Tuesday 17 January 2006

Pic of the day: It may be the first time in 15 years that this door has been closed. How forbidding it suddenly becomes! As if a stranger lives within, and not I.

Stranger at home

It is such a strange feeling. I carried more stuff to the apartment, books mostly. I cannot imagine where it all comes from. I should have started carrying several turns each day from November, just like I started carrying books to the used book store from the beginning of November. And even that I am not finished with. I have begun to fill up the entry hallway at my new apartment with comic books in bags ready to carry off to the city, and still there are more than I can carry with me for the few days I have left here.

Actually I should not have had any days left here. Actually I should have been gone. I have paid rent out this month, so it's not like I don't have the right. The workers come on Thursday 26th to lay the new floor. As long as I'm out before that, and also makes sure the place is washed down thoroughly before the 31st, it's OK. But this was not the plan. I had thought I would have moved before the new year. The landlord definitely thought I would have moved out before now, not that I expect any complaint. But I don't need to hear anyone complain. My heart has already moved out.

It is a strange feeling. Although my furniture is still here (actually more of it is visible than for the last ten years, I guess) I don't quite live here anymore. I sleep here, I write here, and I play Sims2 from around midnight when I am not supposed to sneak around in the neighborhood with bags. Would look kinda suspicious in the middle of the night, right? But the thing is that it is staying here is where I feel like a thief. Like a burglar in my own home. Well, it is my home, by all rights, and has been for almost half my life. Crazy, huh? I've actually lived here longer than in my birth home. Seriously! But the thing is, I had the same feeling when I was there, visiting my brother and his family. The place was so full of memories, the place was so very much HOME. And yet I was a stranger there. Like a ghost that was lingering, having failed to pass on. Like a thief in my own home. It is better to not be there at all, than to be there as a guest who has outstayed his welcome. Even if no one says anything, my heart says it. It finds no rest among the familiar old walls anymore, and flutters like a bird in a cage.

I am not leaving for a better place. But I am leaving for a place where, I hope, I can rest for a while.