thoughts on nyc

i haven't written since the morning of tuesday the twenty fourth when i woke up all alone in an empty room of an apartment in flatbush & it hit me like a brick smashing through my ribcage how most of the people i love are 15 280 kilometers away from me & how i'll have eleven more weeks to go before the familiarity of home; how i would pause on the way from the subway to work & look on in silence as the plane above me roared and traversed through the sky, wishing to god that i were on it; how the twelve hour time difference made me treasure early mornings or late nights so much more, how the loneliness of being the only one here in this vast city would kill me alittle on the inside. i never really understood homesickness until then - but how lucky i am to have somewhere to miss, & somewhere to ground me. 

having what had hitherto comprised my world on the other end of the globe has made me so open to making new friends & rekindling old acquantainces: to latch on to every friend i meet like a lifeline, to initiate conversations & to be curious about what makes them tick / how do they feel about where they come from etc. perhaps the magic of this city is meeting mere acquaintances & realising how capable we are of having good conversations - nearly the kind of conversations i have when with old friends. 

breaking away from home & the world i have (momentarily) left behind has been such a liberating feeling: this is my summer - my time to grow. to roam. to fly. pre-summer was precisely (nearly) a wreck bc i knew i needed to fly without clipped wings - & fly i will. but i've also realised the little parts of me i've left behind over the past year - emotions invested / the familiarity of things and people - these things still move me, even when they are knocking on closed doors. i've realised they still tug at my heartstrings despite being so far away because i have gone past the point of invalidating their existence. there are only good memories left. and they were beautiful while they lasted. 

growing. a word that encapsulates this season i am in.