Purgatory, I Wonder

It’s hard to describe what is happening. It’s a time of tremendous change which makes for digging the depths. I’ve uprooted myself and returned to my roots. I’m very out of wack. Thrust back into the town and family I spent my first 23 years of life with, I’m feeling out of place. I lived as many years away as I did growing up. I live in my mother’s home but I’m a guest. Although, she treats me like an adult she makes me high-carb dinners and fantastic cookies, and lets me drive her car. I like this though. It’s a good thing and I’m enjoying this time. I am the baby, after all. But she’s moving very slowly. The stairs are difficult. She bows her head and rubs her temples as if she is weary of it all. I feel her aging with my own. Family relations are distant and different, awkward and perplexing. I fight the tendency to revert. I sometimes think I’m speaking like an uneasy, fearful 6 year old. Those ties are no longer what they were in those early years, however. I’m someone else. A stranger in a familiar land. 20+ years in New York will do that I suppose. I wonder what I have done. If I’ve royally screwed up. But then I wonder what will be. What new adventures are waiting for me to show up. I’m anxious and going a little crazy. In both my early life and my recent life, I can’t return to what was. I miss people and places, and wonder if I’ve lost them and if I am forgotten. It’s a purgatory of sorts. I don’t fit here and don’t fit there. So I’m adrift on the current. I’m giving in to let it carry me and drop me off at the next stop. There has to be a new life. There is no other direction but onward. I sense it coming.

This is where I am right now.

As I sit on this train chugging north, I wonder where I’m going and who is guiding me there. Am I dashing towards love? Hurtling towards prosperity? Careening to a wet cardboard box under an overpass? I hate not knowing but the movement makes me feel better. It’s when I’m sitting still that I get weirded out. I’m trying to be patient. Really I am. I swear. But I sense the loss. I left so much behind — I had to. It was time. A decision had to be made. Things needed a good shaking up. Relationships will be different. Work will be different. Living will be different. Maybe more on my own terms instead of following along. So I try to look forward and be ready. Problem is, at 48, I don’t know what I want to be anymore. A writer? Designer? Underwear model? Ski bum? Burger flipper? Dog shampooer? There’s so much I can do but time and age are tapping me on the shoulder. Urgency is at hand.

I'm really alright though. Really. You just have to let me lose my mind for a moment, please.

Maybe I should just keep going. Stay on this train and ride back and forth. Zig zag the country and watch the world go by and change. Stare out the window and dream of what could be and what was. I wonder if Amtrak sells lifelong passes...