First, just in case: my previous blog post about movers was an April Fool’s Day prank. Stuff arrived late as hell, but everything made it to us intact.
So now I just have to ask myself if I made it intact… and I’m not sure of the answer.
People keep asking me how I like living in South Florida. The truth is, I barely know. In the 2-3 months that I’ve lived there, I’ve rarely spent more than a week without getting on a plane. And when I’m home, I’m mostly working ridiculous hours at my FIVE adjunct teaching jobs, not to mention my consulting work, to help keep us afloat while we wait for my full time job to start,
The truth is, I’m lonely. I’m so incredibly lonely. The only real friends I have down here that I see regularly are our next door neighbors, who are amazing but who can’t be all things to us. We clearly need to branch out and make new friends in the area.
I miss my New York friends. I try not to be sad that almost none of them have reached out, but I can’t help it… it feels like as soon as we left, most of them wrote us off. I suspect that if I didn’t make outreach efforts, we would never hear from almost anyone that we knew in NYC, and man, that’s a sobering thought. It’s hard not to feel abandoned.
Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe knowing that we want to move across the ocean in a short few years means that letting ties wither is a good thing. But damn, some of the absentee friends from NYC were an integral part of our lives, until we weren’t geographically convenient… and it’s tough to take that as anything except a demonstration that most people aren’t nearly as close to you as you’d like to think.
Tonight I got back to my hotel in Chicago, after a fun night out, but in a conflicted state. I was happy about my evening, but drunk, and alone (and worse: lonely). I was nostalgic for NYC (having ridden in a car driving past the Chicago skyline) and remembering how close I used to feel to several people in that city… and then grimly realizing how far I am, in every sense of the word, from most of those people.
In reality, I’m not okay. I’ve clung to a facade of okay for awhile now, but moments like this — when I’m by myself and drunk and lonely — serve to remind me just how alone I can feel from time to time. Sal does a remarkable job of showing me how loved I am, but when I’m by myself and staring forlornly at the ceiling, that sentiment is very far away. Everyone feels very far away.
Don’t worry, I’m not a danger to myself tonight. But damn, do I feel alone sometimes. Moving away from NYC seemed to draw clear attention to how transient many of my friendships were, in ways that are both unexpected and retrospectively obvious. As my life takes me from one home to the next, I realize just how fleeting many of those friends were, and I’m disappointed, and sad.
And I’m sleepy, so I should rest. But liquid/tired courage shouldn’t be disregarded, so I wanted to express this pent up disappointment. It feels like moving brought some unwanted clarity, and that makes me sad.
I miss my people, and the way that they made an apartment in Queens feel like home.
Posted by gatoruptown 
