You: "Lauren, it's March."
Me: "Yeah, it's March."
You: "Think back to what you were doing one year ago."
Me: "Um. I was couchsurfing here in Brooklyn while on spring break..." *Pauses*
Me: "Oh wow, and I had no idea that I'd be living here a year later. Everything was different. That's a really nice way to look at things."
You chuckle: "You're welcome."
And I smile.
A week of March has passed since that conversation, making me reflect on the duration of my New York Lifetime so far.
Two months ago from today, I moved to Brooklyn.
Everything has been beautiful and difficult and refreshing and consuming and stimulating- sometimes it's all too much. Many times it happens all at once. Sometimes I'm so tired from working too much and barely sleeping that getting out of bed requires strength and a will I didn't know existed inside me. There's frustration. And anger. And some mornings I look in the mirror at my tired eyes and wonder, "what the fuck were you thinking? What are you doing here?"
I picture my good friends in Gainesville, my old house on the corner, the boy with the long sandy hair and strong hands, my baby niece growing up so fast, my little brother becoming a man, my mother getting it together, my cat sleeping under palm trees in the sunshine- I miss all of it, all of you, so much that it makes me cry sometimes. At night it's the worst, it hits home the hardest.
Home, so, so far away.
But I breathe deeply and walk through the wooden doors of my new apartment. I look to the right at the doors and rows of stairs that resemble my building. I look at the tall dead trees that line my avenue and picture them green and full of life in the summer heat. I feel sunshine on my face, or the ghost of it lost in the grey winter clouds, and walk down the stone steps watching my feet, still tired, still frustrated.
By the time I'm on the train, my eyes are smiling. The negative feelings have all dissipated within me, spilled onto the sidewalks above the tunnel that is the G train, the coldest tunnel of them all.
But all I feel is heat.
The warm feeling of a new place becoming home, becoming a part of your heart.
