the Moment After

And then there I was, stranded at a train station in queens, waiting for the A to take me back to Manhattan. After such a crazy whirlwind of a week, suddenly deposited on the dimly lit platform, all alone. The train came and I sank into some paperback quick-read, bridging the gap between what had just passed, and the life to which I returned.

Because after this vacation at home, I now have to get back to whatever it is I thought I was doing. I have to get back to work, write a list, cut my hair, get a job. In short, I have to get my shit together.

Vacations, such a brief bliss of an existance. Where all that truly matters is that you spend time with the people you love, and possibly also that you do it somewhere with good tofurky and cheap drinks. And those people, the kind of friends that know, and they make it easy for you to talk, to listen, to remember their importance in your life, even when they live so far away. These people built me, and grateful seems like a word that doesn't nearly fill the feeling.

For a minute, I feared that the void they left behind them would tarnish my infatuation with the City, that it would somehow appear a little duller in the street lights. I feared they would remind me of a life I had, a life I really did adore, and that I would want to get it back. But if anything, their visit reminded me how beautiful this City is, how much of an escape. Of how I did run away, but that this was a pretty good place to run to. Having wearily climbed the stairs at the west 4th street stop, I walked the long way home. Greenwich village glittered in the warm drizzle, and I was happy.