Change Was Yesterday

by Eliane Ellbogen

I’m at a loss about where to begin. I have many questions.
But somewhere is always a good enough place to start.

What does somewhere mean to you?
Not here. Gone. Beyond my reach. Somewhere is away. Somewhere is where I’m not letting myself be. Where I haven’t found myself yet.

Do you feel the need to go somewhere?
Always. I’m naturally restless. Always in search of something to do and somewhere to do it. I’m hardly ever comfortable with where I actually am—those places I find myself in, physically and mentally.

Do you seek fulfillment in other places?
Definitely. And from other people.

Why?
Seeking it from myself scares me. Finding it is worse.

Are you afraid of what would happen if you were fulfilled?
More like ashamed.

What makes you afraid, then?
Every morning, when I open my eyes for the first time, you know those few seconds, immediately after waking up, when your eyes are still adjusting to the light and you can’t see anything yet? You try to figure out what day it is. And you panic before actually knowing that it’s a Tuesday or a Sunday, or the day after your birthday. Your day off. Your essay is due in two days. You have to pick someone up at the airport. That’s when I’m afraid. In that drawn out second when I simply don’t know.

Every day?
Except when I’m away from home and I tell myself it doesn’t matter what day it is.

Traveling is the exception, then?
Mostly. When I let the sun wake me, when I don’t have to squint and rub my eyes to make out the numbers on my clock.

Is time irrelevant when you’re moving?
I tell myself I don’t need to know.

Do you get scared when you travel?
I don’t experience those mornings the same way when I’m traveling. My fears manifest in other ways. What, at home, is a fear of time passing, instead becomes a fear of stagnation.

What about feeling stable?
Stability has tempted and coerced me until now, but it’s also held me by the hand. I’m always more or less stable than I would like to be.

How does that make you feel?
Heavy. Dissatisfied.

How do you see yourself changing?
I don’t really see myself changing just yet.

Do you see that as a problem?
Definitely.

What would be the ultimate change of course for you?
Sometimes I think about a precise moment, when someone is faced with an overdose of emotions: anguish, excitement, surprise, despair, oblivious to everything and everyone. This person, entirely caught up in that moment, runs into the middle of an empty street, without looking either way. A bus full of passengers is coming down the street at that instant. Having no time to stop, the bus hits her. Her momentum, and the momentum of the vehicle, collide. It happens too quickly. The moment passes without anybody fully understanding. The transition from being to non-being is utterly compressed. That, to me, is the ultimate change of course.

The moment between knowing and not knowing. She doesn’t see the bus, the passengers or the bus driver. And then, she does.

But it’s too late.