On Being Away – A Review

With too much idle time to think, I look out the window and watch as the last bit of sun lets the sky bleed out its dim colors to black. One by one stars pop into view and I shudder to think about how soon they’ll leave.

About what it’ll be like to be home again.

It’s funny how when you’re home, you only dream about running away. But when you’re away, you just dream about heading home. About your own bed. About your own friends.

I think these dreams are kind of about control and responsibility. You want the opposite of what you have. You want to be able to be in front of the narrative, but only when you’re behind it. And then when whatever you gave yourself to gives the wheel back to you, you find it sweaty and uncomfortably warm in your grip.

It all comes from labels. I decided that home is a place without starlight and acres of forest or parks. I decided that comfort was someone sharing in my nothingness by my side, a companion in silence. I decided what stress looks like, and how I “handle” it.

And then I decide to worry and fret over someone else’s problems until they go and mine come barreling back on me.

Then, I become submerged and dispersed among that hauntingly beautiful blank sky. My thoughts are scattered from horizon to horizon. Some of them smear to look like a galaxy or a coming storm. Others remain bright like beacons telling me how to come home.

But ever since I opened that door? All I’ve wanted to do is run away again.

I’m bit. Battered. Broken. Because I left already. Too late in the night to remember exactly when, too early when arriving to be clear on what I’d do. Lost and, for the first time in 8 months, truly alone.

You can compensate for that, by sweet talking your way through life. A curt nod, a too frequent smile lets that hard-shelled aloneness feel penetrable. It all washes away right before you throw four bucks on the counter.

Then, from the floor of the café, the loneliness creeps back up your left pant leg, and takes hold as you leave to walk up the empty road to the open field that lead to a great house. It’s busy, which makes sense. And you struggle to understand any goings on, but you know what you know. And it is enough to still fill you with enough wonder to have been worth it.

And so, after a nice dinner, you find yourself on a train, heading home. Or at least what you call home. And you find yourself counting the stars as they disappear under the encroaching pollution of your home’s light. So bright, it even pulls you from the thought that directs you home.