A New York Goodbye
“So why’d you run away to New York?”
“I didn’t run,” he says. “I moved.”
“Is there a difference?”
~
Today is my last day in a city that inspires so many words and works of poetry, yet I am at a loss for words of my own.
It’s been six years here – years riddled with massive successes, devastating blows, innumerable firsts (and lasts), street corners where I publicly and proudly sobbed, friends made, friends lost, and plot twists that no god could have predicted. Knowing that things can end, that periods in life have a finale, stings more with every goodbye, but I relish in the fact that this farewell is not soured. There is no bad blood. There is only a girl and the city that watched her grow.
There is no doubt that New York changed me – it made me someone who reads housing code for entertainment and certainly made me into a faster walker. But I think in all the grit and wear, façades were sanded down and I was forced to address the person I am at my core. There is no convenience in life to hide behind here. You have to know what you want, how you’re going to get it, and still be open to the waves that come when the tsunami hits.
In all of this, I began to answer my own questions – who am I going to be? What will become of the things I am so scared of? What is a purpose worthy of my one shot at life? I was building a career path and accomplishments I was proud of, I deeply loved the friends I’d made, and the foundation felt solid.
Hm. Until it didn’t.
In the midst of a global health emergency, unemployment feels a fairly tame foe. But for a girl whose life has hinged on her academic and professional accomplishments, the loss of a career means the loss of everything.
As the world descended into chaos, I went with it, burrowing into a pit within myself, clawing at every surface to hold on to my levity and failing miserably. Anxiety found its home behind my ribs, the chest pain palpable enough that I went in for medical attention and EKGs, convinced I was approaching my death by way of heart attack. Anxieties, panics, peril. I can pinpoint the month where I hit my depths, and if I may be so truthful, it’s been years and I have not found a way to climb back out.
There’s a repeated theme in most advice given to The Depressed. You can’t live for others. You can’t love someone else until you love yourself. There’s no way to get better unless you want it for You. I understand the sentiment. I smile and graciously accept when some well-meaning, bright-eyed optimist shares their ultimate wisdom, proclaiming it like a sacred prophecy. It’s nice. And wouldn’t it be so noble, so valiant, to battle your dragons in order to save yourself? Hero and damsel, all wrapped in one?
It’s a wonderful notion. But it’s terrible in execution.
I’ve been haunted by increasingly persistent shadows. Closer and closer they’ve crept, multiplying, making bargains and bets amongst each other, dwelling in the parts of my mind that I’ve yet to outrun. But without the anchors of the people in my life that have stuck with me, I know I would have succumbed long ago. If not for my cousin and her new baby, a little guy who’s a real performer on our FaceTime calls. For my brother and his kids, two that I pulled around an ice skating rink in Baltimore at Thanksgiving and one that I’ve yet to meet. For my friends that have offered everything – their homes, their money, their love, wisdom, and honesty, knowing that all I have to give in return is a profuse apology for the occasional burden that it is to know me. For the music and books and poetry and sculptures that leave their impressions on me. For my sister.
My sister.
That little girl that spent a childhood tormenting me, that used to threaten to run away (which I loudly encouraged), the girl who looks at me with stars in her eyes that I never earned. At some point in my teenage anguish, I distanced myself from her while I was so wrapped up in what I hoped I could become, in some escape I prayed for. While I was sprinting away from everything I’ve ever shouldered, she carried the strength I couldn’t sustain. I left her my burdens while the world piled more on top, as her two siblings left her, granting themselves the leave they’d craved. My sister has pulled herself out of circumstances that have swallowed weaker people, and she has still found the capacity to be endlessly encouraging, a lighthouse that pulls me back to basics when I’ve buried myself in life’s complexities.
In leaving, there are a lot of people I didn’t say goodbye to because fight or flight has given me tunnel vision. It’s a guilt I will carry with me forever, especially because I have been moved so deeply by everyone I’ve had the absolute treasure of meeting and knowing, and I believe the only way to convey my thanks is to give each of you the tightest embrace I can. Know that with melodramatics aside, I love y’all so much that it fills me with the warmfuzzies because I was lucky enough to know you. When I count my blessings, my friends in the north will be listed by name.
As of this moment, I’m either trying to cram my entire life into a mid-size SUV, or I’ve already sailed off into the sunset (read: New Jersey, as is the natural egress in going west from New York), in search of the next place that I am meant to be. There is wisdom dancing on the wind of places I haven’t yet discovered, mistakes that are calling my name, and people with stories that I am clamoring to know.
May you all find your peace, find what holds you together, and may you cherish it with everything you’ve got. I am on the lookout for mine, and when I find it, you’ll be the first to know.