The Break Up

Saturday, January 27, 2007

If you've ever had your heart broken, you know how it feels. First, you cry. Then, you get angry. Then, if you're me, you cry some more. A broken heart, they say, can be mended over time. I've gotten over it quickly a couple times, but mostly I choose to enjoy the long, slow burn. I never thought that a city would be able to break my heart. I fell in love with New York when I was six years old. Legend has it that I stood in Times Square with my parents and told my mom that I was going to live here one day. And she promptly responded with a swift, "Oh no you won't". There I go, proving people wrong again. I came two weeks after college and fell in love all over again. The height of our relationship was living on 81st Street. I ran in the park every morning, enjoyed my everything bagels with lite veggie cream cheese from H & H, and shared margaritas and swamp water with friends during happy hour and beyond. Everything was good.Life is a rollercoaster, though, and me and New York have had our ups and downs. I've thought of leaving many times, usually fleeting thoughts as I'm shoved into a closing subway door during rush hour, or not being able to get a taxi in the pouring rain. But when I lost my job a month and a half ago, it hit me that I really could just pack up and leave. I had nothing to hold me back. I really could do anything. Except that I had just signed that pesky new one year lease.It seemed no sooner I had just settled into my new place, though, that I came home one night to an unlocked door. And that's when my heart broke.I swore up and down I would stick it out. Getting my apartment broken into was just one more challange that I was to learn from and overcome. But then I realized that maybe it was something more than that. If I broke my lease, I really would have nothing to hold me back. I felt like someone was trying to tell me something.I looked for apartments and found nothing, granted it's only been three weeks, but I just don't want to anymore. I'm not moving back. There's nothing in the city anymore. I have my friends, and if they are my friends, they will stay in touch and come visit me wherever I end up. I'm staying with my family now, saving some money and inventing my next plan. I'm completely putting this in God's hands. I've been getting the feeling lately that I should have done that a while ago. So now it's up to Him. Where I go next, only He knows....