safety deposit box

just some feelings. it is sunday night, after all.

yesterday walking from the train down henry street (from a bus just in from philly, where i spent a wonderful 24 hours with an old friend), i felt happy to be home. i felt similarly happy as our train from d.c. pulled in over christmas, and i stopped to notice these feelings only because it had been awhile since coming home to new york felt like more of a joy than a disappointment, since i had caught myself walking down the street marveling at my good luck to live here.

we were talking to a friend’s date at a party on wednesday. she had just come here a few months ago from alabama—just picked up and moved and now she cuts hair in my neighborhood salon, small world. i told her that when we were getting ready to graduate, we did precisely the same thing. i had fallen in love with the city while testing things out at nyu (not for me) and had always planned to return, and lucky for me by that time i had found a partner in adventure willing to eat spaghetti for days on end and sleep on a converted porch through the dead of winter and spend hours on the train to and from our various low-paying jobs. (as stephen says, every year our lot in life has improved.)

i don’t think that it’s the practical ones among us who move to new york. (perhaps it is just that it needs a naive trust in life, that whatever happens is meant to, or could, or does and you’ll get through it.) there is something about this place that requires a leap of faith, that asks you to hold tight and see what happens, that never actually promises that you’ll come out the other side not worse for wear. but you do, usually. i have, mostly.

i’m waging my own internal battle right now. there are some truly wonderful things happening for me (that include family and friends) and then there are some major changes i would like to make (that include career, home and lifestyle), but everything comes back to new york for me. what it means to stay. (and what it would mean to go.) and that while i’m ready for some things to change, i’m just not ready to make that decision yet.

all this to say that tonight, i wish i had not looked at what we could be renting in chicago right now.