U2, the trip and everything else...

Notes from the trip

“It hasn't finally clicked in that this is happening. Still stuck in that one moment when the escape seems inphantomable, when the hopelessness of my confinement in my own condition is all that i will get-and yet, here i am, almost halfway done with the journey, and all i can do is count hours, and hope for the best, perhaps pray for the best, whatever the best is...”

It's been a while- seems like forever, and I cannot fully grasp what is happening, And once again, I'm traveling alone, and I find myself in random locations, surrounded with people as strange as they can be, and I am starting to recall how much I hate airports and traveling alone and I literally count every hour until this whole nightmare is over and I am finally home…

The whole trip is in a haze. Vaguely I remember the uncomfortable ride to Orlando, tension building up between us as he drove silently, occasionally giving me a critical remark or another,,, Tension that wouldn't let go even when I was up in the air, all the way until I landed in JFK- dirty, crowded, depressing… The moment I stepped out I knew I was on my own- I could have chosen to step out of the airport and lose myself in the city- New York, the place I fell in love with only a few months back, the place I still dream I'll be able to live in who knows what distant future- and yet, I knew I had to go home, not even New York with all its temptations could keep me back- and here I was, loaded with a ton of luggage, running around in circles, trying to find some stupid terminal 3- yes, the airport was as depressing as it could be- and yet I entertained myself by talking on the phone- it helped to kill some time as I waited for Aeroflot to finally start checking in the luggage. The crowd around me was even more depressing- Russians from New York or who knows where, flying into Moscow. The only good thing left from New York was the guy with dreadlocks who was flying to India- although I never got a chance to talk to him… The flight itself bad- I was desperate for sleep and yet all I could do was curl in my seat and listen to music- U2 again and pray for a safe landing…

“And I'm trying to figure out how to spend the next 20 or so hours without going completely insane over the fact that this is finally happening. I try to imagine what it will be like, and yet, i know there is no use doing something like this, the imaginary never matches the real, and yet, all i want is to open my eyes and see mount Ararat again, all i want is to walk along Sayat-Nova avenue, to breathe the cool spring air, to listen to the Yerevan sounds, and watch the streets, and stream of lights, in my city of lights...

I wish i could sleep. I really do want to sleep, or perhaps i could try and make a list of hundred and one things that went wrong with my relationship during these last 2 years... Or hundred and one things on why life is so beautiful and getting better as i slowly progress into my recovery. Or hundred and one reasons why i should stay in armenia, although i guess that's too dangerous an issue to speculate over...

And again i listen to U2, i've been listening to U2 for the last two months, my freedom songs, the songs of hope and my liberation, the songs of past and a brand new, almost impossible future. Whatever that future might hold, it's the freedom that makes it so attractive, the freedom that will perhaps be my own salvation...


I listen to u2 and entertain all possibilities, and yet this time i do not want to force any decision upon myself. I will let it happen, i will let it fall upon me rather than force fed it to myself and him... although there's a lot at stake, i think i will put my inner peace and well being first this time and see how it goes.

I wish i could stay at home longer. i wish... i really wish i could just stay there... and not return. i really wish...”

Russian Airlines sucks, but that was pretty much expected. At times i think that it really is worth it to spend some extra for comfort and everything else. Moscow, and the airport nightmare started all over again, although the worst part was yet to come- by the time I stepped out of the terminal I was so tired and grateful for my uncle to be there to meet me that I was about to collapse in his arms- and yet, obediently I let him walk me to his car, although the last thing I wanted to do was talk, I did find some energy to make a quite a decent conversation and even joke. Six hours, a glimpse of Moscow- the city was too bizarre or maybe the time interval too short, and me way too tired to form any definite impression about the place. But at least I can say that I've seen the Red Square if that makes any difference at all. Flying out of Moscow was the worst- luggage, passport control- and I completely panicked and broke down for I could already sense trouble coming towards my way- trouble I was not able to deal with yet- too tired, too ravaged, the only thing on my mind being to finally get home.

Stepped off the plane into the night, all my luggage safe and in one piece thank god- walked out of the gate and saw my mother and my brother- and again, I could help the tears, and I cried like I had never cried before with the realization how much I had missed them in these past two years and how much I needed to be with them at that very moment. Calmed down while waiting for the taxi- and we talked, as if nothing had ever happened, as if it was only yesterday that I had left, and it gave me a very strange feeling of dislocation as if it was not only the space that I crossed, but time as well, and here I was, back in two years, at the exact spot that I was right before I left.

Our apartment at first sight looked more shabby than I remembered, not much had changed and yet it looked like the apartment itself had aged, whereas my mother and my brother looked exactly as I remembered, A surreal feeling- sitting in the living room, drinking tea and talking- and I kept thinking about the place that I lived the last few months, and couldn't help but compare. The strangest thing was going to sleep- I thought of the bed, my bed, and our bed- the white bedroom and everything else, and it gave me a painful pang in the stomach, and a creepy feeling that I would never see those things again….

The last i wrote on the trip...

“And I never really got to say goodbye to Gainesville, anyway, despite the fact that i kept changing my mind- or rather situation kept changing- every other day, i still think that most likely than not i will be coming back, i have no choice but do so, and how much i hate situations like this, when even though you know you're doing the only possibly right thing, in the end you will end up regretting about your choice bitterly, blaming your fate and the one single life that you've given, and dream about another life of a different choice under different circumstances...what can one do in situation like this? I really wonder and admire those who are able to make a decision and stick with it till the very end, without experiencing any feeling of remorse.

I no longer want to live regretting...”

*Interlude

To leave, in such a state of mind, the irony and fucked-upness of the whole situation, who would’ve though... i thought i was the victim here, and yet, i guess, we both are the victims of some cosmic fucked up joke that’s being played on us. Maybe somehow this is a sign for us to wake up, and open our eyes... although whatever that cosmic message might be i still don’t have any interpretations. perhaps i should really consider being alone as my only option, and the more i think about it, the more attractive the whole thing seems, and yet at the same time i think about him, after i’ve left, him, devastated, lost, hurt and torn into pieces, a caricature of himself, mean, spiteful, cynical, hateful... if he were to tell his story to someone at a random bar, i would be the bitch who ruined his life in that story. yes, i would be that one, the evil bitch, that was the end of him.... But at the same time, is it worth ruining my own life for the sake of his happiness? not even happiness, for if we go back to the old ways, it’s going to be yet another nightmare that neither one of us deserves. So tis there possibly an answer, a kind of solution that would be the least hurtful for both of us?

And it's happening again...

Reoccuring
“Sometimes all you want is a place you could go to and
feel safely hidden and lost. An unfamiliar place in a foreign city, a street without a name, you walk into a bar you’ve never been to, order a drink you will not drink… Talk to yet another stranger, smile a disappointed smile, give a shrug, and walk out, sober, leaving only cigarette ashes behind… For you know better, you should- you’ve spoken to way too many strangers…

You walk into a building undistinguished in any way, open the
door to a room that has no personality; look at the bare
walls and a single chair in the corner. In fading daylight
coming through the stained glass you are alone. You walk
into that empty space, sit on the floor with a full pot of
coffee and smoke cigarettes one after another. Watch the
smoke curl above your head and melt in the air. Watch the
air turn blue and heavy as hours pass…

…and you’re still there, on the floor trying to recall who
you are and where you have come from. Trying to remember
what was today and what was yesterday. All those faces and places, and bits and snippets of conversations… They swirl around your head- distant echoes of forgotten voices, past instants flashing before your eyes… here you are at sixteen, here you are at twenty… now you no longer know your age, it’s been too long since you stopped to ask. Scenes from the past flashing before your eyes, scenes that seem to belong to someone else’s life, you’re merely an observer with indifferent eyes, watching a poorly cast movie with badly matched characters. You go through each one of those scenes, one by one dismissing them all, letting them roll into the dark void of oblivion, without experiencing any regret. Hardly feeling a thing. What a waste…

Nothing remains. Your mind is yet another space, bare and empty, uninhabited- there is nothing left to remember. Nothing to evoke even a slight resemblance of what you once used to call an emotion. There are no more thoughts, none of the moments of past holding you
back, making you want to return, no useless weight holding
you down. You could interrupt the film at any moment, leave that life as it is, unfinished, yet suggesting no logical ending. You could chose never to leave the room and no one would even notice… Leave the body behind, dissolve in the air in search of the eternity… And as
you stand staring into the huge dark eye of the unknown,
you’d know that’s where you have come from."

*

“You need to see a shrink.”
...and although I was quite surprised at his comment, I simply shook my head and told him that there was nothing in this world the shrink could possibly tell me that I didn't already know.

“You've got to figure out whether you're running from or to, you'll be just fine when you know for sure…”
...and it makes me wonder...

Notes to Self

... since i've had no time.

o When they ask me what I miss most about the States…
o Toxic wife
o Met a stranger at a bar…
o Stories.
o Does it have to get that bad before it starts getting better?
o The city
o Letters to a friend
o Comments on the blog
o Spective
o The reality
o In another life we could have something…