America: There, There, and Somewhere New

I came to America eight years ago. I traveled on Tzom Gedalia - a fast day following Rosh haShana, the Jewish New Year, the fast that I forget about every single year. I spent that new year with my childhood friend in Berlin - me and my dachshund, Alef. The decision to move to America, and everything that ensued, could be best characterized by the saying “ignorance is a bliss”. Less you know, less trouble you anticipate and that is a kind of a coping mechanism. 

I spent my first week in Chicago sleeping on the floor, on a coat spread-out on the floor. After a week of a scout's life, a mattress was procured. An old one, a dirty one. A far cry from the amenities of my beautiful apartment in Prague that I had bought only a year before I left for America. The mattress was procured in an operation that involved (very) kind people from Facebook Marketplace. Everytime I would unwillingly lie down on that mattress, I would think about the freshly painted walls of my Prague apartment. It was this mattress memory that brought me to a blank page. 

I was just in the middle of a major Facebook Marketplace operation again. Under very different circumstances, however. I was selling a mattress, 16 inches deep, for 20 dollars. I thought it was a long shot - who would want this? Who indeed. And then, I remembered. Mattress is a hot staple. That kind of mattress especially - it attracts the type of people I used to be - new Americans, immigrants, explorers ... One thing can be said for certain though - I am not leaving the way I came. 

My time in America was undoubtedly marked by growth - not a time of peak happiness, rather, a time of a steep learning curve, steep like a powderless black run at the Copper Mountain. But then, halfway, I started losing speed and a change was looming large. Could have I achieved this growth elsewhere? It is hard to say. But, would have I come back knowing everything I know now? Yes. I would choose it all over again. Every single time.

A dear friend of mine once told me that, sometimes, if we don’t make a change, change will happen for us. I sense that a change is happening for me now - there, there, and somewhere new.