One of my closest friends announced today that she’ll be leaving New York for Portland in a month. My throat hurts and it’s raining. I haven’t finished the rest of the “Mara” story so I can’t post that. It’s Friday night and I’m stuck at home, feeling sorry for myself, drinking hot tea, thinking about all the friends who live so far away.
If I had magic powers I’d convince them all to move to New York right now. I don’t care if it is February. Or if they really are happier somewhere else. They’d live in my neighborhood, ideally. Or at least somewhere off the L.
Segue to pout sequence two: I’m missing Gainesville again, where everyone lives within a few square miles of each other, and you can ride your bike anywhere you need to go. When I was there I complained about how tired I was of small town life, delivering pizza, drinking just to waste the time. I couldn’t wait to leave. And in Miami before that: I lived for the day I finished high school, when I could finally run away. Happiness residing in the future somewhere. The next town. The next boyfriend. The next new job.
Isn’t there something in Buddhism about being happy where you are? Not burdening the blog community with your whining when you’re not? Fine. I’m happy here. Neighborhood, apartment, life. Brooklyn. But I’m angry that the world’s so big. Our itinerant culture. Everyone going somewhere else. Catch-up phone calls only do so much, and Facebook does even less. We have contact friendships — IM buddies and a stack of business cards, meeting up sometime.
So here’s my wish: that we’ll stay friends. Portland, Miami, Gainesville, Jersey City. That I’ll visit you and you me, and maybe 30 years from now, in another life, we’ll find ourselves in the same town. Some beach in some other place, marveling over how it all turned out. And all of us living down the block. Until then, we’ll burn the batteries of our cell phones down, talking into the night, and we’ll write long e-mails for Gmail to keep forever, in some sentimental archive, then we’ll lose touch for a while, and get back in touch a while after that. So it goes. To my friends everywhere: a couch with your name on it, wherever you are.
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