The perils of return

Every time I return, it is so much more in my face all that I had unsuccessfully tried to escape. It feels like everything comes back in focus, crystal clear. The suffering is more potent. The reality is more stark. What 'could not be' is more gigantic. None of this is surprising knowing the depths of emotional derangement in which I was immersed during my last visit. Since finding that deep new abyss of thick, slow-moving soot that pulls one into an eternal and evolving suffering, I haven't been the same. Even after my departure last time, the insurmountable pull and the multifaceted inadequacy have plagued my days, especially my morning drives. But being here, in flesh, in real time, is powered by the perceived proximity of loss and defeat. It feels like the curtains of mist are cleared, the fog lifts and the grey clouds of sorrow which I could feel on those drives are in focus, right in front of my face. 

I know it is the association and memories that I unearthed. It is the people, the settings, the locations and how my brain connects all of those things even when there is no reasonable trend exclusive to this city. My brain feels that it is closer to the loss because it started here. Or maybe this is my attempt to save myself from total disintegration when I am not here (which is most of my life now). I may inadvertently save this misery for myself for when I visit. A sad form of one of my self-defense mechanisms. 

Would I come back here? Yes, because I have ties other than this pain. Core and integral ties. 

Would I come back here had I not had these core ties. Yes, because I am in this relationship with this loss which is laced with what 'could have been'. And that is my foolish connection to keep the pain alive because it is charged with love and passion. I let it live because despite its increasing entropy, it reminds me of a beautiful embrace that soothes the soul - right before it annihilates it into pieces. Powerless, masochist, addicted, resilient, and yes, foolish - I am all of those things. 

And yet, the question: Would I come back without having the core ties is meaningless. Because that can never happen. I was born into those core ties. So, why ask myself that question? Because it keeps me running in the loop of love and loss, pain and addiction. It keeps me connected to the love because it reminds me of the loss and vice-versa. Over and Over and Over again. In all the faces, the crazy traffic, the laughs of people drinking coffee, the bickering of people, the lights, the darkness, the end of roads, and the corners of ones where I was embraced with that love and that loss. And in so much more is that lost love. Or an idea of that lost love.

Maybe I am truly powerless. Or truly foolish. Or both. 

I am in love with a lost idea the power of which I denied for too long and now am imprisoned by it.