back to newyorkcity

It is the end of February. I am 28. I am not 22, the age I was when I started this blog. A few weeks ago, I was surprised to see I net more web traffic than ever before. I post here rarely; I'm not sure what to say that hasn't been said. Who am I now that I wasn't 6 years ago?

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Scar tissue.

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There's been organs lost and battles waged on the inside. There's a decline in health and a rise in self-awareness. I drink less. I do less. I swim more. I travel more. I dive headfirst into either everything or nothing.

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This week I slept three straight days. My Jawbone UP band told me I took 324 steps yesterday. I think that was to the bathroom and back into bed. How pathetic! I write these updates and I look back and some of them are so similiar; I feel powerless, I try, I fail, I whine.

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Movement.

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On February 8th, I moved into an apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I haven't lived in the city since July 31, 2011. Nearly three years have passed since I called NY home. When I lived in California, I was certain I'd never go back to New York City. There was so much air in California. I had my Lost Days, the days where I slept, but it was with the windows open and the sunlight streaming in, fierce. It was beautiful and it was lonely and it was hard.

I had to make myself do things. I had to make friends.

Moving back to New York...that first week reminded me of moving to LA. I have plenty of friends in New York, but I hadn't connected with them, really connected with them, in some time. You can't just go back. Things have changed. People have changed. In New York, everything changes, and the city forgets you.

You forget the city too. You walk West when you mean to walk East. You transfer subway lines and end up going the wrong way. You learn about new ways to travel, a ferry that goes right across the East River...perhaps these things had existed in the 7 years I spent in New York, but I'm relearning them.

I'm relearning my friends, and my relationship to this town. I had a good first week back.

And then Claire visited, and I stayed with her and my new pal Aidan, and we had a great long weekend, snowed in on the Upper West Side.

My friends threw me a birthday toast, and I took the train home on the 17th to NJ to see my family.

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I've been home in NJ for 10 days now, almost half of the month. I spent half of the month in NJ, napping with Sadie, napping with the dog...napping.

My friends and I spent last weekend in the Poconos, swilling cheap beer and shopping at Wal-Mart.

That's a lot of money to waste on not being somewhere, and I've come up with a thousand reasons I haven't gone back.

But mostly, it's hard to reintegrate. It's hard to admit that! And I have been so tired. Sleeping, managing an out-of-control diabetes, bronchitis, and mouth ulcers. I have been sick and I have wanted the comforts of my bed in NJ, my parents 100 feet across the yard, the dog asleep at my feet.

Maybe most people want the comforts of home. Maybe I'm not cutting myself a break. Maybe I don't push myself enough.

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Tomorrow I'm getting on a train and going back. I feel a little bit better. The sores have receded and the cold and diabetes...well, I reckon they'll stay for sometime. I've made plans for the weekend and next week.

If I need to go home to NJ, I will.

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There are different parts of me, and they all want different things. My brain wants my body to get its' shit together, and my body so does not want to do that. It's all "fuck you, brain." Stupid body.

And my heart. My heart belongs in two places, maybe three. And I'm strung out, hoping to touch them all. But I'll try. I'll run headfirst into this adventure, this year of 28.

What else is there to do?

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Thanks for reading along the way.

kb