greener grass

The sun has come out and I'm listening to "Left and Leaving" by the Weakerthans. It's making me melancholy, like something is about to change and I really need to pay attention to what's going on around me or I'm going to miss out on something.

This is silly, of course. It's inevitable things are going to change, and quickly. In a week I'll (hopefully) be done my degree and will be faced with nothing but change. Still, the impending change feels more geographical and that freaks me out a little.

I saw a posting for a decent entry job at the library of my alma mater. For a minute I contemplated applying to it and my stomach did somersaults, an uneasiness that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Don't get me wrong; I mean, I really liked living in Edmonton for my degree, largely because I made fantastic friends there and got in with the music scene with some success. There are still a handful of friends living there, yet I know the city is different and that's probably what worries me. Or maybe it's that I finally feel established here and leaving right now feels overwhelming and impossible.

For a while I had convinced myself that three years was enough time to be anywhere. In my third year of university I desperately wanted to drop out and move anywhere else, but instead took a trip to Chicago, New York and Baltimore for a month and had a reasonably unhealthy long distance infatuation following that. The nagging will to bolt was squelched, though temporarily. In Japan I was good and crazy at the end of three years and it wasn't hard to move back home and recuperate, even though it took almost a full year-and-a-half to feel relatively normal again. Three years into this last stay in Vancouver I thought it was time to look elsewhere for a new start, looking to move to London, ON for school, but then decided it would be more affordable to go to school here.

The underlying want to leave is still there. I just don't know where it is I think I'm going. That whole George Peppard "no matter where you run, you just wind up running into yourself" spiel is likely why I'm having second thoughts. I don't know why I feel like I always have to leave.

I remember being about 3, at the height of my cute blondness, and trying to hide under my blanket in the middle of my parents' party after I'd already been put to bed. I was certain no one would notice me there because I couldn't see anyone, but knew I wanted to be in the middle of the action. When I got sent back to my bed I was disappointed because I knew I was missing out on something fun.

It annoys me that I'm still trying to hide under my blanket at the party, trying to find something better. At what point is what I've got enough?