Not The Same But Similar

“It’s not going to be the same,” my sweet friend Giulia wrote to me today in chat, “but it will be similar.”

Ten days before I leave Miami, sixteen days before I get on the plane to Auckland, and you’d think I’d be consumed by details, you’d think I’d be all about my lists and spreadsheets and that I’d be full of last things to do. Instead I’m getting slower and slower, quietly going about my business as if there’s no timeline or schedule: doing an errand here and there, taking a walk or two on the beach, re-reading favorite books. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and I’m working a couple of days at school next week and then I get on a plane to New York and then I go to a wedding and then I get on a plane to San Francisco and I lay on the floor and eat snacks with my friends and then I get on a plane to Auckland and go through customs and make sure not to bring any illegal apples into the country and then I get on a plane to Wellington and there I’ll be.

I feel like I never write about anything else, lately, but I’m just here to tell you once again that I wonder if it’s possible to go back to a beloved place and just let it be what it is, without overloading the memories and the expectations and the inevitable disappointment. That’s what I’m thinking about instead of how many black shirts and black pants and black shoes to pack, as I should be. “Why New Zealand?” people used to ask me, the first time I went, and I never had a good answer, other than, well, I could get a visa and it looked like a cool place from what I could tell and it just sort of seemed like a good idea at the time, ha ha, yeah but it sure is far away though. I still don’t have a great answer, more than two years later, other than I like who I was when I lived there, and it still seems like a good idea at this time.

I like who I was there, very much, but of course the intervening months since I last left Wellington have certainly left a mark or two on me, as rampant unemployment, social isolation and unexpected heartbreak will. My biggest fear aside from all that is just plain disappointment when I get there—the job doesn’t work out and I can’t find a good flat and my friends don’t have time for me and all of a sudden things aren’t as fun as I remember them being. Maybe I will never wear my tube top ever again, and hey, aren’t I getting a bit old for that thing anyway? Even though I only bought it a year ago? The awful, ordinary part is that some of those disappointments are guaranteed to occur, at least some of the time, because of course nothing is everything always. I know Wellington isn’t going to save me, isn’t going to solve all my problems—but what is it going to do, what is it going to be like this time around, and is it going to be enough to justify what feels like the endless effort to be there? I mean can you imagine? If I got there and my reaction was just “Yeah, nah.”

It all comes down to this shivering, gulpy, constant question: can I go back and can I stay. I couldn’t in Seattle, I can’t in Miami. Will Wellington be any different, will Wellington be the same?