Destination Anywhere. East or West, I don’t care.
May 28, 2019
Journal Entry
I wake up in darkest night, smacked hard with the knowing I am moving back. I’m leaving Louisville. The Louisville Love Story is coming to a close. It’s over, actually. This has been coming for a time. I saw it. I didn’t want to, but I always had the knowing it would come.
I am bereft. Bereft doesn’t even cover it. Laid out flat with resignation. Acceptance. Defeat? Not really. Sadness, tears, those that come in the anticipation of hard, predictable, but unwanted transitions.
Many people move to be with aging parents. It is not a new thing. Many people spend a season in a particular place. I have done it many many times for work. Portland, Ohio, Maryland, South Carolina, California, Hawaii. It is not so unusual to move to a new place for a time, and then to move on. Change is the only constant. It is unlikely you sit in your home, look around you, and know for certain this is the last place you will live. It is, in fact, very rare. You can think that, but the truth of life will inevitably take you elsewhere.
Wherever you go, there you are. You still have all that learning and growing and that eternal becoming ahead. Stretched out before you. An unknown future sure to include great suffering but also unimaginable joy. Nothing about that is changed by place.
What ties me to Louisville? Jeff. Who am I kidding. It was always Jeff. That motherfucker. That random unexpected unwanted person who invaded my life and my mind and everything else about me. That wholly unremarkable man whom I loved more than I’ve ever loved. What a fucked up thing that all was. A fiasco. The thing that wasn’t supposed to happen that I’m certain I’ll cherish all my days, and longer even than that. I would never have become this, I would never have learned the things I learned from any other person any other way. It had to be Jeff. It had to happen that way. As fucked up and as totally flat out sinful selfish wrong it was, it was inevitable. Regrets are legion. But I doubt if I had the choice I would have walked it out any other way. But I will never know. You can’t go back.
I am apprehension. How many hundreds of times have I told myself I don’t want to move back to Washington? So many times. I’ve pounded it into my inner being so hard it feels defeat to succumb. I hate the weather. Despise it. I hate my history. I want fresh. I have no family here except mom. My brother and I are still on tenuous ground. Although some reconciliation has occurred. Most unexpectedly. Still not sure how to frame all of that.
I am needed here. That is not a bad thing. It is not a bad thing to live not only for self, but to live a season for others. Married people do it. Parents do it. I just have never had to do it. My only responsibility, my only allegiance has been to me. That’s not a bad thing. It wasn’t my choice per se, it certainly wasn’t how I saw my life back then, when I had all of that living ahead. But that’s how it played out. Now, things have changed. Yet I know I’m not choosing this life out of obligation. It’s not some act of martyrdom.
I can be successful anywhere I wish, truly, if I wish. I can write anywhere. My stories are not dependent on my living in Louisville. My stories are not dependent on any single place or time. This is my story, this is a new part of my story. This is always my story. Everywhere I am, every moment, this is my story. It is writing itself out here. Right here. In Centralia Fucking Washington. As opposed to Louisville. Because Louisville is Not a Destination. How many times have I arrogantly claimed that?
So do I love Louisville? Yes, most surely that is part of it. But mostly, I loved in Louisville. Loved so hard so intense so consuming I didn’t think I’d survive the being in it or the ending of it. Yet I did. And I am better in spite of it. I am transformed because of it. At first I thought I had Jeff to thank. Then I felt I had Louisville to thank. But truly, I have me to thank. And God. Mostly God. He’s my reason for waking, for rising, for fighting to live.
I Persevere because God is in me. No other reason, certainly no other explanation. And in spite of it all, in spite of our repeated resistance to what change the future is sure to deliver, life goes on.
God takes care of single women.
Said to the man at the railroad station
“I want a ticket, just for one”
He said, “Well, if you insist
Where you wanna go, Miss?”
Oh, destination anywhere
East or west, I don’t care
You see my baby don’t love me no more
This old world ain’t got no back door
He looked at me with a funny face and said
“Are you sure you wanna go just anyplace?”
I said, “If you ever loved someone, the way I loved that man
Surely mister ticket agent, you should understand”
Destination anywhere
East or west, I don’t care
You see my baby don’t want me no more
This old world ain’t got no back door
’Cause every day, it would swing both ways
And we’d go on back to happy yesterdays
When I loved him tenderly
And all he needed was me
As I stepped through the window of the train
I thought, I heard my baby call my name
But it was just the conductor saying
“Which stop would you prefer?”
Oh, destination anywhere
East or west, I don’t care
You see my baby don’t love me no more
And this old world ain’t got no back door
Destination anywhere
East or west, I don’t care
Destination anywhere
East or west, I don’t care
Destination anywhere
East or west, I don’t care
Destination anywhere
East or west, I don’t care
Destination, destination anywhere
East or west, I just don’t care
Destination anywhere
East or west, I don’t care
Songwriters: Ashford Nickolas / Simpson Valerie
