I’m starting to believe that books may offer us a way to shape our reality. In one week, I’ll be leaving for New Mexico to go to White Sands and sit in the desert to see what might be waiting for me there.
My favorite book is The Alchemist.
I’ll also be driving, stopping in different cities to hopefully land somewhere that feels like home.
My second favorite book is On the Road.
But, this newsletter won’t be about those books. This will be an ode to my first favorite book, Paper Towns.
I read the book back in 2012, and reread it multiple times after. I was basically a John Green superfan. I even gave Paper Towns to my boyfriend at the time with annotations I made throughout. I left him notes in the pages to uncover, just like the main character finding strings left from the girl he was looking for.
The quote that specifically shaped my reality?
It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.
-Paper Towns
At the time, I was carrying around this guilt because I felt nothing when I thought about leaving my hometown. I had always known that I wasn’t meant to stay; that I would be going anywhere but there. It felt like leaving was my true talent.
When I read that quote, I realized that some of us are put here to leave.
The thing about leaving that always enchanted me was the release of a consistent future. It was a direct step into the unknown. How could you plan a future in a place you haven’t even gotten to yet? While everyone was drafting their 5-year plans, I was asking myself, “am I ready to leave yet?”
And I’m not apathetic. In the moment, it feels like the place, the job, the friendships, are all the most important experiences of my life. They feel like “this is it. This is what I was waiting for,” at the time. And I truly cherish them, but then the wave of change rolls in and I am cleansed of attachments, looking ahead to the next time to leave. I’m not sure if it’s a sensation of looking for the next place to go that gets me to leave, or a sensation of needing to leave whatever place I’m in. I don’t know what thought comes first. I don’t know if it’s the going somewhere new or leaving something behind that brings me to my next destination.
My only fear was that I would be leaving, escaping, constantly for the rest of my life.
I feared that once you start, the leaving is not the hardest part; it’s knowing when to stop.
I feared that was my future. To me, futures are just consistent patterns we fall into. What if my consistent pattern was leaving? What future would that create?
Did you know that for pretty much the entire history of the human species, the average life span was less than thirty years? You could count on ten years or so of real adulthood, right? There was no planning for retirement, There was no planning for a career. There was no planning. No time for plannning. No time for a future. But then the life spans started getting longer, and people started having more and more future. And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future--you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college.
-Paper Towns
And it’s a Catch-22 really. When I’m in a place, the future begins; the patterns solidify. I find myself building that new self around new patterns to build a new future. Until one day, I need to blow that future to the ground. So leaving feels like the best way to get back to the present. And then I go somewhere else and create a new set of patterns and futures. So leaving is my future while also being the active rebellion against our obsession with future.
And now I come to the existential portion of my experience.
Is leaving wrong? Is going from city to city, new patterns to new patterns, wrong? Are we meant to put our roots firmly into one place and build entire futures around it?
Part of me knows that there is no wrong. And another part carries a burden that I’m constantly letting the people down that want to build those futures with me.
And here I am, my 10th time in the experience of leaving, realizing that up until this moment, I had never given my leaving a second thought. I’ve never had the feeling of doubt before leaving or grief of what I may leave behind, or maybe I did and the memory always fades once I leave.
But, maybe not. This time feels different. I’m sad.
Even if I know it’s time to leave, something in me aches.
Maybe that was the feeling I had been searching for through all the other leavings. The sadness that I am actually leaving behind something worth staying for.
I can always feel when there is something waiting for me somewhere else. This might be the first time I feel there might be something that I missed right here.
I came back to heal. I came back to release the past and shed my escapist tendencies. I don’t want to run away anymore to try to find my peace. I want to leave when it feels right and feels good, not because I’m running.
Leaving feels good and pure only when you leave something important, something that mattered to you. Pulling life out by the roots. But you can't do that until your life has grown roots.
-Paper Towns
So I’m pulling my roots up, roots that I’m not so sure I had planted until very recently. It seems up until this moment I was always carrying my roots high above the ground, trying to tether them to the clouds out of fear of being stuck in a place I didn’t feel love.
There’s this idea that we experience a surge of self-doubt right before a big leap. Maybe all those other times I left, it wasn’t a big leap because it was always what I had planned. I never let myself desire to stay, so I never took big leaps, just paths towards what I thought could be freedom.
In having these doubts, sadness, grief, I know it’s the right choice. I know there is something out there, the quest that I must travel, no matter how much I care for what I have in the place I’m leaving. The sadness makes the journey all the more worth it.
I’m going to switch to another John Green book for the last two quotes, so please don’t shoot me.
The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.
-Looking for Alaska
The labyrinth is what I have spent the last two years (but if I’m being honest with myself more like 6), figuring out. Trying to understand how to escape my own labyrinth to reach a place where I move from love rather than fear. Releasing myself from my own hell loop.
And I think having these feelings before I leave, instead of just pushing forward like I used to do, is a sign that I have escaped the hell loop. At least one or two of them.
By the way. This is a sneak peek of one of the designs for the next merch series. Coming out in two weeks! Yay
The only lasting remedy for a hell loop, I have found, is forgiveness. Forgiving yourself, the people involved, time itself. I forgive time because I think we blame timing for a lot of our suffering. As if time were the being controlling our experiences. So make sure to forgive time when moving through a hell loop.
Thomas Edison's last words were "It's very beautiful over there". I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.
-Looking for Alaska
As sad as this may have all sounded, I truly am hopeful for the experiences to come. I am a believer that through the suffering we discover what is worth living for. I am also a believer we can shift who we are at any moment.
This time, the leaving is not coming from my desire to escape. It is not coming from my fear. It is coming from my hope. A hope that leaving is not my default. Leaving is not my pattern.
I just am finally traveling to the potential of what is out there, instead of leaving the places whose memories I am trying to rid myself of.
The town was paper, but the memories were not.
-Paper Towns
I lied. I had to end with this quote.
Everything I’ve experienced here. Every moment that I wanted to run from. Every fear I had to face. And every memory I created along the way. It took me up until this moment, but I know now that it was all worth it.
Subtle Activation
What hell loop are you currently in? Can you boil it down to one theme? How has that theme played out in your life?
Where might forgiveness serve you? What might release if you offer yourself the chance to forgive?
More CITF
As mentioned, that is a sneak preview of the Hell Loop merch series coming in two weeks! Subscribers will get exclusive access next week so stay tuned :)
Books I recommend: https://bookshop.org/shop/talularose
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