Don't Let Me Go

Fine, then, I'm going home, I said, as I turned around and walked off. My shoulders hung low in defeat, tears barely held back, as a deep feeling of sadness came over me. But I had made my choice, so I had to stick to it. The way I was feeling right then, I wouldn't have made very good company anyhow, so I set my feet in the direction of our apartment and carried on. 

An hour earlier, my husband had eagerly asked me if I wanted to join a friend and him to go to the Deniz Muzesi, a naval museum just across the Bosphorus Strait. We'd tried several times already to go but hadn't lucked out. The first time, the museum was closed as it was a Monday and we hadn't realized most museums were closed on Mondays. The second time it was too close to closing as we had had too many errands to run that day. Finally, today seemed like the day. We just had to eat something and we could be on our way. 

Hurry up, my husband urged, as I slipped his water bottle into my burgundy Quechua backpack in preparation for our adventure. 

What time are we supposed to meet? I asked. 

3:20 he replied.  

It was already 3:10 and we had at least a 15-20 minute walk down to the pier. I slipped on my shoes. By the time we reached the door, it was 3:15. 

We threaded our way through the crowds out for a Sunday afternoon, heading to the pier. By the time we reached the ferries, it was 3:43. 

Where is he? I asked, craning to see over the crowds. 

He's not here yet, he just got on the metro, my husband said. 

I looked at my watch and calculated the amount of time we had left. By now it was 3:47 pm. 

We can't go to the museum today, I said, bitterly trying to hide my disappointment. It doesn't work. By the time he arrives, it will be 4 pm and we still have to take the ferry across and walk to the museum. By the time we get inside, we will have 45 minutes at most to see it. I didn't know if it was a small museum or not, but we were going to pay for entrance and I didn't want to be rushed after paying. We were balancing our last few dollars until payday, as, yet again, we'd had to shell out nearly 20% of that month's salary for residence permit expenses. 

Okay, we won't go to the museum, my husband agreed. 

Then I'm going back home, I said. 

He asked if I wanted to just walk around the pier area; I looked at him helplessly and said, What's the point? 

It was Burkina Faso all over again. I was 7 or 8 years old—my father had found an unbelievably low price for tickets to England and we were going to be able to go and see my Granny, favourite aunts and uncles and cousins, in the year we normally wouldn't have had a paid furlough. I was so excited. I could hardly wait. Until my father came home and announced that the price was just a one-way ticket and we couldn't go after all. We were a missionary family and the salary didn't stretch far enough to pay for 4 tickets at twice the price he'd originally thought it was. 

My little heart broke that day and never quite recovered. Now, more than 35 years later, it still remembered the bitter disappointment and somehow equated a trip to see family with an afternoon outing. It still hurt. I still felt just as alone today as I did back then. Lost and alone. 

But there was nothing I could do back then and there was nothing I could do now. I shrugged out of my backpack and handed it over to my husband, then headed for home, crossing streets without looking for cars, imagining hacking off my long wavy hair, wishing I could break every plate in our dinner set, trying to think of some way I could release the pain that would never let go of me. But there was no way to lance 40+ years of being left behind. 

So I went home. And cried.