Cary here while Jane sleeps in Alabama. Can’t escape the snow or the feeling that I’ve been flaying a dead horse for too many months now. The flies gather, and my arms are so tired. There are other metaphors: treading water in an open sea, banging on the front door when I can see through the window that nobody’s home. When I first moved to the city two years ago, I fell immediately in love, and maybe that ruined everything, that first unconditional devotion to a man who would not be my tour guide, who broke my heart irreparably and has become the standard, the untouchable ideal against whom I compare every man that follows. But it isn’t just him; it’s what he stands for: luck and success and golden timing. Or something. Back and forth and back and forth between Newport and New York City, and every few days Mom calls to tell me, “One more week and you’ll get your break,” but nothing has broken except, maybe finally, my resolve. New England is covered in snow - more snow than I ever saw in Missouri - and last night I didn’t know where home is or was or will be or (and this is important) supposed to be. Always thought I would be the prodigal daughter who fought her way back eastward, but now I am here with nothing to show for my battles - not a cent, not a happy ending, not the love lost and won again - and I’m tired of having earned nothing. So this is the impasse: Must have encouragement to stick it out, keep turning the ignition and eventually the engine - something will happen. Or, conversely, it’s time to cash in my chips while I still have chips to cash and follow Interstate 70 back to the middle, the middle, the middle, and start over…
I love how she writes. How strange, that this is exactly how I’ve been feeling for the past month & half. The only difference is I’m from New York. If I spent more time/years in Tennessee after I was born I’d have a refuge from the big apple but 90% of my life has existed in New York.
Back to the post, the beautiful and vibrant words that just happen to describe my feelings. Hopefully these clouds of doubt will fade away. I KNOW it will at some point, some day. I’m just tired of the cloud’s mist and its resilience. One day these skies will clear and I’ll get just what I’ve been working towards for the past 2 years.
