Here is Where I Am
Here is where I am.
It’s a studio apartment on the Upper East Side with a big
bed and an inflatable mattress on the floor and piles of boxes lining the wall.
I can hear the neighbor’s television, and it makes me so self-conscious that
I’m afraid to turn mine on. The water
pressure in the shower isn’t great, but the hot water seems to last forever as
I stand under the stream and get caught up in my own brain. There is a cabinet
full of mismatched dishes and a stove and two pans and a fridge with enough
food to fill a single shelf, even though I continue to sustain myself solely on
handfuls of carrots and spoonfulls of peanut butter. It’s two blocks from a grocery
store and one block from a CVS and six blocks from the synagogue where I’ve
worked all year. The wi-fi works most of the time.
Here is where I am.
It's a highway somewhere between New York and DC and it is
foggy enough that in the front row of this beat up Bolt bus I can only see a
couple cars ahead. The outlets only work on the left side, and the boy sitting
next to me is listening to Kanye on his phone. I've got the Wombats on—I always
have the Wombats on. Every seat is taken, and when I look down the aisle I can
see heads bobbing, people half asleep or fully asleep or wishing they could
fall asleep. I’m idly scrolling through Facebook on my phone, staring at faces
of people in the place that I’m leaving and the place that I’m headed to and
all the places in between. It is 2:30 in the afternoon, but time is kind of
meaningless on a six hour, middle of the day bus ride, except for in how slow
it passes.
It’s a bedroom that feels like it hasn’t grown up in a dozen
years, even though I feel like a completely different person than who I was the
last time I inhabited it. The walls are two shades of purple and there is a
magnetic strip on the wall holding up photographs and awards and notes written
by people who were once friends and are now just a little more than strangers.
There are boxes here too, ones I shipped from Manhattan, full to nearly
bursting with t-shirts and books and hair ties and blankets. My life sealed up
in cardboard, waiting to be unpacked.
Here is where I am.
Somewhere in between “Here is what I have done” and “Here is
what I am going to do.” The middle of “Just started” and “Almost done.” That
weird stage of transition. After point A and before point B. Twenty three and
confused… kind of like every twenty three year old ever.
I’ve got this strange habit of looking at my life like it’s
a story. A book with a set beginning and end and chapter breaks and a cast of
characters that carries all the way through.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about those chapters lately.
The end of one and the beginning of another. It feels so final. So concrete.
But here is the thing about a good story. A good story flows
together. Bits and pieces carry over from chapter to chapter. Past experiences
shape future ones. The chapter ending doesn’t mean the book is ending. The
story still goes on.
Here is where I am.