Last night

I can hear the train speeding through and I can see its lights flashing quickly across the window of this strange room. It is a cold night, much like the first. There are piles of things everywhere and I, too overwhelmed by them, decide it is better to just sort through them later--as if later was an option, as if there was a tomorrow.

Well, there is a tomorrow. But tomorrow is a different kind. Tomorrow is an blank page. Tomorrow is a new life. Or rather, tomorrow is an old life resurrecting.

But I'm not the same. The mirror tells me I'm not the same. The beat of my heart tells me I'm not the same.

Change. It was terrifying and beautifully difficult. It was worth it. It was--to the risk of sounding cliched--meant to be.

How does a changed self go back to what seems to be an unchanged old life? How does one live a life meant for one all along and then go back to...well, its prelude.

One must change the unchanged. One must disrupt momentum. One must tamper with destiny. Otherwise, one runs the risks of changing back. And I don't want to revert because I am, I think, for the first time in a very long time, myself again., even with the strangeness of new shades and lines in my face and the murmur of my heart, the trickling of love through the rough stones of the past.

A yes, my heart. My bursting heart, unhealthily enlarged by the love of those I certainly don't deserve. They say home is where the heart is, eh? That's quite a bullshit statement. How can the heart be all in one place? Does that really happen and I'm just the exception to the rule? When I moved to Texas, home was always Guadalajara. Then I moved to the UK and home was Texas. Now moving back to Texas I crave my home, Durham.

But it's more than just a tripartite heart problem. People tell me it's a good thing that I am leaving now when so many others have left, so that I don't have to face a life in Durham without them being around. This is true, I suppose. Is that enough, cherishing the good times and going back to great memories as solace in the times to come? That will have to do, I suppose.

The breakage, however, is inevitable. Because my heart's in Durham. My heart's in New Delhi, in Germany, somewhere in Flanders. My heart's in Keele. In Texas. In Guadalajara.

'wherever you are is my home—my only home'. -- Jane Eyre
 
What a year of marvels. What a year of pains. How my heart breaks and what a blessing it is to have it broken by all of you who I have the privilege of loving. God is so good.