A peculiarity I have noticed in these past years, building a life in a place and tearing it down to go somewhere else, is our tendency to get used to things. It is almost laughable how I, like most other people, think there is any sort of definition to myself when all it takes for me to get used to a different self is a few days. It is funny how quickly we learn our way around new streets, how fast we learn the language and the slang, how parts of ourselves change completely, or how a place we vacation tends to hold us as tightly as where we came from, so long as we choose to stay.
It baffles me because of how strict we are with our preferences, when in the end, if you only try to jump ship and live somewhere else, it would all fit eventually, after some mild discomfort. Our preferences do not matter as much as our circumstances at first, and mostly, it is what happens to us rather than what we choose that determines how our days are going to be, where we will live and how we will sound. All that is true until we choose.
It tears me up when I look around at other people, at this world we have built. Nothing matters; nothing should exist, yet all of it is here and fights back every day. I have so much love for this attempt, for it all, of how we continue seeking. There is little that amazes me more than this tenacity to keep going, this urge in all of us to keep moving. Last evening, as I sat watching the waves ripple over one another, folding like the hands of lovers, intertwined, unsure of who held first and who held tighter, it all occurred to me in one fell swoop: this life, the things that have occurred in it is all one massive coincidence, but now that it has happened, I must take charge.
That is how the story of humanity goes, after all: one day, a group of people began walking away from the middle of nowhere because something in them chose to do so, and in their footsteps, they wrote the story of all of us. Humanity is a story of call and response. Till there are people, there will always be the great attempt. As long as things happen to us, we will continue to happen to them.