I write or I don't write. Save to draft, hit delete. It's worthy, it's not worthy, it just doesn't say... anything. I have too much to say.
The subway is crowded or empty. The backpack heavy on my shoulders or sprawled out across the seat next to me. I watch the skyline bold across the night sky and the flag flying high above the Brooklyn Bridge each night. I think about getting off at the next stop and walking the bridge back to Manhattan - to feel the cool night air and dance in the skyscraper lights and sing along to the traffic sirens. Or I cross the river with my head against the metal wall, eyes closed, too tired to count the stops before mine.
Conversations in a language I learned long ago and I'm rusty but the words still arrive. Professionalism and passion finally married; this could be the honeymoon, six years later. Or the words we've cultivate since childhood, a conversation that takes up where we left off and ends somewhere in the middle - waiting for us patiently until next time. So familiar, so new.
I think I might never leave. And when I do, even for a night or two, I'll miss this city more than I've missed any place. But the shoebox bedroom is hot without air-conditioning and isolating without internet. Without roommates who say hello and how was your day? Or much of anything. I wake up a few hours past midnight in a sweat to a silent fan - the power out and all I want to do is leave.
So I leave. Fifteen minutes after my eyes meet the sun rays and the fan still silent, I throw my things into a bag and head out the door, un-showered because it doesn't matter where I am going. Home. Quaint and quiet New England with cool nights and warm days, the leaves just beginning to turn. Puppy kisses and home cooked meals, morning walks with hot coffee and evenings in sweatpants. It's easy to leave and it's easy to return.
For the first time, it is easy to leave and it is easy to return.
The city's ten degrees warmer and seventy times brighter and it's home. I left home and I arrived home. The city skyline over the East River and the flag above the Brooklyn Bridge. I crawl into bed after midnight. Instinctively wrap my arm around the empty space next to me and wait for it to move up and down with rhythmic breathing. Empty doesn't move, of course. But I fall asleep in my tiny bed grateful that I am enough to fill it. Grateful that I am enough to fill my life.
It is this and it is that and it's all so much more.
