay here.

i always said, "i'm supposed to come to australia for some reason." god, i know, if i get into one more discussion of "why am i here?" you're going to throttle me, but i guess i just want to say that i still believe that. i've been here six months, and they were exhausting. i think it was just a lot of me being pushed out of my comfort zone. working at jobs i knew i was better than, meeting so many new people all the time, being foreign and feeling sometimes alien, and just having no routine. i realize now, i exist so much better in a routine.

appropriate, though, that i took up bikram yoga in my six months of having no comfort zone. though it turned on me yesterday. i took a 9:30am class, because, well, i can. i knew i didn't drink enough water before the class, but i figured i'd get by and drink water during the class. it was with one of the instructors i really like (he remembers my name and points out when i do a good job; my ego soars) so i guess i was really keen on a good class. until about halfway through when, despite frequent water breaks, i was feeling intensely dehydrated, dizzy and faint. i started sitting out of more and more postures--or more, laying out, collapsed on my towel, gasping and staring up at the ceiling trying not to panic. the instructor even came over to ask if i was okay--yes, because he's in love with me. or because i looked like hell.

the ultimate goal of these classes is to not leave the room, and finally, i had to break this rule for the first time and run out. but i didn't stop there. i ran to the bathroom and just barely made it to the toilet before throwing up so much i thought my intestines were going to snake out. i'm sure the class heard me.

so i guess the instructor isn't in love with me anymore, though he did check on me again while i was sitting out in the lobby, and then we chit-chatted about it after the class. he said, "oh well, just let it go." and the point of this story is not to talk about the bikram yoga instructor who fell in love with his sweaty, nauseous student who refuses to do the class topless like all the other boys, but that last sentiment. it was all kind of symbolic really. it was six months to the day since i arrived in australia and had that first feeling of intense groundlessness, and i spent so much time trying to figure out how to deal with that feeling, and more so, make it go away.

finally, i learned to just let it go.

another symbolic end to my end in oz was finally finishing "six feet under." michael and i have been watching it since october, and due to a few breaks here and there, finally got to the end this weekend. two of his friends have also been watching and got to the same point, so we all got together for the finale, which i knew to be infamously devastating.

well, let's just say...holy shit. it was just the emotional gut-punch i needed. since i was with people, i tried to hold it together, but i kept having to walk around and lose it when no one was looking. it wasn't just a cheap "grey's anatomy" cry. i couldn't get over it. i watched it again the next day and of course, lost my shit again. i think, of course, most of that has to do with the sheer brilliance of the show, and everyone i know who's seen the last five minutes has walked away with their heart in their hands, but i think what really moved me, particularly the second time i watched it, was this feeling that everything goes on and everything ends.

and i was thinking, "what if i stayed? what would happen next, how would life progress? or what if i never left new york?" it just came down to the fact that life would go on either way. it could get better, it could get worse. i could stay here and my fantasy life would suddenly appear. i could go back to new york and feel an entirely new sense of groundlessness and exhaustion. but either way, life's just going to keep going on.

and you only live once, so don't fuck it up.

so in my final days here in australia, it's not about leaving something difficult or returning to something better. it's just a matter of, "this is all i've got to work with." and i might as well do it my way. it's going to work out however it's supposed to. and i've got to just accept that.

and just let it go.