The Itch

Posted by Cynthe on June 18th, 2008 | Categorized as Blog | 140 views and 3 Comments

I’ve got the itch.

It’s like a foot worm that gets into my skin through my toes. (Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to go barefoot outside because of worms? Or was that just a precaution for living in the Philippines, irrelevant to Stateside living?)

The itch is so subtle, you don’t realize it’s there until its crawled all the way through the long, tumultuous tunnels of your blood stream, leaving its trail behind it, and summits to the last standing hair on your head. And then suddenly you wake up one morning, sit straight up in your bed and say to yourself: “I’ve got to get out of here.”

You can’t quench it. You can’t hide from it. It permeates your being.

Your senses begin to lust after the putrid smell of the filthy (although attempted to be sanitized) seats of an airplane. Your mind begins to recite the exit-row warning to the degree that you begin to practice swinging wide open that door on the airplane in case of emergency, and dream of bravely ushering the frightened, inexperienced passengers out the door and onto the wide wing of the plane where they then cheerfully slide down the side of the wing to the ground beneath them in safety.

Oh yes. The itch.

Your roommates, housemates, friends begin to wonder if you’ve gone crazy as you make grand plans for travel to foreign lands. “I’m going to spend my vacation this year in South Africa, and then Timbuktu, and then the Outback.” As one roommate put it, “I won’t believe her until she’s actually on the plane going somewhere.” The plans begin to grow in their extravagance. You even go so far as to buy a travel book and begin your research of places to stay. You put pictures of the places you’re going to visit up on your backdrop on all your computer monitors. You pick out a language guide and begin reciting phrases of foreign languages to your friends who only give you a blank stare, or worse, the-polite-nod-and-smile-turn-the-back-to-you-and-laugh-hysterically.

The itch doesn’t go away.

Once you realize you don’t have enough money in your bank account for your extravagant travel plans, you resign yourself to at least finding a new job.

You download the company’s available positions. You begin dreaming of walking up to your new cubicle, with your upgrade in salary lingering in the back of your mind (that will of course enable you to embark on those safaris that you’ve been dreaming of), and leaving your mark on the success of the company.

Your name begins to appear on every job listing on Monster.com, and you end up having to change your cellphone number because of the number of phone calls you’re receiving (and not following up on) from job recruiters.

When no suitable job appears, you resort to moving out of your current residence. You begin to come up with every possible excuse to convince your roommate that you need to move.

“They lowered my salary,” you say.

“No they didn’t,” she knowingly replies.

“I can’t get good parking,” you try.

“You’ve managed this far.”

“Our neighbors are loud.”

“Our neighbors just moved. We have no neighbors.”

When that fails, you write a long-winded email to all your friends and family members, telling them of all the details of your life up to this point, conjuring it up to be these significant events that they most definitely need to be aware of. At least that helps make it feel like your life is moving forward in some way.

And then just as suddenly as it came, it disappears.

And you realize that you’re still sitting at your same desk, staring at the same computer monitor, working the same workload, having bought no plane tickets, filled out no job applications, or ever really learned any language well enough to make a drop of difference on your resume. It’s as if you were taken up in a dream, an out-of-body (out of reality is probably more accurate) experience, only to be dropped rather harshly, no parachute cushioning your landing, back into reality, with no more than a few sleepless nights, and an extra travel book to add to your dusty, unused collection still sitting on your bookshelf to tell of your most recent bout of restlessness.

April 10, 2007

My two "homes" are NH and the Philippines, though I've spent time in AZ, ME and currently live in CA. I'm a musician, a writer, a photographer, a hiker...and most importantly, a servant of the Most High God. I am in exile on this earth, waiting for my King to take me to my true Home with Him.