“Why is your suitcase never unpacked?”
My roommates and friends frequently ask about my half-zipped, shiny black suitcase. They wonder where I am, and where I am going next. Truthfully, I only know the timing of my next departure.
After two homes, two high schools, and two colleges, I have mastered a life in transience. Momentum had become the only known, while the importance of the destination faded. At fifteen, the procedure became a homecoming: pack a book, buy a ticket, walk to the station ten minutes early, and wait for the pungent air of a foreign city hours away. From the suburbs to the city and back, there was no context for the person I was. There were no responsibilities, no pressures to conform, there was no identity to maintain. There was only the rumbling of the track and a shiny, black suitcase. My existence was reduced into the volume of a carry-on.
Under the glittering lights of Manhattan, Florence, Los Angeles, and beyond, I have become a spectre. I step into dimly lit restaurants and overfilled libraries perfectly presentable and utterly unknown. The sculptures of Le Gallerie Degli Uffizi display people from a civilization long decayed, their faces appearing in an agonizing stillness. I can only wonder how many centuries they screamed for an escape until they finally went quiet. I carry my own silence. I am surrounded by people speaking historical languages, building on decades of stability and companionship, yet I cannot bring myself to join them. I traded the possibility of foundations for inventory: my clothes, perfumes, photos from friends who are long gone. They are artifacts from a bygone era of closeness. They are held dear to me, yet they are known by no one.
Permanence is stability, but I have learned it as vulnerability. Vulnerability does not coincide well with survival. It is the surrendering of the ability to leave. I have survived a life in perpetual movement, yet I have not escaped grief. I mourn the people I have lost, the memories that were not made, the weight of souvenirs left behind. My love is shattered across time zones, permeating the places I have already abandoned, and seeping into the earth to create something beautifully still. It is a claim that I was there once, however long ago.
People do not understand my reluctance to unpack, but I simply do not know how to remain. I am a spectre in my own life, polished and hollow. I am a stranger in every room. The suitcase remains zipped. The exit remains clear. I am merely waiting for the next flight.