Nowhere Woman

After spending six nights in New York City, on two different couches and one bed, and two more nights in Syracuse in a bed I visit twice a year, I have come to the definitive conclusion that I am as much in Limbo now as I was for the five months I spent in Ryan’s spare bedroom in Queens, with most of my possessions packed up in storage, on my way to moving to California, just uncertain of exactly when.

Back then, when I would spend a week or two or even just a few days in LA, I would miss it terribly upon my return to New York.

When I came back to New York this time, for the first time since Christmas, I didn’t miss LA so much.

I didn’t miss New York, either. It felt like a stranger to me, like a place I’d visited in a dream. I got lost on the subway and took the wrong train, twice in one evening. I became befuddled at Penn Station. I asked for directions. I took a cab both to and from the airport instead of struggling to lug my bags up and down staircases and escalators, across the gap and off of curbs.

I was neither a tourist nor a resident.

I kept my watch on West Coast time, but I didn’t think about the West Coast very much. I didn’t miss anyone there. After all, I was with the people that I’ve been missing for over a year since moving.

I did miss my car. I missed my bed. But those don’t have much to do with where I live.

I managed to feel my heart break for the second time for a person for whom I would probably stay in New York if he wanted me to.

When everyone asks me, “How’s LA?” – or, more likely, when New Yorkers ask me, “Really? You like it there?” – I say, “It’s great,” and I mean it. But what I really mean is, “It’s great, for now.” I don’t know that I’ll spend the rest of my life in LA. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle the loneliness. I’m not sure it’ll ever get better. I’m not sure I’ll be able to find a job there that I love.

“Are you there for the rest of your life?”

“I have no idea. I mean, I would certainly move somewhere else for love…”

But what I would do and what I would ever have the chance to do are two totally different things. You have to be given the opportunity to make a choice before you choose.

And I’ve already chosen to leave my life behind and start a new one from scratch somewhere else. I’m not about to do that again anytime soon. At least, not by myself. And I’m not about to move back to New York anytime soon. At least, not by myself. There are only a few things I won’t do alone, and those are amongst them.

At least, for now.

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