Three Time Zones
August 12, 2025
So fly on, ride through
Maybe one day I'll fly next to you
It’s starting to hit, that in one week, my feet will touch ground in a place three time zones away from where I am now. I am probably carrying a rock from the west coast to finally pay back a friend for a bet I lost against him two years ago. I don’t even remember what the bet was—most definitely something silly from the class we taught together—and that scares me a little. How could I have forgotten?
I am probably carrying two large suitcases, moving three month’s worth of what was home to me to this new home I’m calling East Campus. I definitely look hilariously silly, given I don’t really do sports, yet I must carry all this heavy baggage with me. I begin to wonder if home is rooted in a physical place. I quickly decide it is not.
Most of all, I carry the fear, the burden, the “I don’t even know what to call it at this point”—mulitated remains of the past I must let go to set myself free. It’s a cruel paradox. I know I will do this at some point, but when? I flash back again to a friend I probably lost for life because of my sharp tongue, all because I was fighting for everyone I love. This year, I learned that it turns out
But in two years… maybe I will have forgotten.
Right now, I claim there is no way I will. There is so much love I have tried to give out, housed in the hearts of the receivers. And I realize that’s what home is to me: all the people I loved. I carry a little of everyone I’ve met for at least some time, and maybe I still carry some of it now. Even the people who I feel like have gravely wronged me—I still love them for the time they’ve spent in my life and for the lessons they’ve taught me.
Of course I am also equally, if not more, terrified. Out of sight, out of mind: I am about to lose a lot of people, not out of choice, but out of human limitations. I felt this way at RISE, but that camp only lasted six weeks. Some of these people I’m about to move away from grew up with me, maybe at a distance, but grew up with me nonetheless.
I can’t help feeling helpless and frustrated, too. Damn it. This would be so much easier if I just didn’t care, if I just picked up everything I could and marched forward in blindness, embracing all the uncertainty that is to come. But that doesn’t sound true to me. It sounds too selfish for it to be me. Of course… of course I do care, even if the pain ends up ricocheting into my face. I don’t think the pain of leaving will ever go away, or that I will move on. I will still think of the silly drama at our school, wondering if the people there will be able to make amends with each other. I will still think about the existential suffering I caused with my miscalculation, wondering if I will ever get another window to explain myself. I will still get hit with waves of nostalgia even though I insist I have a terrible memory.
I will just learn how to live with it.
In spaces of unfamiliarity and uncertainty, I find myself returning to numbers. I count down the dinners I have left with my family before I leave. I plot out the number of hours I will be spending with my friends, trying to optimize this schedule to spend as much time with people as possible. I track the number of yards I can swim knowing the swimming test I will be thrusting myself into in a week.
I am afraid of my vulnerability. I try to find something concrete in the place of crumbling walls and ticking clocks, but this has a cost as well. It all leads back to the reminder I have a sharp tongue. I’ve seen what happens when one tries to simplify chaotic nuances. I hope to explain this later, to put my heart on a silver plate.
One minute I held the key,
Next the walls were closed on me,
And I discovered that my castles stand,
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand.
But for now, my time here is done.
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
That is all, consider subscribing or