September 2015

I’m sitting in a Starbucks not far from home but a little too far to be on foot after sundown.  This caffeine buzz should keep me moving though.  I’m just not sure which direction to move but I know I don’t want to go home. 

Every Starbucks is exactly the same no matter where are go.  I abhor the coffee here but tonight this has become a safe place.  It’s Philly.  It’s New York.  It’s College Park, MD.  It’s everywhere except North Carolina.  Oh yeah, and I feel like I’m 24 years old again. 

But I am 39 and I am in North Carolina.

Twenty-four "the first time" was near the end of Nashville, TN.  Those few years were truly some of the greatest adventures of my lifetime.  I moved there fresh out of college because I just didn’t want to go home.  I found a great little apartment in a nice gated complex and a great shitty job just up the street at a motel not far from the airport.  The only vehicle we could find that we could afford was a 3 year old Ford F150 with a manual transmission that I learned to drive on the fly when dropping off my boyfriend at work and having to get back home again.  We made nice with the neighbors and had weekly cook-outs and played pool at a local dive bar. 

Then I jumped out of a moving car to get away.  I didn’t want to go home so I packed a bag and flew north for 6 months.  In early September I headed back to Nashville with an ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend.  We found an even better apartment on the other side of town with 2 bathrooms, 2 parking spots, a balcony, and a piano.  There was also lots of wine, lots of vodka, and way too much whiskey.

I got my job at the motel back and enjoyed the monthly visits from the TN Air National Guardsmen.  They brought me dinner, peach cobbler with ice cream, and all sorts of other wonderful treats.  One was particularly taken with me.  A very handsome nurse 16 years my senior with the most charming smile.  He would call the front desk and see what I wanted for dinner and place the delivery order.  He would have it delivered to the front desk, paid for, and would show up with a 6 pack in time to eat and chat with me. 

The rest of my time working there was very quiet.  I would sit at the table behind the front desk listening to the Top 40 radio station and watching people go in and out of the Waffle House next door.  I spent so much time alone there.  I treasured it. 

When I wasn’t behind that turquoise formica desk, my ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend and I would cause whatever trouble we could.  We frequented  the local tattoo/piercing shop, we drank until we couldn’t stand up, and we partied until we passed out.

Eventually, I grew tired of all that and decided to go home. 

That’s when I landed the dream job I hated to love.  The job that I loved so much that I didn’t care how poor I was, I was just happy to wake up everyday and do it.  I parted ways with the ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend and moved in with a new boyfriend.  He was, and continues to be, a vile human being but I pretended for a year and a half that he was ok.  The last six months I was afraid to go home and timed my arrivals to coincide with his departures and my departures with his arrivals.  My strength reared it’s head one day and I got out of there.  I found a new home in a fabulous dump of an apartment above a butcher shop. 

That was a home I never wanted to be away from.  Well, with the exception of the bug issues and heat problems early on.  Once they were remedied, we had a wonderful 3 bed, 1 bath shit hole with a party rooftop and a piano that looked and played as if it had been rolled down Oxford Ave and hit by a Septa bus.

Oh the parties we had there!  Friends were plentiful, coffee was always hot and ready, and the washing machine in the kitchen made for a great beer cooler!  The oven never quite worked there and my sister flooded the kitchen thanks to that washer more than a few times but things were always positive.  And when they weren’t, there was always good people to be with.

When it was time to move on I found a friend also in need of a place to live and a roommate, and a wonderful house in Philly.  It had a marble mantel, a big private backyard, a claw foot tub, a finished basement with a washer and dryer, and all the old character of a great Philadelphia row home.  I have never loved a house more than I did this one. 

Our mutual friend warned me to not move in together.  But I loved the house.  I’m not sure how long things were good for or how long they were bad but eventually, I was locked out of the house and there was an attempt to run me over with a car.  And again I got to the point of avoiding going home.  That’s about when I moved to NYC.

My road has been littered with not wanting to go home.  Tonight is the first time in a long time I’ve felt it.  If my car was properly working, I’d likely still be out and about instead of back on the comfort of my couch.  The air is stale in here.  No matter how much we keep the windows open, it doesn’t help.  I think we are both ready to pack up and find a change of scenery.  

The wrong side of the sunrise

Its common knowledge at this point, mornings and I don't get along.  My usual self is replaced with a clumsy, dim-witted, cranky imposter.  I put my clothes on backwards or inside out.  I spill coffee on myself and everything around me.  I misplace my keys that are in my hand.  I forget my lunch that I packed minutes earlier.  Sometimes it takes hours before I can function.  Sometimes the whole day goes by and the sun begins setting before the morning fog subsides and I feel human again.

To all the people who said I would get used to it and it would get easier, its been over a year, you were wrong, and here's a big "fuck you" to chew on:

FFFFFFFFFFF        UU                 UU              CCCCCC            KK                 KK
FF                            UU                 UU          CC                           KK              KK
FF                            UU                 UU         CC                            KK            KK
FFFFFFFFF             UU                UU       CC                               KKKKKKK
FFFFFFFFF             UU               UU        CC                               KKKKKKK
FF                             UU              UU         CC                              KK            KK
FF                               UU          UU           CC                              KK              KK
FF                                  UU      UU             CC                             KK                KK
FF                                     UUUU                  CCCCCCC             KK                   KK



                                                         UU                     UU
                                                         UU                     UU
                                                         UU                     UU
                                                         UU                     UU
                                                         UU                     UU
                                                           UU                 UU
                                                            UU               UU
                                                             UU              UU
                                                                UUUUUUU




There, I feel a little better.  :)

Early last week I got into my apartment complex's fitness room.  It's nothing fancy.... a few treadmills, a few ellipticals, and some random weight training equipment.  But its free and quiet.  I grabbed my 15 yr old iPod that was given to me by a best friend I used to have and that was filled with music by a business lady in a Florham Park, NJ hotel room nearly 8 years ago.  The iPod had been sitting silently in a box for about two years but I gave it a full charge and thought nothing of it.  I stepped onto a treadmill and pressed play and smiled as the first few notes started playing. 

The dusty memories started coming back slowly and stayed ghostly in the distance.  I suppose over the years the music files corrupted.  The vocals in the verses were no longer audible.  In some songs the vocals came back fully in the choruses and then slid out again during the verses.  In other songs only background vocals were there.  All of the songs were familiar but some of them took a while before I could remember them clearly.  This was my traveling on trains soundtrack.  This was my subways at 3 am heading back to Queens from Philadelphia music.  This was my "I have no idea what the hell I am doing with my life but I'm having the best time doing it" soundtrack.  It was the beautiful two years right around 2007-2009 that everything in my world was upside down but everything in my head was right where it needed to be. 

That was a very different life.  Very different.  I always had plenty of sleep but not nearly enough to eat.  I slept in my car, on trains, in business lady's hotel rooms, and occasionally on couches but I was never too sure where my next meal was coming from.  I liked it that way.  And I had a great job that I loved and a few solid friends that were there for me when I got tired of moving and just needed to sit still for a bit or talk to someone other than myself.  Or do laundry.

It was a very different life.

I live at the beach now.  I wake up everyday to palm trees and sand and the Atlantic Ocean.  Brown pelicans are my absolute favorite and I don't remember what regular non-salty air smells like. 

One day last week I peeled myself out of bed at twenty after 6 in the morning, before the sunrise.  Its all backwards.  I prefer my sunrises after impromptu late night road trips to see my favorite bridge in Delaware or after spending the night in a bar or a friend's garage 2 states away.  Sunrises look better while driving north over the Girard Point Bridge in light rain after having created an adventure out of an otherwise typical Tuesday night. 

I had an 8 am work meeting.  What a special kind of hell this is.  Three cups of coffee later the meeting finished up and I headed to a friends house.  We sat on the couch, put our feet up, and opened a few beers and eased into the day.  I'm still easing into that day and it's now nearly 10pm over a week later.  I can't get a hold on this routine.  Time and I are at war.  Its a war I have no delusions of winning, I'm just missing my tempo rubato movement.