This is me leaving, again.

“Both of us, me and that place, stood staring each other down like two strangers who had tried it one night and realized long before dawn the next day that the other wasn’t for them, not at all. ”

When I left California, I had to pull over a block away from my friends’ house and cry in my car for ten minutes. I wasn’t sad to be leaving. I was sad that I wasn’t sad to be leaving, I think. I had moved there two years previously, so hopeful for that new place. So certain that it would be something beautiful for me. And as I drove away, I felt nothing. I felt as if I had never been there at all. It could’ve been two years since I’d moved there, or two weeks, or even two days– nothing. Driving away from Sacramento back to Texas, down that godforsaken valley and past every dead, dry town, felt only like I was breathing clean air, which is crazy because I was in the fucking Central Valley. And California, I promise you, felt nothing, either. Both of us, me and that apathetic place, stood staring each other down like two strangers who had tried it one night and realized long before dawn the next day that the other wasn’t for them, not at all. So I left California feeling empty and wishing that I’d have nice things to say about it but knowing that I probably wouldn’t. 

Now, a week away from leaving Puerto Rico, I don’t feel that at all. I feel a lot of anger, a lot of frustration. I feel like I am leaving something that I don’t want to leave, or I am at least resisting my desire to leave. As in, I wish that I wanted to stay and I wish I had enough reasons to stay. I wish I felt like I’d made it, like I’d established myself enough here.

Yesterday, I was standing at a bar. It’s been hosting block-party-esque events for the last few weeks in honor of Bad Bunny’s residency here, so Wednesday through Sunday they set up a large stage in the middle of the street outside of the bar and invite local bands to play. Yesterday, there was a group playing Bomba music and the crowd was huge and everyone was singing a call and response and it was beautiful. It was one of those moments when, in the past, I would think, how lucky am I to be here, right now, to be seeing this and to be exactly like everyone around me? I felt that, for a moment. I felt immediately that I would miss moments like that, and wondering just momentarily if I am doing the right thing by leaving or if I am doing it because I am feeling sad and sorry for myself. It took me until the end of the song to understand what they were saying: Juana Diaz, no te vamos a olvidar. Juana Diaz, we are not going to forget you.

Then, I saw two young girls, maybe a couple years younger than me, sitting on two chairs and leaning on each other speaking in rapid Spanish, going in and out of their conversation and the general movements of the crowd around them. And I realized that I would never be a young girl speaking Spanish in Puerto Rico, sitting at a Bomba concert as if it’s the most natural thing in the world because for them, it is the most natural thing. The things that are normal, are every-day here, are things that I marvel at. Because I am a diaspora child and will always be a diaspora child; those moments are only special to me because to me they are special. And I think what angers me about leaving is that I have realized that there is nothing I can do to change that. I will always be a girl who grew up in Texas, and as much as I can teach myself Spanish and try to ingratiate myself in the culture, nothing will ever take back the way that I grew up, the choices that were made for me. And what is frustrating is that I have finally understood that, after my time here. This is not a place where I belong; it’s not a place that is familiar with me, as much as I have tried to be familiar with it. I don’t think that it wants me, no matter how badly I want it. They will never claim that they won’t forget me. This land, these people, will fill where I was with plantains and leaves and plastic beach coolers as if I was never here in the first place.

But perhaps I am giving up on this place, because I am beginning to suspect that moving around is my way of avoiding things. I keep saying that I’ll stay somewhere when I have a reason, but what reason am I looking for? Sometimes, it’s a relationship. Like, if I fall in love with someone it’ll be enough to keep me in one place. And maybe that’s true, but it hasn’t been in the past; I’ve given up love in order to leave. Sometimes, it’s a career. Once I find the perfect job somewhere, I will be happy and I’ll stay there. But that hasn’t been true either. I am leaving a perfectly good job here. It’s as if the minute I’m not being held somewhere I have to go away.

Puerto Rico is another place that will not miss me. It will absorb my absence the way it always has and the island will continue to function without me. The plane ride will be difficult, possibly almost unbearable. But in the pain, I will have known that I tried. As frustrated and sad as I might be, I did try. Puerto Rico and I will look at each other as I fly away as eternal reluctant lovers, because it’s a place that I refuse to give up. My grandparents are buried here. My father will be buried here. Like a relentless ex-boyfriend, I will return to her over and over again even if she tells me not to. I will land on her shores year after year, the pain of leaving now lessened by knowing that she does not want me.