Abstract Thoughts on Staying

I have a difficult time articulating what it feels like to stay when what I know best is leaving.

Because leaving has always been easy for me. Closing the door on relationships that no longer set my soul on fire, boarding planes when I’m scared to linger, saying goodbye to the pieces of me that have served their purpose.

If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s leaving.

At the top of my list of fears, two points down from ladybugsand one above being left alone in the company of the elderly, lives the idea of stagnancy.

The idea of standing still – being suspended in a space between moving forward or moving back.

Because, thrown like confetti among photos of my dog and screen captures of quotes is a vast collection of sunsets I want to see, oceans I want to swim in, and streets I want to dance along accompanied by the faint taste of Chianti on my tongue.

To stay is to turn my back on those photo-filtered dreams.

Because somewhere along the line I began to equate the idea of staying to the abandonment of adventure.

Leaving always occurred for me as a blank slate.

A way of starting over when things got difficult.

A new apartment where the ghosts of past loves didn’t dare linger in the doorway.

New friends who looked on enthusiastically while I’d relay tired anecdotes of the many lives I’d lived.

New bars to rest my glass on, trails to lay my feet on, and sunrises to feast my eyes on.

But the problem with leaving is that leaving is lonely.

Leaving is evicting the ghosts of past loves, saying goodbye to the friends who know my stories as if they were their own, and wandering away from the bars, trails, and sunrises that have let me seek solace in them when nowhere else felt safe enough.

Leaving is avoiding growth.

Staying is the not the death of adventure, but rather the separation of church and state.

Staying is not to be confused with standing still.

It is not being locked in a space – suspended between moving forwards and back.

Staying is the establishment of home.

Staying is finding the place you want to rest your head after adventure knocks the wind out of you.

Staying is finding walls to hang your achievements from so you no longer have to carry torn

Polaroid’s in your wallet or a constant charge on your phone.

Staying does not demand monogamy.

Staying is not something to fear but rather something to revel in.

Something to commend yourself for because staying is not, nor will it ever be, the easiest option.

As someone who runs, feet pounding pavement, every time things get dark – staying has always made me think of stagnancy when it should make me think of determination.

It should make me think of commitment.

Integrity.

Vulnerability.

All the things I’ve thought leaving embodied were really held tight by the concept of staying. Building a life.

Commitment to the idea of growth. Integrity in the face of adversity. Being vulnerable to the idea that things might not go as planned.

Staying does not mean you cannot go. It only means that you have something to come back to.