Disappearing act

I've become so good at going away

In the twenty-five years that I have been alive, I have moved in and out of fourteen houses. That means, on average, every two years I have moved from one place to another. I find it so hard to relate to people who tell stories of their childhood homes and rooms they have had since they were born. And now I am sat on the cusp of a fall filled with the smell of newness, I cannot help but think of how different my life would have turned out if I could relate to the image of a stable home.

I have always attributed blame for my avoidant tendencies to how I relate attachment with the feeling of suffocation. This fear that I am too much when I am vulnerable and the fear that when I get too close to someone their presence becomes smothering. And so I stay on the edge of wanting closeness to a point of it becoming an all-consuming affair whilst simultaneously running in the opposite direction of connection and intimacy. I always thought it was because of my past relationships that have left me yearning for closeness and fearing it. But lately I have been thinking about how not having a home to call my own has led to me becoming the person with one foot out the door at all times.

I am always ready to set sail and leave.

The house that we live in now is the first one I invested in decorating and setting up. I really wanted it to be a home. Prior to this space, my mother was strictly against decorating the houses we’d move into. I think it was her way of ensuring that we wouldn’t get too attached. We lived almost nomadically. Half our things still packed up in the fear of having to go through the gruelling task of having to pack up again. Stability and comfort never found us and so now every time my heels get used to how the floor feels, I lift them off the ground and tell myself to not get carried away. It has been this way my whole life.

I can only seem to make great friends, when distance threatens our proximity—and maybe that is why the curse of long-distance relationships and friendships has constantly followed me. I think my fear of losing people if I get close to them manifests as me only allowing people to get close to me when I can leave.

I have mastered the art of leaving.

The first time I moved out of my house, for my undergraduate degree, my entire life fit so well into a suitcase that I was still able to leave room for the life I was about to create. That suitcase came back twenty pounds heavier, but the versions of me that I became, stayed behind. I feel like leaving a life behind is something I have become very good at.

I am leaving again.

A part of me wants to sit all my friends down and hold them so close that the times we have had together imprint onto me and I can almost feel them with me at all times. Another part of me wants to isolate and leave without saying goodbye. This part of me knows closeness as pain. If I spend less time with them, I can convince myself that the bonds I hold with them mean little and I can simply move on. This part of me exists to protect me from the pain of letting people go.

It makes me skilled at letting go.

Someone asked me why I was sad that I am leaving even though it is all I have wanted for so long. I have no answer for this. I feel like it was only in the past few months that I actually started to enjoy my life here. I wish I had met these people sooner and I wish that I could have held on to them a little longer. But I also know that is not something I am good at. I feel an inexplicable grief at leaving this life behind because I fear that I will never know any of these people again.

And maybe that is okay.

Maybe sometimes people just come into our lives for a brief memorable period of time and not to serve some purpose but to simply exist in close proximity to us. People coming into our lives and leaving is the way nature keeps her balance. I keep watching things and reading stuff to understand the grief of life never stopping even in the face of insurmountable loss, but no amount of intellectual thought can save me this time. It feels as though my body demands to feel the pain of losing people I choose to get closer to. At twenty-three I thought the best way to avoid this pain was to not get close to anyone at all. It never stopped me from me from feeling anxiously attached, but it managed to stop me from letting the people in my life know how much they meant to me.

I feel like its the fear of losing people that feels more debilitating than actually losing them. I find myself hoping and praying that people just tell me they no longer wish to be a part of my life and just make their exit, stage left, than keep me in the limbo of anticipating it to happen. When people I have feared losing, have actually up and left I have always found myself feeling more free.

It still sucks to be the one reeling from that loss.

I guess I am not as secure as I would like to be.

I tend to punish people when they stay against all odds. I test them and their patience. I push the buttons that would reveal to me their true colours and show me why I shouldn’t have trusted them in the first place. But I find myself fighting this urge to keep my vulnerability to myself. I want to see the best in people and in this past year through my attempts to do just that I have found myself grieving more than usual. This exercise in trusting people and leaning into a more honest and vulnerable version of myself has revealed to me how many connections I threw away in the past because I was hung up on protecting myself.

Performing non chalance only left me with grief and loneliness.

I find myself craving connection and I know the only thing that leaves the gap between my desire and its physical manifestation, unabridged, is my inability to take a leap of faith. Putting myself out there and allowing others the agency to decide what they feel about me is equal parts frightening and freeing. I keep reminding myself that I do not have to be palatable to everyone. And people I like are not obliged to feel the same about me—and I do not have to perform to convince them to change their mind if they wish to not choose me.

Allowing people the grace to decide what they will about me is terrifying but it also serves as a reminder that I too can decide how to truly feel about them. Instead of doing what I usually do—chasing validation and acceptance without considering if they are who I want it from. I think I anticipate rejection because it makes it easier to quit.

Then I can keep telling myself the same story.

That it never works out.