Miss Misery

In case you weren't already aware (and sorry to put it so bluntly) I fucking hate it here in Philly. It makes me miserable. There is just something about living in this area: the traffic, the erratic and reckless driving, the awful accents (South Philly and the borderline southern redneck ones), the sport fans, the lack of culture and diversity, the lack of decent pizza, the bizarre and atrocious liquor laws, the people... I could go on about it all day.

Ok, yes, I know, being a total New York snob, I'm probably not giving this place much of a chance. But there is just something in the air here that makes me feel like I'm sticking out like a sore thumb. I drove home this weekend and as I drove deeper and deeper through Jersey towards the George Washington Bridge, I could feel the calm wash over me. And as I hit my stretch of I-95 from the Bronx all the way up through Connecticut, something clicked: I was home.

I spent all day Saturday soaking in the essence of New York City: Riding the 6 train and people watching, looking longingly over Japanese fashions in the FIT museum, walking those long city streets, eating in a cute little restaurant in Greenwich Village, sipping delicious drinks with friends in an underground speakeasy, watching the Yankees play on TV in an Irish pub, mingling with the masses in Times Square. From the Bronx, into Manhattan, rounding the night out in Queens - where I hope to live in when I move back to NY next year, pointing out bars and restaurants I've already tagged on a Google map to acquaint myself with my future neighborhood - and back to the Bronx, I felt wide awake in the City that Never Sleeps.

And then I had to drive back to PA today. Despite the weather being beautiful compared to the torrential rain I drove up to CT in, a pit just sank deeper in my stomach as I got closer and closer to this place that I am currently calling "home". New York just makes me feel so alive. My life constantly feels like one of those video games where a little line is in the upper right corner, monitoring your character's health. Every day that I am here, those green lines slowly start fading into yellow and then dangerously close to red. But going home re-energizes me, and those green lines are all filled up again.

...........

Being alone in this city doesn't help, either. Emmett is gone, away having the most amazing experience of his life and I can't even compete with that. That just makes me more miserable. Between crying over him and crying over being stuck here, I should seriously invest in Kleenex stock. I just wish I could be with him, watching him be happy and being happy together, smiling this smile I swear he only smiles for me that makes me melt. I'm happy for him but I suppose jealous in a way, too. I had hoped Philly would be the same enlightening, life changing, eye opening experience; a way to turn my life around and start over from the awful stand-still spot it was stuck in, just like he's doing now. (I also hoped that moving here would mean we'd be closer and together.) And again, I know people will say I'm not giving this place enough of a shot, but I shouldn't have to force it. I shouldn't have to force myself to enjoy it here or to feel an emotion about this place that doesn't exist and probably never will.

I hate being the silly, crying girl who worries all the time. I hate feeling clingy and awful and miserable and don't want to bring everyone else down so I don't talk about it. I hold everything inside, which I guess makes me even more miserable. I am trying to distance myself from the obsessive and longing feelings that I have for Emmett. I put away pictures of us and keep trying to stop thinking about him and how great he is and the little things that he does that make me smile, the memories of us that make me smile. I am trying to push past this wave of emotion and outrun it - to move beyond this intangible relationship that will never happen, to move beyond feeling like I'm not good enough when it has nothing to do with me, to move beyond thinking that he never thinks about me and doesn't care because I am always thinking about him and I always care - all I do is think and care. I need to just lock all that part of my life up in a little box and throw away the key. Otherwise, it will continue to consume me and eat away at me and completely devoid my life of the happiness that I am not allowing myself. (In that aspect of my life, anyway.)

And so, everything I built up in my head, these fictitious scenarios about the future stemming from our real life interactions and conversations; I have to break them down slowly brick by brick and start to lay the mortar around my heart and move those cinder blocks back to rebuild the wall that had been up for so long before I met him.

.........

you make me come
you make me complete
you make me completely miserable


...........

Its so hard to let go, but sometimes love isn't enough of a reason to keep on hanging on.