Moving
It’s almost time for me to leave New York. Tomorrow, I am scheduled to pick up a rental car, pack up everything that I have in New York, and drive down to my new home in Silver Spring, MD. For the first time in years, when people ask me where I live, the answer will be a simple sentence.
I live in Silver Spring, Maryland.
No longer will I have the complex labyrinth of residences. I stay in Cambridge, MA forpartof the week, where I am enrolled as a full time student, but I mostly live in Brooklyn, NY, although my permanent residence is considered to be Montgomery, AL–though I was a “travelling scholar” in Brazil for half the year blah blah blah.
I spend a chunk of timethis morning editing the address that I had entered on all of my bank accounts and other important accounts to reflect my move. My accounts, I had discovered in this process, had a potpourri of designated addresses, and this is the first time since I was in high school that they were all in sync.
It feels strangely unsettling. My nomadic life is coming to an end. I’m entering reality at full speed. I’m heading to a new place with which I am not overly familiar, and I am making it my home for the foreseeable future. It’s a new chapter in every way.
Well, almost every way. If I make it.
I met someone last night at a birthday shingdig for a friend. He was funny, reasonably attractive, and explained to me that he had left his job at Goldman Sachs a year ago to start an app that now has 57 employees. We talked for a few hours and he bought my meal. We exchanged contact information and he suggested, later that night, that we link up this weekend. I agreed.
But I know that he has a girlfriend. I saw that a picture of the two of them was the screensaver on his phone. I also friended him on instagram while we were eating and sharing funny photos from our favorite instagram accounts; later on, I perused his page and found recent photos of he and his girlfriend.
Yet, I still agreed to go out with him this weekend. Don’t get me wrong–there is not going to be any sort of canoodling. I know that it won’t go anywhere. But I willbe entertained for a night at least, which is why I agreed. To make matters worse, I don’t even particularly like this guy. There is something very schmoozy, very name-droppy, very artificial about him. I know that even if he did not have a girlfriend, there would never be anything between us. So why am I going to hang out with him this weekend? Basically, because I have nothing else to do. I haven’t dated in so long and male interest is comforting.
That habit has to stay behind. That needing attention. That inability tobe completely alone. That doing things forthe sake of doing things when I see no future in it.
Toying with fire just to see how long it can burn without marking me.
