Relationships with places are still…relationships

Early in my adult life, I became a serial dater of places. I had a long, happy love affair with Boston, but we plateaued. It was my first such relationship, and I was vulnerable to that pesky, destructive force, the rosy vision of that-which-you-do-not-have. This was enhanced by the romantic allure of Return, and so I left a perfectly good thing, thinking mistakenly that old familiarity brings with it deeper intimacy, and I plunked myself for a little over a year in the hills of my home.

It was well-intentioned, but we were lying to each other, West Virginia and I–we had never had a very honest relationship in the first place–and I had to call it out. I went back to Boston because it offered a tangible, unemotional rationale–a job–but secretly, I just wanted it to take me back. We were happy for a few years, before I left it for New York. I told myself a truth, that New York had something Boston didn’t–grad school–but really, I was just too young to make the kind of commitment Boston wanted.

New York and I were tumultuous lovers. The beautiful moments were all the more beautiful because of the day-to-day-crap I had to put up with. Before, I would have given New York my whole self in pursuit of those moments, relatively few as they may have been. But I have become old and practical, to my great dismay, and I can no longer give so much for so little in return.

And so I find myself in Rwanda, a place I have chosen with absolutely no pretense of practicality. There is really very little work here for someone of my stripe, and I am unlikely to ascend the grand career ladder from Kigali. I am here simply for no other reason than that I want to be–a feeling so infrequent for me that I can’t imagine doing anything except obeying it.

In the beginning, Rwanda and I basked recklessly in the exaggerated joy of young couples. But it has become, like all relationships, one which requires work. I still need things it can’t give me, and I find it difficult to learn not to demand them. Some days, Rwanda is moody and indifferent–or maybe it’s me? Some days, we simply don’t understand each other. And some days, I think it wants me to just leave it.

Which, if this were any other place, I would do. But there’s something here I find so rarely that I can’t do anything but stay. It’s that same thing which has made all of us say, at some point in a relationship no one from the outside understands,
“I know, I know, I know… But he’s worth it.”

7 Comments

  • j says:

    This is a fantastic piece of writing… love it.

  • Matt says:

    Ahh…so true. But oh how many different places have felt this way about? And with each new one I feel like I’m cheating on the others, telling myself, “well no, this one is different. This is the one.”

  • cooper says:

    The person above took my comment. Exactly what was going through my mind when I read this piece.

    I slyly laugh inside because I found you here, when I find so much out there disappointing.

  • jina says:

    Oh, Matt and Cooper, do I know it. I keep hoping that one day we’ll be right… which is a sign that perhaps the woozy romantic who began all this crap is a little more alive and kickin’ than I’d like to admit.

  • chrislombardi says:

    And *I* laughed because a) that “but it’s worth it” comment has applied to most of my romantic ties and b) I’m now hoping to land a job in a city that you might call a long-running flirtation. I once went there often as part of a nonprofit job, developed my “favorite” neighborhoods, and even went to far as to marry one of its daughters. Now I don’t know if I’m gonna end up there for real, or staying with my most passionate first love, which is turning away its face and turning into a dormitory for billionaires.

    Is the answer civic polyamory?

  • jina says:

    Civic polyamory! I love it. That is exactly what i have. (…she says, like it’s a disease.)

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