"underground or aeroplane/doesn’t matter in the end"

No matter where I am in the world, every 3-4months I have to leave. It almost becomes a physical need....I can't take a step without wishing it was on some other street, I can't drink a cup of coffee without hating the way the sugar tastes there, I can't go to sleep without wishing I were in another bed in some other corner of the world. Pretty sure I've just driven into that wall again.

I suppose it's human nature to want to get out of a rut and discover new challenges and force oneself to experience the unexplored. If I could justify it using the "rut" argument, I would be so satisfied. But it's not that. I'm not at all unhappy here - quite the contrary, actually. I have everything that I love - a great job, my parents, my wonderful & utterly psychotic childhood friends (Tina & Gullu: Guddy, Tukai and I played Humdinger the other day...and we missed you so much!!), free evenings to connect with Trancefamily, and of course all the cricket & football access I want (this is important ok?). And yet, I want to start afresh somewhere else.

Many of my friends are graduating this year, starting new jobs, ending their time off and going back to school, etc and so the process of leaving is something that is very much on their minds. I can relate...and yet the anxiety that they are all battling is truly puzzling to me. I never get nervous about moving to a new country/city, going to a new university, starting a new job. I've had so many unpredictable things happen to me over the past few years and I've never struggled with any of the necessary changes I've had to make. I know it might sound like I'm bragging, but believe me, I'm not - I actually think it's quite bizarre and maybe even a little worrying.

Why worrying? I suppose because it suggests a huge lack of attachment to places (don't worry I'm not a misanthrope, I can get attached to people!). I've never bought a vacuum cleaner, a widescreen TV or one of those beautiful 10 foot tall lava lamps because they are things I won't be able to throw in a box and transport. God knows how many sets of clothes I've lost during the past few years because they just wouldn't fit in my suitcase. I can never really answer the question "where do you see yourself living 10 years from now" - today I'd say Bombay, two nights ago I'd say St. Lucia, a week ago during ASOT450 I would've said "wherever Markus Schulz is".

I know a lot of my fellow TCK know what I'm talking about. I suppose I still get surprised because before Uni, I had only really ever lived in Lusaka, and the process of moving to Providence, RI was the scariest thing in the world. Today, I find myself feeling completely safe and OK, no matter where I go...but never committing myself enough to look back once I leave. I don't ever "make every place my Home", I subconsciously endeavour not to. Never allowing myself to get too attached to streets and shops and bars and parks. Holding on to how experiences made me feel but never where they occurred. Forgetting faces and spaces. I don't know.

People go their whole lives imagining living in their own house. I rarely do. The idea of a rented apartment is glorious to me (except when I think about having to ship trunks of books from one destination to another *shudder*). I like knowing that there is an expiry date of every experience - it makes me want to live every minute more fully. And that's how I want to live my life as a whole I suppose - in the belief that there is no afterlife, there is no heaven or hell...every minute here is all that will ever matter.

This post was supposed to be a positive one about the immense joy that is to be found in a weightless life (can "being" ever truly be "light"? Milan Kundera hollaaaa). It was supposed to make me feel delighted that the process of leaving doesn't paralyse me. And yet I find myself oddly melancholic. I wonder if people like me will ever find a place that will capture my spirit in such a way that I will be forced to cry when the time comes to say goodbye. Some people look for that in a person; I will probably spend my entire life searching for it in a tiny corner of this vast planet....