Wednesday, August 05, 2009

one more switch

one roommate moved away forever today, and another flew off for a much-deserved vacation. there's a difference to the silence in the apartment this evening, but i have chosen to make the best of the situation by listening to tara jane o'neil while sitting in the dark. obviously, due to the presence of a brightly lit screen in the room, the darkness is far from total. it is interesting, however, how the partially illuminated innards of my former workplace stare more assertively towards me now. i can't remember being this sad to see a roommate go, but i suppose this event is a precursor to so many expected milestones over the next year or so that i can't watch it with my usual detachment. it's strange to be able to live in the same place more than once these days; how many people leave reluctantly only to sweep back in just before the automated license renewal comes in the mail? i have only had one permanent address here, and it's invalid come september.

the odd thing is how things of mine turn up at moments when i'm looking for something i actually need and have only temporarily misplaced. i can't locate the right t-shirt, but there are bottles of this or that sauce that definitely date back to my previous tenure. having abandoned them once, and finding that releasing my grip was not enough for the pull of the world to separate them from my life, i find it difficult now to dispose of even the most useless once-discarded items. things left by others while i was gone seem almost to be my own. i find myself inventing scenarios to explain a collection of ordinary objects, similar to but clearly not my own. it's not important that they are definitively mine, but more that a story exists that might link them to me, because i am supposed to know more about this place than any other. although i can think of reasons to stay, in truth i was the first to make definite plans to relocate. the others merely found it easier to pursue their own goals knowing my future was secure. i'm ready to leave the apartment, but i can imagine a day when habit brings me back, hopefully without the need to look back inside.

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