The parking lot echoes with the sound of passing cars. What is left from the snow fall crunches beneath my boots. Every story begins like this, I think, as I pull my suitcase through the slush. It begins with this feeling. Sometimes, it comes from the cold clouds blanketing the sky or the sun hitting my rear view mirror at just the right angle. It's that feeling of something ending and beginning at the same time. It emphasizes the cycle of life within the dust of my soul. Jon will find my car keys on his kitchen counter. I left them there this morning while he was sleeping. When he finds them, he will know that the car is his to keep. We had an understanding, Jon and I. He'll know that I won't be back. The left wheel on my suitcase is coming lose. It catches on a crack in the uneven sidewalk, jolting my quick steps to a halt. I tug and negotiate with the ground by flinging the suitcase handle up and down through the air, impatiently. The wheel comes out and sends the suitcase flying, with me behind it, off the curb and into a gutter stop. I sit there with my feet in the gutter for minutes before finally clambering out and hauling my suitcase back onto the side walk. Now the lose wheel is squeaking. Months ago I would have bought a new suitcase. Today, I could drop this suitcase over the San Francisco bridge and watch it splash into the the expanse of water below. And I would take a mental picture, as I walked away, at the beauty of that splash. I wouldn't even buy a new one. I pull my luggage into the Greyhound station. Today, my squeaky wheel will only eat away at the fellow travelers. And I'm right. I watch the pretentious mother sitting by the door bore a hole through my worn suitcase. I watch the twitch in her right eye, daring my luggage to wake her sleeping three year old. The man beside her is stretched out across two chairs with a diaper bag in his lap, snoring. My luggage goes unnoticed by him until his wife's maternal twitch turns into an elbow jab in his ribs. He sniffs and rubs his face. I continue to pass them, fully aware of the squeaking wheel and my pant hems drenched in gutter slush. She reaches for the diaper bag. Maybe I'm wrong, I think. Maybe, I am the only one who can hear my squeaky wheel. Jon had told me that this would happen, that I'd never forgive myself until I left. "Go already," he would say. "Stop lying to yourself." And I knew he was right. I knew I was only scared of letting go, of losing myself, of losing him even. I had been sacrificing freedom for stability. Perhaps, I was only scared that I would begin to hear those internal wheels loosen because it is the squeak that pierces your ears before you let go. I'm ready for this to be over now, I tell myself. The bus is pulling up, but I'm watching the homeless man just outside the front door. I hear the breaks screech and I breathe in the fumes from the exhaust coming inside as passengers file out to load their bags. Then, squeak, squeak, I struggle out the front door toward the man with the sign asking for more in life. "I want less," I say. "Here." I lean my baggage against the wall beside him and I walk away. I take the long way around and breathe in the cool air, savoring the scent of fuel, the feeling of freedom, then I step onto the bus. Blog by Nakita Bickle, July 17, 2017
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