At what point do you settle? 'This is my life, and this is my house, and this is my street, and this is my job, and this is my life' -- at what point do you, should you, must you actually say all of that? Acknowledge all of that? Is there a predetermined hourglass inside of all of us that indicates when this declaration has to take place? If there is, I haven't heard the delicate sands of that hourglass just quite yet, which scares me and consoles me at one and the same time.
Some people settle at nineteen in their hometown, just down the road from where they grew up. They watch the same TV channels they always did, go to the same movie theatres, order pizza from the same pizza shop, the one that has the pizza with the good cheese, the thick cheese. Others never settle; they stay here for a year, there for another, before heading off down the road, late for the plane, early for the boat, whatever. Always a new place, road, encounter.
People in Cambodia settle young, because they don't have a choice, because they don't have money, because they live where they live and work where they work and if they have to travel to get a job, well, then they do what they have to do. It's not a 'lifestyle option'. It's life, and they live it, and that's that.
We in the west are raised with the belief that we can do anything and be anything and live anywhere and survive to tell the tale (returning with wallet-size photos, too). We can travel the world and explore the world and still have a couch to come back and crash on.
Still, at a certain point, life takes over. You will have a place and a time that is yours and yours alone, like it or not, ready or not.
How about it?
Is this your time? Is this your place? How do you know?
2 comments:
i think perhaps this all happens at the point when we do not want it to, do not need it to, nor expect it to. before you know it you have "stuff." i used to think it was tacky to collect anything. and then i looked around me and realized there is very little i don't collect.
-books
-lipgloss
-bags from the grocery store
-underwear
-wine glasses
-wine
-pens
-dvds
comfy sheets
-shoes
-anything about existentialism
-black and white photos
and there you have it. you have stuff, and you need a place to keep it, and you have a place that is all your own. even if it is your parents' basement while you are off to see the world, there is still some part of you in some corner that is yours, and no one elses. and this is where you begin to settle. your stuff doesn't go away, and sometime you are going to have to go and unpack it, put it on a shelf, look around and think..."shit. so this is it."
i think perhaps this all happens at the point when we do not want it to, do not need it to, nor expect it to. before you know it you have "stuff." i used to think it was tacky to collect anything. and then i looked around me and realized there is very little i don't collect.
-books
-lipgloss
-bags from the grocery store
-underwear
-wine glasses
-wine
-pens
-dvds
comfy sheets
-shoes
-anything about existentialism
-black and white photos
and there you have it. you have stuff, and you need a place to keep it, and you have a place that is all your own. even if it is your parents' basement while you are off to see the world, there is still some part of you in some corner that is yours, and no one elses. and this is where you begin to settle. your stuff doesn't go away, and sometime you are going to have to go and unpack it, put it on a shelf, look around and think..."shit. so this is it."
Post a Comment