Yesterday I moved out of the apartment that has become my home in New York. It was harder than I imagined it would be. In the days leading up to the move I found myself getting sluggish and wandering aimlessly around my beloved neighborhood, grieving. I didn't want to go.
It wasn't even so much that I loved my apartment-- although I did-- it was that my apartment was the last living testament to any semblance of the life I had built in New York. I no longer had a job. I had scrapped the career path I was progressing down. Relationships had changed. Home had changed. The possibility, however small, of someday retreating to the west coast had faded behind the quiet thud of a shut door. My apartment was the one thing left. And I was leaving. To where I didn't know.
In the last few weeks I've likened my current experience to the scenes in action movies where actors are in a high-speed freeway chase when the camera pulls back and suddenly you see that a mile down the road the overpass is down for construction and the actors are hurtling toward nothingness. The car can't be stopped, the freeway can't be fixed. Void and plunge.
I've been hurtling toward this void for the last four weeks since I gave notice at my apartment. No clue of what's to come, no idea of where to live or how to do what I think I should do. Just incontrovertible passing of time thrusting me into the unknown.
And this is where it gets very quiet.
In the movie, this is the hushed, whistling moment that the car leaves the concrete and soars through the air in slow motion, tires spinning, time suspended. Quiet. No ground behind, no ground before, just a silent arc through the air as the audience holds their breath and waits...
I have two suitcases and a hope for what's ahead. Waiting to land.
