I met a friend today, haven’t seen her in two or three years, I am not sure. She is one of the people I enjoy listening to, though we aren’t what you called best-friend, she is someone with memories I still keep safe in my mind. She is fun in her own way and her laugh is the thing I love about her the most.

We spend about 40 minutes ride talk about old times, and how she is doing now, her past relationship I care about more than I need to, also her new one that I have mixed feeling about. Talked about people on the internet, and food. Completely ignore the guy in the driver seat who wasn’t talking much anyway. Participated in the famous traffic jam in this city that people love to hate.

We arrived, and got her bag scanned. Mine was clutch, so the front man only gestured that I welcomed and can come inside right away. The alarm beeped hard when I walk through, but he didn’t stop me, maybe he knows it is coming from my rusty heart and nothing should worry about that.

Passed the door, we talked about where to eat, or what kind of shopping she wants to do. She said she wants to eat Korean food, I said, I am going well with anything with broth or soup. Scanned the mall, somehow, I feel less interest to buy anything. Not knowing where to go, we try to look at the map, and called a friend for food recommendations. I wasn’t hungry just yet, but shopping needs full stomach for you to operate well.

“Why did you decide to move here?” she asked.

Side by side, on the escalator in crowded mall on shopping spree. Lights are everywhere, shinning behind fancy store names, beautiful models glued to the wall, mannequins that make everything will look great on you. People walking around, kids being funny like they always do. The distant sound of people talking, and the smell of food. The security guy with their walkie talkie, and flat expression. The store girl and boy, waiting behind the cashier table with their poker face, but smile immediately when you walk in the door.

My first time visit a fancy mall since I got here.

And I was kind of shocked when I heard my answer to her question. I didn’t know that I can be so honest. I thought I would say something else, the kind of answer that is easy and won’t show any sign of a problem. The fun answer. The answer that makes the conversation goes smoothly and attracts relaxing respond. But those categories weren’t founded in my answer at all.

“It feels like I have nothing left, because there was nothing I could do, no matter where I went or what I did, feels like a dead-end.”

That was what I said, and likely, she didn’t respond back.

Her response is not something I was looking for by the end of the conversation. When you said that kind of thing, what would you expect? Your dead-end story is not anyone’s cup of tea, sometimes not even yours. It was my honesty, the way it’s told. I didn’t know it was that easy to say it out loud, or it was that easy not to care about getting responses back. Something in me is lost somewhere, and I don’t know what should I feel about it.

Back to shopping and crowded mall, and how uninterested I was about buy some clothes or a shoe. I need a tote bag, maybe that’s why. A long queue for a seat and a couple bowls of ramen distracted my random thoughts to hunger.

We were sitting in a restaurant when she said, “I can’t imagine myself living in this city”.

So do I, but when your only option is to go, what’s left for me to stubbornly stay?

This is not an apology note, or goodbye note, or whatever it is to justify my choice. Who am I anyway with the urgency to do such thing? This is just simply a note, that I write at 3 am in the morning, when everyone was sleeping because this is the only way I know to live along.

Move away is not the choice, it is the consequence, my consequence. My choice was made long ago, when I said, “I am here to stay”. And I tried my best not to leave. Told myself million times, that better chances are coming. Believe even when I have no one to talk to when doubts were killing me big time. Forget about other possibilities just because I was holding on to something I thought was worth it. Calculating my every step, because I feel like I have a long way to go. Breathe in and out, in the same air that was suffocating me. Being someone different in hope I am able to want different things. Rationalized my absurdity to find more reasons that are strong enough to wipe away the reality that the place before had failed me.

And if you are passionate heart and soul, those are not the signs that you search for in your way.

God knows what this city could do to a person. Energy doesn’t lie. I don’t know what it has in store for me, I only know that I came for one thing. I heard stories, this city is full of it and I am making my own too. The beginning is always the hardest, but then again, come here is never easy.

This is not a story about where I end up, this is about how life brought me here. I didn’t care about my destination, even when the airport for my arrival at my ticket said “Iceland”. I don’t care where I am going, that’s how you’ll be when your only option is leaving. And it is a heavy cross to bear, because I thought I found home, a place to stay.

How can you forgive yourself from that?

And the cherry on top in this story? Here, I have in my pocket, and I am telling you now. One evening, my other friend said, “don’t give up, it takes time, so don’t give up. You don’t have any plan to go, do you? Go big or go home, but if you go back, you lose more than what you did before.”

Oh, imagine the adventure you’re about to dive in when you are trapped… this is going to be majestic!