This Much I Know is True

Well, well, well. What a whirl, what a whirl. I moved back to New York a few days ago and I'm really quite frustrated with the number of emotions I've experienced. Initially, I dreaded leaving home and getting back in the grind. While we were in the air, I started to get excited, remembering that distinctly newyorky rush I get when I'm walking around the city. Then, I spent just a little bit too much time on how happy I was, and started to get nervous. I started remembering that being in New York really meant that I wasn't going to be at home with my mommy and sisters and friends and the hard-leafed trees and soft, wide sunsets. Aggh!

When we were in the taxi and driving up through Brooklyn into Manhattan, panic truly set in. I felt nothing but remove and could not remember why I used to love this place, which now felt as if it had come back into my life much sooner than I wanted it to. It seemed so greedy. I had only been able to leave it for two months and now I had to come back, and in order to be there, I had to recondition myself to toughness and patience.

Then, of course, spending the day in and around the Hudson and all of those neat little stores you found scattered all about, my rush of New York love swelled within me and I felt so happy to be back, knew I could live here forever. That lasted until the next morning and then dread set in and then happiness and then remorse that I had to leave my mama again again again and then, upon moving-in, elation at how perfect my apartment turned out to be. And then dreading the next day, when she would have to go back. Home.

I could (can) never really settle on one emotion. Do I hate New York? Or do I love it? Do I want this independence? Or do I just want to stay at home, living life the way I love to lead it? Why do they both feel right at times and so wrong at others? Frustration. Frustration that will continue on into the next few weeks until I finally find my inevitable groove. This is who I am, and how I work. I dislike it, but it's how I process.

The most beautiful and frightening thing: I realized that the greatest gift my mother ever gave me was allowing me this much fear. I don't know what to do with it, but I have it. That's my beginning.