Brooklyn

I moved into my apartment in Brooklyn yesterday, and I'm feeling all sorts of weird. I woke up early in the morning and my heart was racing, which was only made worse by the coffee I drank to compensate for a lack of sleep before this big move. My dad and I got a later start than we expected, and traffic was the most horrendous I have ever seen it on the New Jersey Turnpike. Seven bumper-to-bumper hours later, we arrived in Brooklyn, to my little place in Williamsburg.

After moving all the boxes and furniture into the apartment, my dad had to get right back into the van to drive back to DC. Not being one for stoicism, I couldn't help but cry when, after I did a final sweep of the van, after we moved all the boxes, after every trip back and forth for job interviews, after every practice GRE test, and after finally getting up my confidence to re-apply to graduate school, I arrived. There was nothing left to do. There was no turning around. I was here, and my life in New York, the city that contains all of my passions and hopes and dreams, had begun.

"This is your moment," my dad said. "Have fun with it. And we will be watching you every step of the way."

My dad and I have moved in and out of college dorm rooms, two apartments, and, if you can count the debacle of him having to locate my missing laptop that I carelessly left at airport security and driving me to the airport, a foreign country. Something about moving to New York seems different. It seems frightening in a physical way; moving to Sweden had its intellectual barriers, like the language gap and customs I didn't know, but I felt safe. Walking south down Bushwick Avenue from my apartment turns industrial, but walking north gets me to Hipsterville. On the four minutes it takes me to get home from the L train, I pass a vegan donut shop, a Sicilian bakery, a storefront pentecostal church, a place called "Bushwick Pita Palace," a laundromat where a bunch of old Mexican guys hang out, and a Jewish deli. I've never been around so many different kinds of people all at once. And I have to admit that I'm not really comfortable with it yet. 

This discomfort couples with my fear of being lonely. I've written about this topic before, here and on my Sweden blog. But for some reason, even in this city full of people, I fear being alone. That fear is amplified when I don't yet feel completely safe on my block. I fear being alone more than anything else imaginable, even more than death. I fear it so much that I latch on to the people I love, putting pressure on relationships instead of letting them grow organically.

But I have something that most people don't have: the Tens. As many of you know, I listen to this podcast called Too Beautiful to Live, and I've become a part of the "tens" of listeners (a self-deprecating name, as opposed to the show acquiring hundreds of thousands of listeners). I've made some amazing friends through this strange and beautiful world. And Tens are everywhere. Like a port in every storm, the Tens have a hub in every city. I already have plans to meet the Tens here in New York. Having this instant group of friends who I don't doubt will get me feels like the greatest gift. As founder of the show Jen Andrews wanted, I feel like I've found the cure for global loneliness. And it's the best feeling in the whole damn world.

There is plenty of room for more Tens! Check out TBTL on their website and download the show on your favorite podcasting app. 

Rubber Soul

Lying in bed in the dark staring at the ceiling, he asked me what my favorite Beatles album was. When I responded that I loved Rubber Soul, he told me it made sense. He cited my penchant for melancholy lyrics, the song "Norwegian Wood" being one that fit my musical sensibilities and general affinity for expression of sadness through song. We tried to remember every track from Abbey Road, breaking into off-key versions of "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" and messing up the lyrics.

When we woke up the next morning, we both knew we wouldn't be speaking to each other for almost three weeks. I had asked for this temporary radio-silence. We picked a date when I'd call him, for the wound that resulted from him not knowing what he wanted from my presence in his life seemed like it needed a three-week healing period. His face fell when he realized that I wouldn't be calling him for help moving boxes into my Brooklyn apartment or informing him of my safe arrival into the city. He realized that, maybe for the first time since we started dating, that I was no longer a guarantee. 

I had a meeting in the city that morning. We woke up at 7:45 so I could make an 8:30 train. He made me a bag of snacks for the day while I brushed my teeth. As we were about to walk out the door, he asked me for my water bottle. As he filled it in the kitchen, I wiped away tears from under my eyes, hoping he wouldn't see my upset. I almost wished he would stop doing and saying nice things - I wanted him to give me a reason to walk away. 

At the train station, I stood on the curb, while he stood on the pavement, putting me right at his eye level. We kissed goodbye, my heart sinking into the pit of my stomach. He told me his was, too. We lingered, and then I let him go.

As I walked up the stairs to the platform, I didn't look back, though it took every neuron in my pre-frontal cortex to tell me stare straight ahead. I got on the train, with the sounds of melancholy songs by The Magnetic Fields in my ears, and I cried. Scenes from the weekend flashed through my head - the baseball game, fireworks, swimming in the ocean and walking out on the jetty to watch the sky change from blue to pink to orange in the late afternoon. As the day went on, I wanted to tell him everything - about my shiny new job, the John Oliver piece on District of Columbia statehood, the Nationals losing to the Diamondbacks. 

And now, hours later, miles away from him, in my own bed, I'm staring at the ceiling and listening to Rubber Soul. I'm waiting for it to pass.