Fear Of the (Un)Known

Today, from my living room window, I looked out onto a street covered in heavy, wet, white snow, and realized I couldn't identify which car was mine. Maybe that one? No. Maybe that one? Maybe...

When everything is blanketed in snow, the world is exactly as we know it, and yet, it is not at all familiar.

Streets that we have memorized are physically changed, they are altered and slightly foreign; we don't know what to expect from them anymore, when they're covered in snow. We have to approach them like we've never met before. We adjust our speed, we accommodate for ice, salt, sand, a plow's path, and - in general - we're tentative.

The familiar shapes of objects we know to exist in our environment - garbage cans, recycling bins, rocks, rakes, fences, bushes - are masked in the white cloak of winter weather. They are misshapen, faceless, their identities concealed, their hard edges bulbous, their silhouettes shapely.

A long time ago, I tried to run away from this city and everything in it; I tried to know new people, see new sights, and establish a lifestyle that allowed me to embrace the person I thought New Bedford wouldn't. Then, time passed, and I realized I was the same person regardless of my geographical location and through a series of unrelated events, I ended up here again.

What happened after my return, even I can't quite believe. I realized it wasn't just "here," it was "home."

And, it was as if I never left.

My friendships didn't skip a heartbeat. It was the same as it ever was. The same friendship it had always been - it just waited for my return.

My heart skipped a beat every time I felt increasingly at ease here, as I flawlessly fell into the patterned normalcy of a life in this city, a life in this place that I know like I know nothing else. Except maybe me. I've never felt more right, more whole. I've never felt more safe.

I've been back - both as the person I thought I could not be, and as a resident of the city I thought would not care - since 2003. I love it here, and I love what being here means to me and the people I care for. And I wouldn't want to change that.

However, lately, I find myself longing for the days during which something was unfamiliar; when I was unfamiliar. Not to myself, but to the people I existed amongst.

I've been listening to a lot of random, unfamiliar music lately; I catch myself longing for the feeling of recognizing something old in something new. A lyric, a beat, a voice, a feeling of a chorus when it hits me; like deja vu, a place where I've never been, but it is familiar nonetheless.

I've been thinking a lot about moving lately; moving away from these worn-in paths that lead to worn-out bar stools and heading toward uncharted territory, following the road less traveled toward unmapped spaces and places. Places where I can discover more about myself by discovering something more about the road that rises up to meet me and the people on either side.

So, when that happens, and I think about moving, I consider it. I consider leaving this all behind.

And, then, just like this morning, when I looked out onto a snow-covered street and tried to find my little green Subaru amidst piles of heavy white snow, I panic.

The thing about the snow is... it melts. And then, after it melts, everything is exactly as it was before the storm. But, before it melted, for a brief time, I got to see the world as an altered and barely recognizable version of itself; the world, pure and untouched and amorphous.

My life here needs a white winter blanket every once in a while, and maybe I'll travel for brief periods and seek it's affect elsewhere until that no longer will suffice; until what I have to do is crawl under the blanket, put my head down, and see what life is like when all the shapes have changed and nothing is as it seems.