In which I ramble.

[bubosquared]

Randomly realised that ever since "The Trip" -- and god, how I hate that term, how I loathe it with all the bitterness I still feel about the whole thing and how very fucking much that still is despite the fact that it's been over. six. damn. years. and I should be the fuck over it already-

Stop, rewind, replay.

Randomly realised that ever since I ran away from home, I stopped looking towards my parents for ... solutions. Consolation. Help. I've felt, if not been, responsible for myself and my life since I was 14 years old. I've fucked up grandly a lot of times, but I never expected or wanted my parents to fix things. Because when I was going through my thirteen-year-old's-version of hell, they did nothing, didn't notice, didn't interfere, didn't do anything to fix it until it was -- from my point of view -- too late. The damage had been done. I had learnt what everyone learns at one point in their lives: parents cannot fix everything. I also learned (wrongly?) that mine seem to not even try until it interfered with my schoolwork.

(Looking back, I'm thinking maybe that's when my resentment with school began. Coupled with the fact that I changed schools after that; went to a school where I was behind in the subjects I had most problems with (math,Latin) and ahead in my easy subjects (languages). My grades dropped, no matter how hard I tried, and after a while I gave up, studied enough to pass, and fled into books. Away from school, from parents, from obligations, from my writer's block.)

(I hardly ever read books anymore.)

I'm seriously considering emigration. (This is not a non sequitur.) I want, for the first time in my life, to feel as if I'm running towards things, and not away from them. (Running towards freedom back then didn't count. That was a run away from the pain.) I want to move to London or NYC because I want to go there, specifically, because these places have things (people) I want to be near to, not because there are things in Belgium I want to leave behind.

I will miss my family. I will miss my brothers. I will miss having someone (Sanne) to "mother", to play sugar mommy to, to take out to concerts, to be the cool, rebellious older sibling I always wanted when I was his age. I will miss sing Rob become an adult, move out, etc. I will miss the discussions with my dad (though not with mum, who can be awfully prejudiced and often gets too personal for me to enjoy the discussion on an intellectual level).

(The use of "sibling" in the above paragraph is not coincidental, by the way. I wanted an older brother. Someone to goof around with, someone who would take me to concerts and places. It seemed to be something only brothers did. All anyone's older sisters ever seemed to do is dress them up give them makeovers. (Which, I know, I did to my brother too. Once! And he asked!))

(Also incidentally, I think it's odd that all three of us are so creative. I'm a writer with a strong drawing urge( but more on that another time), Sanne writes and draws, Rob draws and is studying image and sound techniques. My parents ... I can't say they're not creative, because they are, it's just that as far as I can see, they lack the drive, urge, the necessity behind it that makes me spend most of my free time writing or talking about writing, that made Rob go study what he does, that I think will become apparent in Sanne as well.)

I will miss Belgium, come to think of it. I love living in this country, love the weather, am mostly happy with the way things are run here (social services, laws, etc., the only large exception being the fucking negation law, but that's a bitch unto itself), and no matter what, I was born here. This is my home, no matter how far and long I wander.

But all that isn't enough to keep me here, not when there's so little else to keep me here, to ground me into place here. (Horrible grammar there, self.) (Shut up.) Not when I really want to live somewhere where there are people I can connect to. And for reasons I can't pinpoint don't feel like talking about, I can't just reach out and connect to random people in the street. I don't go anywhere IRL, and when I do, I don't like to talk to people.

(Actually, no let's talk about my inability to connect to random people. Because I know exactly why. I don't like small talk anymore. When I talk, I want it to be about something that interests me. This can be anything from you (i.e. my friends) to fandom, to writing (hi, Sae!) to me (but only in small amounts) to current events, to whatever, just anything but the endless stream of getting-to-know-you. That doesn't seem to happen in fandom. Just two people being interested in the same thing, talking about that, and striking up a connection. My interest (writing) is a solitary one. One doesn't go out to a writer's club and meets new friends. It just doesn't happen.)

I'm in the process of learning to accept that. I'm nearly there, in the stage where it's dawning on me that the solution would be, instead of wishing I could go out and meet people I can connect to, to go to where there are people I already connect to. Which means either the States or the UK. (I could go to Austria, I suppose, but German is a language that doesn't click in my brain.) If it's the former, it'll be NYC (because I've always dreamt of living there, and I think it'll be just 'international' and 'European' enough that I can get by); if it's the latter, London.

I know, rationally, that London would be the better choice. I'd fit in, accent-wise, mentality-wise. My current job would supply enough experience to get a semi-decent one there, I think. Hope. It'd be easier to get the paperwork I'd need, and it's dead close to Belgium, so I could visit my family on a semi-regular basis.

But what I really want is NYC. Because really, I don't know that many people in/around London, and I know at least a handful of people in NYC, and well ... there's something about NYC that's always attracted me, ever since I first fled into E&S, back during the Episode. (Aka The motherfucking Trip, aka running away from home. See how it all goes in circles?)

(The E&S ref wasn't out of the blue. La Nueva, the city where it takes place, is a post-apocayptic-ish version of the in-my-head-version of NYC.)

Sigh.

And really, this is all far into the future; say three to four years. But if I want to keep both my options open (London and NYC), I need to start looking into this Green Card business. And I need to work out wether I actually am running towards and not still from things (and people), and decide where I'm going to go, and and and ...

And also, at one point, mention this to my family.

(Edit: And if I do decide on NYC, I shall need brain surgery, or at the very leat a poke in the head, to learn to adapt to the goddamned money. I'm used to different colours for each banknote, people. All that green confuses me. ^_^)

Comments

this is a hard decision you have started to make

[icanreadyourmnd.livejournal.com]

but having been there too, I understand it. Mine was "just" moving from east coast to west coast but it was pretty hard in many ways.

But the one thing I do know is that if you feeling an increasing pull to BE somewhere else, then it's best to take the leap. Because even if you find out that it was the wrong choice, at least you tried.

I knew coming to live in LA was the right choice for me because every time I was here, for that week, every six months, I felt right. And increasingly I sought ways and reasons to travel out here. I also made friends who lived here. The other thing is that sometimes your own life forces you to make a decison. You start to see things ending where you currently are. But perhaps this is the state/plane I live on currently because for me things have always fallen into place as and when they were supposed to. One door closes, another door opens. Sometimes you have to physically open that door but I think our subconcious knows exactly what door to open even with our eyes closed, even with searching hands.

Another thing that I realized when I was thinking about moving? I could have stayed in NY out of loyalty to people I really really cared about. The alternate plan was to buy a hosue together and ahve a small barn in the back with a precious few boarders. But it didn't work for me. I couldn't live there anymore; I couldn't work there anymore. And when I was 65 I would probably look back and be upset that I didn't try to follow my heart. Because even if I failed, at least I had tried and then I could say 'ok, it didn't work. I'm going home'.

For me, it worked. I *am* home now.

Not to mention the fact that if you move down the street, or from one city to another, or from one state to another, or from one state to one all the way teh fuck across the USA, or from one country to another - you're still moving; it's still traumatic because you still have to pack up your life and bring it from one place to another. Some moves are more traumatic because when you get where you're going you have to literally start over. But it's still a move, and a change and it takes courage and heart, and fear and a lot of other things to make changes.

Anyway -- just my thoughts on the whole thing cause I renceltyy went through it (recently? In December it'll be a year that I did this).

For a selfish point of view - I would love to meet you someday. From other points of view, if you ever need anything, even if it's a referral for a job, just yell. K?