the in between is mine

Sometimes, not even I understand myself.

I don't know where I got this vagabond nature. I don't know when it started. I don't know why I'm this way.

I haven't met anybody else inflicted with this...instinct, I guess you could call it, either.

But every few months, sometimes weeks, I need to leave. I need to pack up and go somewhere, and I have to fight and drag myself back to the place I left. And it's strong. God, is it strong.

I can't even explain it. When it first started, I used to really think it was the ocean calling to me. The ocean was, and still is, all I think about. The smell, the spray, the taste, the sound. It consumes me. But the more it continued, the more I realized that it wasn't just the ocean.

I just needed to leave.

It's not triggered by anything. It doesn't have a pattern. It strikes suddenly and is powerful enough to knock me off my feet. Powerful enough to drive me to insanity, if I don't heed its call. I'll become obssessive about it. I will give myself panic attacks thinking of how monotonous, blinding, how stifling Montreal is.

And when I leave, it all gets better. Until I have to will myself to go back.

My dad calls me a wandering soul. I'm not so sure that's it. Wanderers flitter about on their own will.

When this feeling hits, I feel like I'm caught up in a tidal wave. I'm not wandering so much as being pulled somewhere, usually wherever gut instinct takes me.

I don't know why.

But it's here again. And it's time to go.