My mother tongue is Portuguese and when we talk about leaving we always use “depart”. Depart (partir in Portuguese) comes from Latin partire, from pars “a part, piece, a share”. To divide into pieces. The word and its use evolved to separate and then to move from somewhere.
So there I was, at the international departures in the airport again, thinking about another goodbye. Another farewell for now, or maybe, a see you soon. I’ve had so many already and I still don’t have a good relationship with it, and I think I never will.
I was broken. My body was trying to hold on to itself. I was crying and tense. I could feel myself tighten up so I wouldn’t fall apart. I made it one more time, but not in one piece, as they say.
Every time I leave I feel myself cracking into more pieces. Some parts stay behind, some come along. I go back and at times I take back with me what I thought was long gone. Or I end up arriving at the destination wishing I had not brought a part that doesn’t fit anymore. Or at least shouldn’t.
It also happens when I go to new places. I want to take with me recently discovered pieces and find room for them inside, but the old ones are still there and I am not ready to put them away somewhere else.
I’ve left so many times that now I don’t know where all these parts are anymore. I don’t know how to glue them together, or in which order I should do it. I don’t know which parts I should stick with, or those that are better off left in the past, in another place that belonged to another moment in my life. Or even if I still need those to reconstruct everything again. Myself. Because I am spread out and lost all over and I have to build it up again.
But what exactly am I made of?
