Growing Pains

July 5, 2018

Whenever I listen to Lorde’s Melodrama, as I am doing now, I am reminded of last summer. I am reminded of driving through the streets of my hometown, the heat everywhere, looking for something I could never quite find. I am reminded of feeling so absolutely terrified of being alone—of wanting someone, anyone, to come ease the sadness and fear inside of me. I am reminded of cold office buildings and rereading Pride and Prejudice in the sweltering sunlight and five mile runs at six thirty in the morning, the only bearable time of day.

I was evicted a week ago. Looking back, it’s funny, but at the time—terrifying. Don’t worry, future employers, it was through no fault of my own. I didn’t realize that the apartment residents were illegally subletting the place out to me. My boss, when I told her the story, burst into laughter and said, Well, you’re a true New Yorker now.

Living in a city is so different from what I expected. New York especially. You feel so alone here. I don’t mean that in a pitiful sort of way. More just—when you walk down the street, you’re not really supposed to look at anyone. Headphones in, avoid eye contact, ignore the men who call out to you at every street corner. In a city so packed full of people, your main objective is to look as purposeful, as busy, and as independent as possible.

When I first moved to California, I was taken aback by the mannerisms I encountered there. So many friendly people, and yet—so many superficial interactions. A world of pretending that your acquaintances are your best friends. I was used to the Southern kindness of North Carolina—when people like you, they’re nothing but genuine; otherwise, they’re polite, but they never pretend, and you know and you move on with your life. I think I took that authenticity for granted. California, at least school, is very different. A person could hate you, and you would never know.

But Manhattan—Manhattan is different altogether. In Manhattan, the people you think are friends will never let you become more than an acquaintance. I haven’t experienced this myself, because I’ve only been here three weeks, and most of the people I see are either interns from out of state, or friends from school, or my work superiors. Among those three groups, there’s not a lot of room for misunderstanding. Yet a couple days ago, my boss, during lunch, asked me about my perceptions of New York—and New Yorkers—thus far.

They’re very much in their own lives, I said. It’s not that they’re rude or unkind—they just don’t go out of their way to welcome you in.

She agreed. It’s hard to be friends with someone here. Then she laughed. Dating, especially, is such a bitch.

**

To my friends and family who are not here in the city with me: I miss you dearly. I miss school—not the actual academics, but the people who come with it. I miss the easy comfort of being around people who know you inside out, and my mom’s cooking, and home—who knew it would take living away from home (really, truly, having-an-apartment-and-needing-to-do-my-own-grocery-shopping living away from home) to feel like this?

I’m being dramatic. It’s honestly so wonderful here, in a number of ways. I especially love how much I can tap into my I’m a cold professional bitch don’t talk to me side. And how there are coffee shops on every corner, and I can walk anywhere, and how every day that I live on my own I learn a little more about myself and the world around me. It’s in the moments that I’m not doing anything that I’ve begun to discover a part of me I never knew existed. I can’t describe it. I’ve always been the kind of person who thrives in the company of others, but here, more and more often, I am realizing just how much I enjoy being alone.

I haven’t written in a really long time, and I’ve been thinking about why that’s the case. I could cite the obvious—school, and finals, and traveling, and eight-hour workdays—but I’m not quite sure that’s it. I haven’t been running much, either. These things I used to love—they speak less to me now. It makes me kind of sad. At the same time, I’m not as restless anymore, and I wonder if these growing pains—the ones I’ve been experiencing for, what, two years now—are finally settling.

These past months, especially. I don’t know why I didn’t write anything about the end of my sophomore year. Maybe I thought it was too cliché. Maybe I just didn’t want to. I’m scared that I’m losing touch with my writing—that I’m forgetting how to do it well. I’m worried that people won’t want to read, anymore. I’m worried that I’m running out of things to say.

Now, a year later, I listen to Lorde again, and I am reminded. The heat is still here, trapped by the skyscrapers and radiating up from the sidewalks, a furnace I don’t mind inhabiting. The loneliness will never leave. But I’m not as scared, and I’m trying to put my finger on the reason. It’s as if something has settled inside of me—a weight I’m familiar with, now, a comfort I never knew before; as if I’m finally becoming okay with the fact that I can’t always use the promise of company to fend off solitude.

It’s funny to trace back through two years of this blog and to see how much my summers have changed me. Back in 2016, at eighteen, I thought I had everything figured out. I thought the best way to cope was to keep holding on to what was already gone.

Some things just have to be gone, I realize now. And there are other moments—the Manhattan sky at sunset, or the sound of my favorite smile on the phone at one a.m., halfway across the country, or the moment I write this, at Isha’s kitchen counter, with Supercut playing over the speakers. There are other moments that I’m sure, in a month or a year or even ten, I will continue to remember.