I keep catching myself whispering the secret-not-so-secret mantra, “I wish I could just go home to San Francisco.” I miss my friends, my house, my routines, I miss my old life and I want it back. But spoiler alert, its not possible, there is no going back. After-all, what would going back really look like? My husband’s job is here now, am I going to go back without him? Or go back with both of us unemployed? In either case, is it really going back to the life I had before? My house is sold, my car sold, my position at my old job filled, none of those are there for me to go back to. And even my friends, after these few weeks, do they still have our weekly yoga time held on their calendar, that Thursday lunch spot free? All I remember San Francisco to be, its moment had come and gone, arisen and ceased, no mantra can wish away the impermanence.
But me, I am in constant denial. I am always trying to repeat the past, recreate those ‘perfect’ moments, make my memories manifest again. I once ate the best pizza in the world and kept going back to the same restaurant again and again hoping to recreate it, but each time it was worse than the first. Burberry had the perfect coat one season, each season after I kept going back, hoping to find one like it, but the cuts, they changed. I wore that outfit one time and it was adorable, but I put it on again and I was too fat/too pale/ it was too cold/inappropriate for the occasion/ out of season/out of style.
And when I am in the moment, enjoying something, a little part of my mind is scheming, saying, “how can I get this again?” If I come back to this hotel, can I get the same room? If I come back to this restaurant, can I get the same dessert? Can I buy extra cans of this tomato so I have more later? Can I buy extra ‘back-up’ versions of the same purse, so when the original is beaten-up I still have another one left?
I try so hard, put in so much effort, and then suffer so much disappointment because its always a fail. I can never quite seem to get back the past. Still I try. Still I hope. And that trying, hoping, grasping, it moves me, drives me, pushes me forward. But it can’t ever return me to where I have been.
Present Day Note: Some of you many know that I did, sorta, in someways go back…about a year after my move I was offered a consulting gig back with my former SF employer that has me spending a good bit of time back out in San Francisco. I jumped at the chance — I missed SF, my friends, my life and this was a way I could at least spend sometime with the people and place I loved, even if it meant spending that time on the road, away from my husband, away from my house and bed and typical routine. I jumped because I thought it would fill a hole in my heart.
So did it? Well, sorta…with the new work situation, my life changed, again. In many ways I find it more satisfying, I feel less lost, more grounded by finding a foot back in my old life and away from NY. But the thing is, the more time I spend out in SF, the more I realize it is not my old life, it is something new altogether. The truth is even more clear than when I wrote this original blog that you really can’t go back. The city has changed, I have changed, my life and circumstances all have changed.
In addition, there is a heavy cost –the plane rides are painful, the weeks away from Eric even more so. The feeling of never being grounded, living out of suitcases, messed-up sleep cycles and this constant fear I am going to forget to do something important are so profoundly stressful. This is the price I pay, this is my suffering, to feed my desire; my desire for a shadow of my former life, for a glimmer of reinforcement of who I think I am.