It’s been a couple of months since I’ve last written: a couple of months of everything and nothing. Perhaps you might have noticed, but lately I’ve tended to stray from writing more personal reflections. I have been feeling that as I have gotten older, I’ve taken on a new appreciation for privacy; in fact, there was no real need for me to write about my life in such detail for all the world to see. When I was younger I wrote for attention, but I’ve since learned to internalize that urge. (And also because writing for attention got me into trouble. And while I liked the attention, I couldn’t deal with the trouble.)
But nowadays I feel like I’ve been letting too many important feelings and thoughts slip by without the slightest effort to analyze or remember them…so much to the point that I feel like I’ve been somehow demeaned somewhere along the way. It’s as if somehow the lack of really looking at myself, my thoughts, and my desires have dulled my being. Life is sweet, but it doesn’t taste as good as it used to; I can’t feel as strongly as I used to. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not depressed, and I’m not sad. Far from it; I consider myself an incredibly lucky guy. But I guess I’m merely too used to living my life now without questioning it. (Lazy in all possible ways, hehe.) So I will recommence, for as long as I feel compelled. Perhaps these short analyses, these short blabbers will reveal something magnificent. Perhaps they’ll reveal some new, undiscovered flavors of life. Perhaps.
Before, it was my goal to live in Europe. It was my dream, and when I fulfilled it, it was wonderful. It changed me for the better. I felt safer, I felt more confident, I was really free from all the constraints had been placed upon me. I owe how I am today to this place, but now that I am here…I don’t really have a strong idea of what is next. The current plan is to stay in Switzerland, to find a job, to get settled. But at the same time, I can’t be sure if that’s what I really want.
A part of me is saying “Pack up your things and go.” Part of me wants to leave for a new foreign land, abandon my life here for new adventures abroad. Now that Switzerland has become less adventure and more quotidien, part of me is already on the search for something new. And I have been searching! Or perhaps the more appropriate word is: I have been dreaming. I dream of moving to Spain for a while…and walk the El Camino de Santiago. I dream of moving to Copenhagen and buying a bike there. I have even dreamed of leaving this Old Continent altogether to start anew in Montréal. I could do all these things…but I am not going to do any of them because at the same time…the everyday holds me back. This everyday makes it hard to let go. I easily let go of my everyday in the US because I was miserable. I cannot do the same because here, I am not.
Maybe this is what every college senior gets, this uneasy feeling of uncertainty and confusion. This desire to break free and roam. Perhaps it’s our unconscious effort to rebel against what we know is inevitable: the real world, the work force, a schedule, regularity?
I am on a train without intermediate stops, only a final destination. Outside the window I see people playing, and I want to join them. But I can only look longingly at them through the window as the train speeds past.
