Restless, I am restless. Again.
I thought I’d be over this by now. I know New York’s my city—where the hell else am I going to live?—so you’d think that knowledge would be enough to calm me.
It does not. Knowing there is no place else does not calm me.
Oh, I could certainly live elsewhere. Had I any knowledge of German beyond gesundheit and Gott im himmel and I’d give Berlin a whirl, and I wouldn’t mind a stay in Budapest or Prague. Or Paris, despite the cliche of, well, Paris.
But could I live, forever, in one of these places? Make them home? If I can’t make it here, I can’t make it anywhere.
Why is this? Is this the consequence of lookin’ to leave since I was thirteen? Bide time in SmallTown, live in Madison—love Madison, but know I have to leave, because to stay is to, I don’t know, to give up, somehow—live in Minneapolis, knowing I’d have to move to wherever I’d be lucky enough to land an assistant professorship, etc. Even when I moved to Boston, allegedly for my last move, I had a sense it wouldn’t take. It didn’t.
New York, however, New York took. It took awhile, but, man, this is it.
And I don’t know what to do with that.
It feels like a last stand, no more escape hatches or retreats across the desert, no more waiting for life to begin.
What am I still waiting for?
My life is more than halfway over and I’m afraid to let it be. I’m in the city I’ve dreamed of in that first escape plan, and I still feel like I’m on the run.
So I’m staying put and waiting and on the run, all at once. No wonder I’m restless.
AbsurdBeats 