One Year


It’s been one year since we left at a golden hour in Boston, and arrived at another on the other side of the ocean. I know exactly what I wore that morning to hug my mother and ten hours later in the same cotton I bought peaches many, many miles away from her.
Then the year goes by slowly, quickly, thoroughly. I form an accent and I learn that there are a whole lot of places and things to see. I am fed so much happiness in Warsaw that my stomach explodes and it showers down on everyone around me. And then, there’s something named grief that occurs at the end. Defined as “deep sorrow, especially that caused by someone's death,” the death is an adored home. 
At first, coming back provided relaxation. Smiling because I was in my own bed and I could see the ocean in summer light and familiar faces around the block again. I had breathing room in my room. The world was just as I had left it. But, soon enough, I found myself subconsciously making up excuses to buy subway tickets and walk on busy, noisy city streets instead of on silent, spacious suburban sidewalks. Soon enough I felt like I needed to pack again. Stress built up inside me that yelled it was time to pull the suitcase out from under my bed again, throw in the toothbrush again, and check for my passport, again. I wasn’t sure what it was. Sadness, sure, but maybe also habit. 
Then it contorted into a feeling of claustrophobia. So naturally, I used something that required space for comfort. To push away or rather confront the feeling, depending on how you view it, I used rhythm between my feet, legs, lungs, and mind to cope. Although this burned calories, it did not burn memories. It surely lit things on fire, but not in the way I had hoped. A lot of illuminating montages from Warsaw. Laughing to tears.Walking through sludge as snowflakes fog my vision of the trees before me. Fields from a humming bus. Berries in a porcelain bowl on the kitchen counter. Fluffy clouds and red roofs beyond my bedroom window. Everything came back without warning. My memory had no respect for my mind’s feelings, nor my body’s stability. 
I tried to walk down to the ocean, an emblem of my youth in this country, something that always leaves me filled with gratitude for my life here. The images just intensified. I stood on a ledge overlooking waves reflecting the dreamy sky in its pink foam, but I still watched things thousands miles away more clearly.

The world keeps spinning, year after year. That is the moral. Tears and laughs come from different things, year after year. First from fear, now from knowing. Life goes on, despite how much you change, whether you like it or not. It’s been one good year. 

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