only as recently as yesterday did i really start to consider that i will eventually return to the states. eventually being, more specifically, in three weeks. i have been so entrenched in this constant discovery and change and newness that i can barely fathom anything else. of course i frequently imagine the moments of my return, but that has only extended so far as those initial hugs and shrieks and cocktails in familiar places. i haven't really considered the reality of the moments beyond those, when i am simply jobless, homeless, and poor.

honestly though, those are not the elements which worry me. while it might be nice and simple to return to an apartment and a job, i don't want to resume the life i had in san francisco. i want san francisco and i want some of the people, but i don't want that life. though it will be work, i am glad i have to make choices upon my return. choose my home, choose my job, choose my direction. i left because i wanted something else, because i needed something else.

now i have something else. i am something else. i am the same but i am different.

i am worried about reconnecting with people. i have no doubt that i still love and cherish my friends. none. and yet, my experiences abroad have all been alone. they have not been contingent upon or involved with any person i knew when i left. i think maybe that is the feeling i keep describing. the far away feeling. i am not far away, i am just more capable as an individual and i'm not sure how to incorporate that into my old relationships. because so many of them were grounded on my being needy and obsessive and wanting. that is, of course, not gone entirely, but the parts that are gone, i do not want back. yet i'm not sure how to restructure my relationships. how do i love without being needy. how can i be close without being inside. how can i trust without being dependent. i suppose it is not something i can plan for, but rather just something that is, that happens. or that does not happen and then i will examine it and decide what needs to be done.

i am worried also about reacclimating to every day life. i am here and i am there and, while i often long for routine and consistency and just something that feels normal, i'm also afraid of it. i am actually fairly good at handling crises, and in a way, this trip has been one extended crisis. one moment after the next of reckoning and decision-making and struggle and change and triumph and sometimes failure. regardless of outcome, most moments have felt big. important. and it is when life stretches like that, that i am suddenly good at seeing. it is laid out before me. and even troubles seem lovely because they too were moments of change and growth. 

but then what about the everyday. what happens when i go to the same job every day and return to the same bed. what happens when i'm ungoing. when i am not constantly entering new landscapes and cultures and relationships. when i am just a girl on a street, having a life. (i think we both struggle with the mundane...) what about beth then. my hope is that i will still be able to cultivate wonder. and growth. it seems to me that any person would grow on a trip like this. you would have to be blind not to at least realize how much world there is and how little you are, if not to internalize it and craft it into something that promotes change. but what about the everyday. what about the everyday. can i take these eyes, which i've polished with hours of watching and crying, and maintain some level of awe. anyone can revel in the new and exciting, but can i revel in the routine. can i still learn about myself. can i retain what i have learned. i think it takes a stronger person, a smarter person, to be able to appreciate and learn from things that are not so overtly beautiful and new. am i that strong. am i that smart.

i suppose only time will tell.

and i say i am worried, but i'm not really. i rarely feel worried like i did before. i feel anxious about some things, but it doesn't feel consuming or insurmountable. these are things i consider, things i muse upon, things which frequently enter my mind, but i have a handle on them. they do not overcome me.

i have received some excellent advice, which is to think about my return not as an ungoing, but just a continuation of the going. i have fallen in love with many places and people in my travels, but maybe most i have fallen in love with the ones i already knew. i am looking forward to visiting san francisco with my new and different eyes. to seeing it, seeing it like i have seen things here-- ready to absorb and experience and try. i am looking forward to finding a new job and meeting new people and trying new restaurants or maybe even going to the old ones but ordering something new. maybe it will not be on such a grand a scale as going to a new country every few days, but i know i will see it differently. i already do.

so it is sunday and i am in london and tomorrow will head to rome. today i am going to the tate modern museum and then to the globe to see troilus and cressida and then out for drinks with my new group of 19 year old friends. in a few weeks i will be back in san francisco and maybe instead i'll go to the moma and to the curran and out with kate and dana. but i will be going. because i have these eyes and these legs and they are mine, wherever i go. and only i decide how i live and what i get from life.

i can do this.

i can come back and be okay. i have learned to be okay in almost every setting, except the one that's most familiar. i believe i can learn that too. i trust that.

as soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

i never thought i would be here, but i think it's true. i trust myself.

then i guess i must also believe, i will know how to live. everywhere, anywhere, i go. wherever i take myself.

i will know how to live.