Om ingenting. Eller någonting.

I find that, when disappointed with wherever I am in the present and whatever it is that I’m doing there’s always this sense that there was another, better time.  This mythical place and historical moment, I’ve discovered, lives largely in my head.  Funnily enough, it’s the place I imagine myself being in the future just as much as it’s the place I lament no longer being.  I don’t think I’ve ever been there.  I thought for a while it was in a European capital, now I imagine it to be New York; in bleaker moments when far from home, it was my very own Midwestern hometown.  In moments of middling ambition, I find myself constructing my ideal life in a regional hub like Chicago.

In truth, in every single one of these places, I am convinced that I will end up like some tragic Greek character.  You know, one of those the gods curse by putting something just out of reach–you’re made to stand in a stream and overwhelmed with a terrible thirst that you can’t sate because when you lean down by the stream the water recedes.  I’m a 21st century Tantalus.  The moment just before I touch down in or drive up to my dream city, it disappears and I’m left with a kind of hollow, tricked feeling.

Since I’ve been “home”, I’ve found this to be terribly true.  When living in the Middle East, I often thought about all of the opportunities I’d have to rekindle old friendships, shore up family relationships, visit old favorite haunts (admittedly, there are very few around here), and try new things.  Though this sort of wholesome activity is part of my life these days, it’s not the kind of 24-hour homey heartwarming goodness-fest I imagined it would be.  I  find myself at home or online more often than I’d care to.  Most of that time is spent looking for jobs in Mytholopolis.  I doubt I’ll ever learn.