finding space in the margins.

The past few months have been a busy time for me. I found myself running away to the other side of the world in an attempt to find myself quietly again. An excuse to step away. An excuse to visit family. All of this was done in an attempt to perhaps stop living within the margins of the page. Now that I am back, I find myself trying to not make the same mistakes I did before I left.

Living extent outside the margins has always been done out of necessity rather than choice. A habit done out of survival rather than desire. The air you find yourself gasping for, when the water fills the room, or when the doors close in. The window you open, when the heat gets a little too much to bear. The margins have always personified the extension of how much I run myself thin, thin beyond what I intend. Before I know it, one of two things occur. I retract or I snap. I am lucky that this time round, my vacation was timely enough that it was the exhale I needed. The shoe that I had been finally waiting to drop.

The scream that echoes back beyond the void.

The space I could breathe again.

Coming back has been a transition, and with the prospect of a reorganization, and a reprioritization of what matters most, it is a reminder of the discomfort and the pressing, about the joy and gratitude found in non fortuitous circumstances. It is a reminder of the decisions I promised myself I would make, instead of running away from. The choices that I would own up to, in spite of continual denial.

Like salmon swimming up a current, I know that my end in this space is near. This city was never a forever home, but perhaps in denial, I have allowed myself to forget it. As much as I love what I have created for myself, like all good things, this too must draw to a close. Perhaps now I choose, to with intention, find more space in the margins, not necessarily to breathe out of survival, but plot a course not yet travelled. The very first scribbles of what life could be, once the goodbyes have been said.