Deckard - What if I go north? Would you come after me? Would you?

For the past two years I've called home places that are very very far away and different from what I called home.
The streets of New York, Buenos Aires, Madrid and other temporary destinations have served as a place of refuge, solace and sanctuary. And now, coming back to the place I called home for 28 years -Bogotá-, I no longer feel welcome here.
When do we stop belonging to a place?
When do the spaces that we believed to be ours, so familiar and welcoming, become so cold, and unbearable, and unforgiving?

I feel like I have outgrown this city, and the city has punished me for leaving her. And I too, have changed too much for her own sake. I'm still too restless, and too curious for my own good. But I'm also calmer, and I tend to listen more and talk less. I still speak too much shit and say things I regret after 5 minutes, and I try to change every day even if it I find it so hard. I don't want to conform anymore to just one thing. I have an irresistible urge for freedom. I'm vulnerable and brave. I'm still a shy little child but my mind took a turn for the worst, influenced by my own dark desires and twisted corners of my mind.
I turn 30 in less than a month, and yet I still feel like a child in oh so many ways, even though the lines that circle my eyes tell a different tale.

Today, as I walked around downtown, I was surrounded by people and cars and sounds. All of this, six months ago, would have driven me to the point of tears. Insanity. Now, it's as if I was just drifting through and nothing affected me. Has the impossible happened? Have I severed all ties with my homeland? No. Not all-here there be mountains. Here there are things, sights and sounds that I will never find anywhere else. But that isn't enough to make me stay. I found a crack in a door to the world, and I opened it. I chose to go north.

'We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.' W. Somerset Maugham.
There are three pictures of myself I have in my minds' eye. The first is of me, aged 4. I have bangs, jet black hair and eyes filled with mischief and playfulness. What did I think then? How was I before? I don't remember I look at that person looking back at me, and I don't see myself. I don't recognize her. I was a child, but that is not who I grew up to be.

Second picture is when I turned 25. My hair was longer, my body mutated and I felt different. I took that picture because I needed proof that I had changed-that the ugly duckling was no longer looking at me in the mirror and that I could be attractive, alluring. As if I needed to be that piece of meat, those eyes. See what you're missing. I see her, and people say how good I looked then, and compliment my looks. But then again, that isn't me. I was so fucking scared of my own sexuality and needs that I went looking for emotionally unavailable guys. Older men. People already in a relationship. Why? That wasn't me. I was too scared to show that I was different. Or that I needed something I couldn't yet have. I see her, but I don't see me.

The third picture hasn't been taken yet. Maybe it will come in a day or ten years, in a beach or walking down a different set of streets. Maybe I'll speak another language by the time that picture is taken and will have changed my looks so much that I will not recognize myself. But she will look at me, and I'll see that that woman as me. That no matter where I am, or what city has changed me, I will be me. I have broken a shell, and let out a ghost.

It took me 30 years to feel at peace with a lot of things. Yes, I am short and fat and ugly. And critical. And full of flaws, and sometimes clingy. Demanding. Dependent. I have a violent side. I have a temper. I get carried away and daydream too much and can get scared of stupid things. I can do irrational stuff. I let my body control my choices.

But then again, I grew up. I made choices that forced me out of my zone and faced the world alone. And survived. I'm not scared of falling in love and out of it. I tested myself and can walk with my head high. I wear clothes that show my body and keep my skin intact. I'll look the world in the eye and laugh. Yes, I am crazy. I have always been, and I always will be.