you’re leaving new york

and here’s how you feel, so you can't possibly forget

You’re leaving New York. You’re going to London for grad school, and you’re not sure when or how you’ll return. You’re not sure of much, to be honest. To questions about the details of your life beyond the next two weeks, you dissolve into shrugs and nervous laughter. You still don’t know how to properly answer the question “How are you feeling?” when asked, either.

This series of decisions has been a long time coming. For the past half-decade, it seems you’ve spoken about needing to answer some nagging questions about this city, and your place in it, in vague terms. The past six months just heightened the conversation. But, as with so many things in life, in the end, this materialized hot and fast. You suddenly had a destination, a date, and an endless list of to-dos, the most emotionally charged being sharing the news with your people (and in turn, accepting it yourself).

So, across picnic blanket spreads of hard yellow cheeses and jams, over tables of spritzes and expensive crudite, you’ve told them. You’ve made the plans and pulled out the phone calendars. And as you’ve taken them in—each of your people sitting across from you, blinking, wide-eyed—you’ve seen the golden threads of a 10-year patchwork quilt you’ve stitched together tighten and stretch.

—

You’ve wondered how the goodbyes, not just to the people who make up your quilt, but to your places and comforts and familiarities would treat you. You’ve anticipated, and even been a little nervous, that the swirling fear of the unknown ahead could paint everything here in a glossy, fresh coat of color. We know how you romanticize…

You keep expecting to pass under the same brush of trees on your street and see the edges of the leaves glisten in new light. You head to your overpriced, underwhelming grocery store and wait to find the checkout ladies who never look up from their phones charming this time. You stare at the silhouettes of the skyscrapers towering above the East River on your train home, and you notice that you’re almost willing a sense of awe to rise in your throat. But it doesn’t.

The leaves look all the same. You still try and catch the eyes of the checkout ladies as you shove your receipt in your bag and force a syrupy ‘thank you’. You glance back down at your phone as you carry on across the bridge.

Despite the drama of an approaching one-way plane ticket, despite the air you breathe every day seeming electrically charged, these days and these catch-ups and conversations have been unremarkable. Wholly, deliciously typical. The friends who are notoriously incapable of showing up on time are late to meet you. Those most comfortable with physical touch grab for your forearms and squeeze as they listen. The most inquisitive, detail-oriented ones demand that you start at the very beginning, without leaving out a single part of the decision-making. The train is delayed to take you home.

The normalcy of this last little stretch has taken you by surprise, yes, but it’s also been fucking emboldening; it’s what you mean when you tell people that though you may not know what’s ahead, or if you’ll end up turning right around in a year’s time, this interlude feels right. Because, so deeply to your core you feel that you know this place. You know this life of yours.

Even with a brain whizzing out of control, and a pulse racing with all there is to do do do do do… you have felt almost purified during this time, so clear in the realization that even in the face of these goodbyes, you’re not coming to any new conclusions you haven’t already considered. You already know all of this.

And you feel so deeply, so utterly, ready to know nothing.

—

You will admit, though, that the nights have been different.

You’ve strolled home a few late summer evenings after parting ways with your beautiful, beautiful friends. Their requests for you to “text when you’re home,” despite how quick of a journey, sit warm in your belly; your head is a little loose from the wine.

And your breath, without any silent praying or willing at all, has caught in your throat.

Because, the pavement has finally cooled down for the day, and there’s a nice breeze. You walk down the same set of streets you’ve walked for years, streets that are empty now but are so loaded with memory and meaning it feels shocking they haven’t yet caved in. You look up. You see these tiny boxes of life, stacked one on top of the other. Their windows are basked in warm, dinnertime light, and you can hear the sounds of their muffled televisions and whirring A/C units.

The blood rushes to your cheeks as you acknowledge the magnificence found in all of these humans crammed into such tiny spaces — each of them so full of fear and longing and baggage and their own sets of streets so bogged down with memories they can’t believe it themselves. The fact that anyone here could call this insane, nervous system-dysregulating place a “home” is unthinkable, but somehow we do it. And it’s remarkable.

So if you’re wondering how it felt on those last, lingering days of August, when it was humid and you were 28, growing out your hair, and packing up to leave, this is it.

my tiny box of life, all of their tiny boxes of life