8. i’m leaving you
I’m leaving you New York. It’s not personal. It has nothing to do with you, I swear. It’s me. And I’m not trying to make some literary metaphor by parodying every romantic comedy break up movie script there ever was. No, I really mean it. And maybe they meant it too but they didn’t know that when they said the words. Most people don’t know what their saying before they say it.
Our words usually find us. Like these words, right here.
And here.
And here.
And here.
And
here.
And
here.
I’m leaving you, New York because you’re too close to home for me.
I spent years trying to make you my own and now that you finally are I must leave. That’s how things work with me in this lifetime. Until I find a home that I can travel with. That I can be anywhere with. I must keep moving. I must keep finding new homes until I find my home. With another person. Within another person. With you. With the one.
Plus, too many people know me in New York.
I’ve grown quite claustrophobic of the city. It feels like all the corners I turn on are filled with friends and lovers of my past. I don’t see them often, but I feel them all around me. I feel me all around me. And it’s not me now, it’s me of the past.
In New York, I walk around with the ghosts of me. And I don’t like ghosts. I like me, today. I like who I’ve become. I like the lessons I’ve learned. I like the lessons I’m still learning. I like the story of my life. Even when I hate it. I still like it. Because it’s mine. And no one else’s. I treasure my life. My life is my treasure. It took me a while to find it but I did. And I’ll never let that feeling go again. I owe it all to New York.
I did exactly what i set out to do when I moved to New York. I found the treasure in myself. In New York I turned myself into pure gold.
If you listen closely to what it’s telling you, this city will transform you. Every square inch of you with every square inch of it.
Every block you walk, every subway stop you get off at, every dollar you gave to your corner bodega - will push its fingertips into you until you’ve molded yourself into the version of you, you need to be. And not because of some unwritten, performative rule of society that you must keep up with, no. Because it’s who you need to be because it’s who you’ve always dreamt of being.
I always dreamt of being super fucking confident. I never wanted my looks to be my most attractive trait and it isn’t to me. My personality is. Finally. I can feel people attracted to me because of who I am and not because of my body. So now I love me and the body I live in. Because they’re both mine!
I always dreamt of writing. I’ve been writing in my head a long time and now I’m finally getting it down on paper again. I always wrote + filmed + sang + danced as a child. I was so creative as a child. I loved anything with colors! And group activities!
I’ve always been inspired by people. I’ve always wanted to bare witness and remember the lives of humans. And now I’m about to set off on a two year writing + nature fest in California. It’s going to be so amazing. It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of and I owe it all to New York. If I knew that New York would bring me everything I ever wanted and then send me off to my next town, I’d still do it all over again.
It’s been magic. And I’m not trying to sugar coat things, I went through some shit in this town but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t magic.
Magic is no exception to life, there must be dark and light within it for it to exist on earth and all the galaxies of the universe. Everything begins and ends in black and white and everything in between is vivid color.
Every color imaginable lies within black and white. How beautiful is that.