Esc

Sometimes we wish that life had an Escape button. One that could be pressed so that it takes away this annoying window/picture/site and that it could take us back in the comfort we had a few seconds ago.

Driven by emotion, passion, impulse, stress or fear we may have made the choice of clicking further, also because we know that the Esc button is there; if we make a mistake, if we risk, we can come back. We feel free to risk pressing it and we do many times, however what really happens is that the taste from the “annoying” picture/text/window etc remains. Maybe because that annoying view/feeling/taste was always there, but it just revealed itself again in front of us.

After a few years abroad and changing a few homes I started believing that my nature is nomadic. That I perhaps am “built” not to stay to a place for too long and that the search for a home is probably pointless. I left Greece in 2005 to explore what was outside my comfort zone and even thought I still feel “wanderlust” many times, I have found the place that I call home…and a few days ago, I read this: “It is not about finding home in a place or location, home is inside you, it is about making it possible for someone else to feel home with you”. Maybe that is the time that this nomadic feeling/wanderlust ends, isn’t it? Do we really make our loved ones feel “home” with us?

A few years ago, after a long relationship that ended, I felt that if I traveled it would help me heal. Every weekend a trip planned, a party arranged and a constant change of people/environment. And then the night would come. I don’t know about you, but I have a special relationship with night and the minutes just before I fall asleep, I come face to face with myself…that self, which that period, despite the travels, was still stuck at that place, those moments. There. No matter where I traveled to, no matter how many times I pressed the Esc buttons I was stuck there. How can someone escape from his/her own heart and mind? Pointless, isn’t it?

I have a few theories that I hold on tightly to. One of them is that the people that leave a place/a situation, they are not running towards something, they are running away from something. And sometimes this is for their survival, sometimes though I believe we should stop, pause, think and realize that if it is so…this something we are running away from will not disappear, it will stay there and will wait for us for whenever we are, until we become ready to face it.

I also think that finding ways to escape constantly shows lack of courage and lack of ability to stay and fight. And I know many of you will hate me for this, but it is my truth. Think of how many times you have left a job when things got tough, how many times you escaped from a relationship when your comfort zone was shaken, how many times you left your “home” because things were not as right. If you tried and did your best (honestly) then fair enough. But did you? Or did you prefer to press the Esc button?

One of my favorite poems of all times “Ithaka” by Constantine Cavafis, which talks about Odysseus’ trip back to Ithaka after the Troyan war, says:

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Goodnight!