i have three drinks in me and i’m ready to write now. i had four drinks, scratch that. two glasses of wine, a beer, and a shot of bourbon. they gave me a choice of tequila or bourbon, but i’ve had so many terrible experiences with limes and tequila that bourbon felt like the way to go. it goes back to clean, so easy.
i moved to new york and i spend each day avoiding dog shit on the sidewalk. i walk the steps to school and i feel like it’s progress. it’s progress because i’m moving up, i’m exercising, i am going to school and that is better than meandering. i dont’ spend those walks thinking about regrets, only what’s ahead. i bike to the coffee shop i really like and sit on the bench outside its doors while i wait for one of the three patio tables to open up. i wonder though, if this is a life. like is it a fulfilling life to wait for openings at the coffee shop? is it a fulfilling life to wait in line at a whole foods to pay for three packages of prepared salad while defending my spot from a woman who is trying to cut the line? it’s a life, i promise you. it’s not empty, i wouldn’t say it’s empty, but i wonder how i will remember it later. I wonder if I will remember the angle that the sun filters through whole foods’ giant windows like i do now. i wonder if i’ll remember the sounds of harlem the way that i do now. i wonder if i’ll remember the texture of the sidewalks in the same way. i wonder what i will think of when i look back at this era. what i would have missed, what i sacrificed to come to this moment of queueing.
i love fall, it’s my season but it’s been unseasonally warm.
i call this an ode, because it is an ode to you. it’s an ode because i have come to accept who i am, something i hadn’t done for years.
uncharacteristically, but i am sorry. i am sorry and this time there is no visceral remorse. i am sorry because i am baptized in clarity. i am sorry. i am sorry for being a jerk.
i call this an ode because when i sit on the subway crossing the brooklyn bridge i realize now that i am not the same person i was five years ago and for so long, i couldn’t forgive myself for that. i couldn’t forgive myself for the fallacy of hindsight, i thought id’ done it all wrong and my biggest vice was being young.
tenminutethoughts 