These small hours

 Dear future hubster, 

sometimes a few fake spring days pops up right after the coldest night of the year, the winds are suddenly not icy sharp, the birds are shouting before it's even sunrise, and this girl pulls out the sorter skirts and the spring fragrance. 

And as she walks through the usual street and feels that the cold hard crust around her heart might be softening a little bit, and considers picking up pastries for the office, she thinks about a song she hadn't listened to in years. One that she'd liked very much at the time, one that she remembers having meant a lot for somebody else, and at the time she didn't understand how it made that somebody else so emotional. 

So naturally she puts the song onto the playlist, mood already altered by the mild temperatures, the self-inflicted olfactory trigger, and the fact that it's a Friday, and... there it comes. All of them feelings hit her out of nowhere, resulting in nostalgic crying three times over. There is something in the melody, or the words, the alignment of the stars, heartaches that have been pushed down, worries and laughter, some magic combination that makes her feel the New York air (humid and garbage-y), hear the hum of traffic, she can even see the scaffolding on some random stretch of 2nd Avenue, the lights are soft, the movements of masses are wavy and secretly organised, and the whole thing just squishes her heart a little. A lot. 

And maybe other people have been listening to the same song, or mybe they also feel that the cold hard crust around their hearts might be softening a little bit, or they too experienced olfactory triggers (ie somebody around them smells nice), or maybe she's just projecting it all, but there seems to be a tiny shift in how the world is that day. It almost feels like... hope? Not just the relief that comes when the winds are not icy sharp, that we might have survived this winter, but the tiniest glimpse of faith that maybe, just maybe, we might have a chance at the next one too. 

Nobody said it was easy

 Dear future hubster,

there is a dark side to all of those "home is" moments, I just usually choose to not give them too much airtime, partly due to the false belief that if I pretend it doesn't exist it will go away (if that ever worked for anybody please let me know), and partly because I do give in to the other false belief that I don't have the right for dark moments because of the bright moments. Pick your lane kinda thinking, you should be grateful kinda thinking.

The dark side does exist nonetheless, and sometimes it pops up in what should be the brightest "home is" moments. When you're somewhere you've been waiting to be and suddenly don't know what you're doing there; when you're with people you've been longing to see and now you doubt if they've been longing to see you too; when you feel like you're being pulled in a hundred directions and you don't want to go to any of them; always, always when you have to live out of a suitcase  and people think it's funny but all you feel is that there is literally no place for you and your shoes; when you don't remember why, and all the other questions flood you. "Who am I?  Why am I here? I thought I wanted to be here, why am I not ecstatic? I thought they wanted me to be here, why are they not ecstatic?  Ugh why are they so ecstatic it's just me? Did they miss me? Will they miss me? Do I matter? How much? How do I know?  Am I enough?  Am I too much?  How do I know?  Did I mess it up? Am I going to die alone?  Will anybody care?"

And then of course you go to the next gathering and book the next train and pack more cheese and chocolate and send the postcards and the socks and the books. Because all the love is out there and it is worth it. 

You just wish that everybody knew that globetrotters,  trail followers, cool aunties,  larger-than-life uncles, serial suitcase breakers, we are like all other people. Sometimes we bring the light, sometimes we need the light.