Sitting at the gate, an hour before the airplane leaves, I want to be one of you. One of you, with the healthy glow in your hair, dear shining eyes and the look of innocent indifference. One of you, with a family to call, a partner to come home to, a place to belong.
Not a traveller between the worlds, always on guard, driven to another unknown destination, sensing signs of growing fatigue and declining health. That kind of guy you might look at and think ‘He could be really handsome, if he looked less tired. Healthier. If he took better care of himself. If he didn’t have that serious look on his face.’ The guy you want to scream at “relax!” - or send to a psychologist.
Yet my trip has to continue. Not that I was sure about the destination. Not that it mattered. Any new location. Any new face. Looking for a place I could make my own. Someone I could stay with. Maybe an anchor for my own identity – the “I know what to do with my life”-experience. Somewhat religious, even though I am an atheist.
Quantity does matter. That is what I believe. That is what I like to believe: If I just see enough places, experience enough things, meet enough people, I will find my place in life. Thus quantity makes the quantum leap turning to quality. Kind of a paradigm shift.
So far it has not worked. I sit here, feel tired, drugged on medication that cannot cure the pain that nags at me, stemming from a sickness that should have kept me in bed instead of heading off for another city, another ocean, on that cloudy sunday morning.
I guess I am a sort of refugee, on a very luxurious level. A refugee who can afford airline tickets, hotels in downtown location and the excellent Starbuck’s coffee that usually gets me awake and in a positive mood.
Today I stay indifferent, and the freshly brewed Columbian blend only makes me feel my weariness even more.
I am a refugee from my own demons. Call them aimless talent, uncertainty, detachment. Call them a difficult past or an unknown future. Don’t call them crisis, though. I’m not doing drugs or anything. I am none of these fucking depressed psychos.
Another year, already. As I want to conclude this story with my signature, my hand writes 2005, and the number looks odd. Not divisible by three. Neither by four. Five might be the only candidate, though I cannot rule out that 15,35,45 or some other number might be in the game, too, and I am just too lazy to check them. What for? None of these numbers means anything to me. Just another date on the calendar. Another day bringing unforeseen changes for the better and worse.
Years and dates are for consistent people. People with diaries and life stories.
Mine sounds made up, somewhere between runaway train and overdone novel. It’s rather a caleidoscope than a mosaique. I cannot tell it. I can only tell everything, which takes a long time and leaves people either stunned or bored.
It leaves me confused. Sceptic, as the pain endures.
I think I am on my way down, though to everyone else I seem to steer towards success on the high road of accomplishment.
The strange thing is: I do not care. The perspective of my fall leaves me indifferent. That’s what I’d call detachment, even if it only grasps one dimension of it.
Occasionally, even death seems like a rest to me, a long sleep. Only when I am tired or desperate, though. I’m not morbid. I love life. It is just that sometimes -and more and more frequently-, I do not feel much of it.
I used to love it a lot. I think I still do. There are overwhelming moments, quite frequently. Scents. Sounds. The sky and the sea.
But I am less a part of myself than I used to be, and with constant struggles, disappointments and hard punches, it became like a love between a couple that has been together a long time and worked too much: The burning desire has settled for some routine, with occasional moments of brilliance.
Jan Schoenmakers, St.Louis, 13.3.2005
