678 to JFK

Text. Text. Testing. Texting.

I’m riding in an Uber on the way to the airport, wondering what comes next.

Do I continue searching for something that may not be there? Do I give up and redirect my discontent elsewhere? Or do I give in and succumb to the end that awaits us all – or, at a minimum, apply a filter over my life until I forget what’s right, only to wake up again in the morning each time.

It’s night, but at this time of year, you could mistake nighttime for most of the time. It’s cold and it’s windy, but outside of a flurry here or there, no snow has fallen hard or long enough to build upon the ground. It doesn’t matter, though: it’d melt away the next day.

Nothing is permanent, not even the slush we walk through and get annoyed by when we have to take off our shoes and clean them. Why do we bothered getting annoyed? It’s not a big deal; if it’s not a big deal, does that mean we’re apathetic and missing a piece of what makes us human?

Maybe the snow will make it through the night, overnight. When it decides to make its presence known again, but that night is not tonight.

It doesn’t matter, anyway: I’m leaving. What to? Well, I guess the technical answer is I’m going home to my family (parents and brother) and friends for the holidays, from where I live now. But really, what am I leaving to? Tonight, tomorrow, at any time, what I am leaving to? Where am I going to? And where am I coming from?

I don’t really know anymore, if I ever knew. There’s a fear that comes from realizing you’re the holder of the pen of your life. Some other people, some other circumstances might have had input on previous pages that has led you to where you are now. But have you thought about where you are now? Where you’re coming from? And where you’re going to?

I don’t know. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know I’m leaving.

Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday.

I’m leaving.

I hope to know the answers then. I hope to know myself by then. Or I’ll have realized it was about the search, not the destination – or I’ll have realized the search was fruitless all along. So many options. So many possibilities. And I’m the one holding the pen.