To Leaving

A city is the crowd that makes you feel lost and insignificant. It is the finding of kindred souls in unexpected places. It is the claiming of freedom through the privilege of anonymity. It is the art and culture scene that happens in its theaters and city halls, and also in its parks and cafes. It is late nights and inebriation and long, aimless conversations. It is the rooftop of a friend's place with a beer in hand, or the quiet balcony of a dream home you moved into that you never could make your own. It is the unfinished businesses, the unsaid goodbyes, unexpressed sentiments, unvisited corners, unknown alleyways and markets that you wanted to see but probably never enough to make it happen. It is the beginnings and non-endings of uncooked could-have-beens. It is the rush hour traffic that chokes you at times, and comforts you at others, the landmarks that are remarkable only to you because you cared enough to notice, the books you've read on the commute that dissolved into the landscape to make it come alive. It is the language you never quite learnt, the regrets that lurk in the corners as you cross them, the nostalgia that you know is going to follow you, the moving-ins and moving-outs, the stability and the ennui, the wanting to belong and the realization that you finally do when it's time to leave.