Why Am I the One

part seven

The evening after Stockholm, I sat on the top deck of the ship and pretended to read, long after the sun set and my fingertips went numb. I didn’t care for the tour we took that day, an hour and a half spent inside a single Jewish temple and barely any sight-seeing, so I should have either been happy the day was over or happy that I was one day closer to seeing London again, but still...

Still, I hated packing myself up to get back on the bus and back on the ship and back on the plane because why am I the one who has to go back? Why can't I stay and for once tell the others to go on without me? I think I would like that and I don't think it would be too much, not for me. I could stay away from the western towns and live in Sweden forever. Maybe not Stockholm, for as beautiful as it is it's also boring, but maybe Gothenburg, or the small little house on the edge of the forest with its own little dock that Grandma and I picked out as "ours" when we saw it through the window during dinner. I could buy it and live there forever and Grandma could come visit me, or live with me if she wanted, that would be fine with me, and for once we would know that we were home.

But I know very well that the little house isn't what I really want, it's just a way to get away. What I really want is to go back to the botanical gardens in Gothenburg and wander around without a guide to call me back. Usually I don't even like flowers, but I loved the beds of purple and black tiarella covered in raindrops. I loved the carved wooden dinosaurs for kids to play on and the distant clock tower peeking over the many kinds of trees that I couldn't identify. I don't even like rain but what I want is the smell of rain and the feeling of it dripping down my hair and blurring my vision as I look across the fields of dandelions and marigolds and roses. I don't like flowers individually because they mean nothing to me, but the gardens were beautiful and I wouldn't mind visiting every other weekend just to get away from everything in my life that does not have depth.

What I really want is the old church on the hill we visited before the botanical gardens. I think if I lived in Gothenburg I would start going to church again. It's one of those places where I could sit in the wooden pews and think "Why am I the one?" and not feel like I've had too much of...everything. I would probably still feel sad but maybe at least the wistfulness for something besides what I have would ebb.

But as I sat on the deck, cold and tired of thinking, I knew that even if I managed to be the one who stayed in Gothenberg and left everyone else behind, it wouldn't be what I really wanted. I might rail against those western towns and tourist points but truly my home is England, and I will live out my life there the way I want, even if there are days still where all I want is to stay in bed.

Everyone else comes up on deck to wave when we pull out of each port but this time I'm the only one who stays when they all return to the bars and dance floors and warm, cramped cabins. That's partially a punishment for not having a better attitude in Stockholm and partially a desperate attempt to look at land for as long as possible before we return to open seas.

I guess it was also a mourning for Gothenburg. It really was a shame I couldn't have gone there twice, or just stayed in London the entire trip.

But I'm a fool to think that nothing would go wrong before I made it back, or that the worst isn't yet to come.