Love Letters from Arran : One day I’ll settle

22 Oct

A while ago, a friend described a feeling. Of what it’s like to be physically present while the rest of you strays untethered.

A feeling of life moving forward while you’re left, halfway between here and the shoreline, wondering whether life belongs back where you knew it or on newer lands divided by sea.

For her, it was a group of friends that felt like a lifeboat.

As her words painted in my mind a drifting vessel full of loved ones, something in her moved me. Legs over the side, part of her was elsewhere.

I carry pieces of each friendship in pockets. Held next to the parts of myself only revealed when we’re together.

I’ve been back to the mainland three times since May. Once in June, twice in September. Back to the mainland, back to my main life.

I don’t know where my main life belongs. Maybe, I too will be forty-five with forty-seven addresses. Maybe I’ll spend 5 unexpected years away from the lands of home. Maybe I’ll live for 14 months - or 14 years - on an island off an island, a satellite of a place already so small.

Or maybe, one day I’ll settle softly in a place that I belonged all along.

Life at the moment feels split between space and time. Like horcruxes of home across land and sea, each of which hold a part of me.

Newcastle gifted me friends that I love. Stratford taught me of places to leave, and people to keep. Under glowing half moons and upside-down stars I learnt more about myself than I ever had before. And beautiful Arran remains a mystery.

Each life on a bookshelf, waiting to be chosen.