Leaving the Future Behind
How do you date in a country that you don't intend to stay in?
I am addicted to the future. It promises you so much while asking so little in return. The present wants decisions and action. The past always needles with “what ifs,” a death by a thousand cuts. Daydreams, forecasts, and goals have always been my domain. I feel as though I live there, up the road a bit from where we’re standing in the now.
It was easier to inhabit that forward space when I was younger. When I was twenty, I could look arrogantly ten years into the distance, as though I had the clarity of a crystal ball. Recently, I’ve found it challenging to wrap my head around such broad horizons.
These last three years, I’ve lived one year at a time. I give myself small reassurances, like the kind you would dole out to a reticent child on their first day of school, “If I don’t like my masters program, I can leave after one year. If I do like it, I can apply to extend.” “If I decide to move to London, I will sign a one year lease, and then I can always leave at the end if it isn’t for me.” Recently, I transferred my student visa to a graduate visa, ensuring me two more years in the country, “you don’t have the stay the full length of the visa,” I told myself.
I granted myself ultimate freedom when I moved to the UK. Freedom to bail whenever I wanted. Freedom to do whatever, no judgement. I keep calling it my “sandbox time,” a term I stole from my days of working in tech. The idea is to play, to experiment, to stop always trying to take the responsible path and live a little. To relieve that immense pressure I put on myself as a young person plotting her ten year timeline, and instead broaden my scope to discover what else is waiting for me in this wide world. The thing about freedom, though, is it’s terrifying.
I’ve been enjoying this sandbox time so much that I blinked and it’s been three years. When I try to count backwards, I can never make the math add up. Somehow I’ve spent 10% of my life in a foreign country without realizing it.
I’m still taking it one year at a time, but where there used to be open road ahead, I can now see a sign in the distance, getting closer. When this visa ends, I will be going home.
I try to push that thought from my mind. To stay present. But there is one conundrum that this situation presents: how do you date in a country that you don’t intend to stay in? And, maybe more crucially: how do you date in a country that you don’t intend to stay in when you’re 33?
