Home

One drink turns into a stumble along the West Village streets. Classy to trashy to a dark, quiet corner and recapping months past. New friends mix into old friends and you remember where you came from. A year ago, how different we were, but I know you a year more now. We have nothing but the future ahead.

Did you think this was me then, too? Of course I did. We both knew this was you all along no matter the layers of makeup or make believe in the way. The years amass on our birthday candled cakes but every day brings us closer to who we are.

I sat by the Hudson today, Saturday afternoon sunlight warming throngs of people and making the deep blue waters sparkle through even the darkest sunglasses. My journal filled up with endless pages of self-deprecation and question marks. Such is life when I boil it down to its essentials. But in the end, the ink trickled into one conclusion: this city is Home. Even the question marks grew silent.

"I endure," she said, before the beer ran out and it was time to let a cab navigate out of the crooked grid, "because this is love, and this is what I have to do."

How right she was. How well I know the sentiment.

For a minute there, I lost myself.