Down memory lane into the future

I had one of those days. You know, the kind where memories keep cropping up left, right and center. Some were more recent than others.

Riding in a car, looking out on passing landscapes does that to me. My mind keeps wandering and sometimes it takes the exit down memory lane. Especially when you talk about yourself, which inevitably leads into the past.

For a moment I miss home. Then it passes and I miss my friends. That, too, passes, just so I end up missing my dogs, who’re long gone and whom I’d love to just hug one more time.

But I can’t dwell for long. I am here. I am now.

It’s a good place to be. Even though the future is already lurking. Yesterday it hit me that my intermission in San Francisco is already more than half over. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Sad, I suppose.

I came here, because I needed something. A few things, even. I needed to simply be. Away from home, from London as well as Berlin. Away from everyone and everything I know. Away from familiarity and work and the commute on the tube.

I needed time and I needed to write.

I got absolutely everything I needed, or could have wanted for, and more.

If I had simply decided on a month away from home and then to return to just pick up where I left off, I would be very miffed right now. I could have done that instead of travelling around the world over the next five months.

However, I don’t think I’ve been away long enough yet. And I have so much ahead of me. I have been putting a blanket over that in the last three weeks. I just wanted to be here and now and nowhere else. Not in the past, not in the future.

But that is no longer an option. I have delved into the past a little here and there, as one does when opening up to someone new. And with time running out, which I am beginning to feel more acutely, I must consider my next steps.

That mainly involves planning more details of my travel route and perhaps booking the next few hostels I’ll be staying at.

The curious thing is that I’ve been wanting this trip for a really long time, and now that I’m about to take off for real, I feel slightly hesitant. Not because I don’t want to go. It might be more a case of wanting to stay where I am just a little longer. I do still have a few more days, but I don’t know, if they’ll be enough.

It’s not as if I could postpone my departure, though. I must continue my journey and I know I’m doing the right thing, no matter how content I am right now.

I shouldn’t be surprised to feel the way I do. The next step is never an easy one to take. Especially when it’s a big one. It would be much more surprising, if I would walk on unconcerned and not feel wistful about my departure.

So, as usual, I write through it. I’m concentrating on my current projects, a novel, a novella, my blogs, sorting out this whole freelancing stuff and just enjoying my time here in San Francisco.

There’s an adventure waiting for me down that road. I better make sure to catch it. Because, surprising as it might be, I don’t want to just make stories up, you know, out of my head, I do want to have lived some of them myself.

Advertisement