Master Your Heart

Signs: They're everywhere.

Alcohol units drunk: Thirteen billion
Cigarettes smoked: 45
Tears shed: 3.5 gallons
Pizza slices eaten: 10
Overpriced caffeine beverages consumed: 5
Buds embraced: 19
Ghosts encountered: 2.5

Upon consideration, the signs were pretty obvious that Vermont did not want me to leave this weekend.

Case in point: I left the farm on Thursday for the 1.5 drive to Burlington in PLENTY of time to make the 5:35 plane to NYC. Through the driving rain my little Toyota chugged along, atop sort of unfamiliar and newly applied winter tires. An hour plus into my drive I began to notice the distinct lack of signage indicating my proximity to, you know, the BIGGEST CITY IN THE STATE. And to my horror, after furtively checking my GoogleMaps I discovered I’d overshot that motherfucker by some 25ish miles and my route back would take an hour.

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK.

Unless you had your compass pointed Canada-ward, conventional wisdom would hold that you’d be wanting to head south. But that is not always the case. Not when North is really West, as I discovered to my chagrin and anxiety.

I sped the entire way back to the airport and got there by the skin of my teeth, only to be informed that my flight was delayed 2.5 hours. Which wound up being a good thing because it allowed me to go through security TWICE, as necessitated by my attempted cheese transport (the firm rules on this seem very fuzzy but evidently if you are traveling with anything “spreadable” that shit needs to go in your checked luggage. Good for traveler saftey, bad for the structural integrity of gloriously goopy cheese, amirite?)

Upon landing in NYC I got an alert that the first case of Ebola had been diagnosed in the city, and that the fella who was infected had been hanging out literal blocks from where I was gonna be spending a significant chunk of my weekend.

So me and Ebola touched down at precisely the same time. This seems somehow significant.

The purpose of my journey was to see two of my favorite people get married to each other. I’d bought my plane ticket just a few weeks after I arrived in Vermont, and felt like it’d be the perfect opportunity for a little visit back. Enough time would have elapsed that I’d be settled into my new home and routine and would be ready for a quick trip to see my most beloved friends and get my New York fix.

A week before, I  started to feel apprehensive, sensing in the pit of my stomach that maybe I wasn’t quite ready. In the two months that I’d been living in Vermont, I had been surprised to find how little I missed about New York and how alright I felt being all alone in such a quiet, remote new place. It was the out of sight, out of mind sort of thing. Returning so soon to a place I’d intentionally created so much physical and emotional distance from was, in the end, maybe not the best move. Because here I sit at the airport, getting ready to board a plane back to Vermont and this knot in my throat that’s been hanging out here for the last 24 hours won’t go the hell away no matter how much exorbitantly expensive bottled water I gulp down.

It seemed like pretty prescient timing for multiple reasons that I woke up the night after my arrival in Brooklyn to this headline in my inbox.

Too little too late, universe!

Not to overuse a cliche that I myself have already exploited elswhere, but if New York is like an old boyfriend, this visit was tantamount to sleeping with an ex that you’re not over yet, and who, to make things worse, has pretty clearly moved on from you and now just sees you as a fun weekend fling.  It was so strange to walk the same familiar streets, to see my friends but not really have a home to go to anymore and to see that things are both the same and very different in a way that’s unsettling and heartbreaking. Without the comfort of a place to retreat, I realized just how rudderless I was.

There’s so much activity and white noise and distraction in the city. For me, it drowned out and muted the reality of my life, and suppressed my long-dormant creative impulses. I knew —  and know — that it was right for me to leave when I did. I feel much healthier and calmer in my day to day existence. And although it makes me deeply sad on days when I’m feeling particularly vulnerable (and incredibly strong and free on my good days), being far away from my old life has forced me to confront the truth, which is that I’m alone. In New York, I felt held, as if bouncing from one friend to another, one place to another, created sort of a spider web, each trajectory or tangent forming a strong silk thread that wound up cradling me. For a long time it lulled me into this false sense of security and numbed me to certain irrefutable voids I felt in my life.

So of course, with all these FEELINGS swirling in my gut, I thought WHY NOT GO TO A FUCKING WEDDING?

Turns out LOL weddings are emotional minefields. Which might explain why it is a fucking TROPE in your average rom com. But it honestly didn’t occur to me until my friend mentioned it that I might feel weird about going to a wedding solo. In my mind it was just sort of a fun party, a chance to see friends and drink and dance and whatever. I forgot about the whole honoring a couple’s love for one another part of it. As soon as I saw those little cuties walking down the aisle together holding hands it all became painfully and maddeningly obvious.  Fuck! Just call me Bridget Goddamned Jones. Barf.

The notion of having a partner to lean on who will take care of you and put up with all your bullshit and still love you is so foreign and mystifying to me that it seems almost like magic. It’s positively intangible. And that makes me feel sad and defective, and UGH I HATE THE FACT THAT I AM REACTING LIKE SUCH A GODDAMNED SAD SACK GIRL TO SOMETHING THAT’S LOVELY AND HAPPY AND GREAT. I would like to think that some terrible combination of hormones, lack of sleep and alcohol is responsible for my disgustingly self-involved and mopey state of mind. Don’t get me wrong — the wedding was fun as hell. I drank my weight in Raisins Galouis, smoked seven billion cigarettes, busted at least fifteen moves on the dance floor and was just sober enough to recognize that I was sort of awkwardly inserting myself into an existing dance cypher, but MY LOVE OF JANET COULD NOT BE DENIED. Parenthetically, it’s truly incredible how quickly 2 months of clean living can be undone. I got to marvel at what a healthy and successful and loving relationship looks like, look at the gorgeously romantic Manhattan skyline and also quietly mock dumb-looking passersby just like old times.

But when the wedding officiant (the groom’s darling father, who looks so much like Billy Joel it’s scary) instructed members of the assembled crowd to grab the hand of their loved one, I wrapped my arms around myself and squeezed hard.

It’s important to let yourself be sad sometimes. And then go eat 3 slices of pizza by yourself and pass out at 9 pm. LIFE.

On the plus side, I got to see my beloved NYC in all of its fall splendor, hung out with my favorite 2 year and 4 month year old (and his rad parents of course), ran around the loop in Prospect Park (seriously who the fuck am I anymore?), ate all of the pizza, did not contract Ebola (that I know of), danced a lot, hugged people I love (which I am hoping will sustain me for at least the next 6 months or however long it is until I deem it safe to visit New York again). All in all, I’d say it was a slightly more than halfway successful trip. To sum up:

Here are some things I miss about New York (working list)

My peeps.
Walking. Everywhere.
Walking everywhere while listening to jams, like you’re in your own personal music video
The views of the Hudson at sunset
Aforementioned overpriced caffeinated beverages
The subway
Humans. Human persons big and small, of various shades, living their lives and being annoying and beautiful
This shit:

The perfect meal

Here are some things I don’t miss about New York:

The person I was when I lived here

Maybe one day when I’m more solidly the person I want to be, it will be safe to come back. But not yet. Not for a while. In the mean time, feel free to come visit me in the mountains. The goats are hilarious, the air is clean and free of ghosts and the coffee is cheap and strong.