ten minute thought after hearing what happened at lincoln lounge

if i started writing the poems like Cat Cohen does
all id, all whim, no true nostalgia
i'd never get to this one.

this one, this eulogy, half elegy if i'm hopeful
i walk east manhattan
and know that i'm bound to go home
someday
wherever that is

but i know it's not here.
not here where the bike lanes can't make up
their mind on whether they're on the left
or the right side of the street,
some place where i'm never quite sure where i could sit
and rest outside.
even if the way the scones frame those limestone buildings
looks transcendent, i know
i guess i always knew,
how the moment i stopped admiring them like a tourist
the facade would come down in tufts, in crumbs, in chunks.
is this disenchantment?
is it disillusionment from everything else burrowing
into the crevices of my disenchantment with this city?

i really wanted to be wrong
that i was a girl meant for new york
that even though i never got to realize the dream
of being 25, thin, alive, and traipsing down 5th avenue
with a latte in one hand and a designer handbag in the other,
well i'd settle for something else,
even if it were strolling its eerily quiet sidewalks
holding a giant bowl of garlic bread
to a super bowl party at a three-story loft

isn't that what i wanted? some sweat-filled musky
apartment with cream walls and fogged-up windows
where i'd contribute my dues in the form of a bottle of wine?
i blink and i'm living it
the dream.

and i'm hollow.
and i've never been to chicago.
and i wonder if that man will ever find fulfillment.
i wonder what he is missing
and i look at myself and i ask myself what i am missing

i am missing everything, pieces of everything i suppose
i tell myself that not because it's not true
but because i don't really know the source of my
dissatisfaction. is it really just unattained ambition?
is it unfulfilled dreams of the new york that i built in my head?
is it lost youth? the sudden and harsh realization that i am old
and i'm not unhappy about it.

i walk with the rhythms of someone who's getting older
who cares about things that the young don't
i miss being 21. i miss being 20. i don't wish to be 20 again
but i guess i miss thinking that more life was ahead that was behind
and for once i wasn't wrong.

i suppose i wonder what it would be like
to meet him, to sit down in his apartment.
whether i'll meet the same sense of disappointment
that nothing matched the fantasy i'd built up in my head
i vowed to learn to forgive myself
but now i just pity it
when i look back at the years, what feels like lost years
that have amounted to now.
this living. this quasi living.
this facsimile of living. it really doesn't feel like living.
it feels like the most elaborate charade
and everyone including myself is in on it.

and by it, the scheme that i like new york
that i'm trying to like it more
that i don't keep wondering where is worth moving, living
what i'm worth,
whether or not i'll ever be pretty again.
especially in a city like this.

i watched half of hte superbowl and
i'm not thinking about forgiving myself
i'm thinking about whether i'm good enough
(for myself?). what am i trying to prove and to whom?

D had me all figured out and i'm now older than he was at the time.
and so now i wonder when i will make that trek to brooklyn.
pilgrimage to mecca
before i leave for the summer.
maybe i will leave for the summer.
ideally with a summer job in hand.
maybe i will leave and that is what i came for all along.
permission to do what i want to do and the prerogative
to change my mind.

an exact 10 minute thought. go

i have 10 minutes until office hours start so the timing is maybe serendipitous. ok perhaps that’s the wrong word. the timing is just right.

i have thought a lot about what timing is right. i frantically applied for all sorts of internships in december and then felt dejected and despondent since i hadn’t heard from any place. and then i had a whirlwind of a week with interviews, and i got a definitive rejection from one of them, and the other i think the recruiter and i both knew that the role wasn’t the right fit with what i wanted to do and what tasks they were looking for a student to help them do. and then the interview this morning didn’t go swell though in a way i knew the writing was on the wall as i stumbled through the answers. i like technical questions. really puts you on the spot though i know i have so much more to prepare for to really do a good job, to really understand and anticipate what they’ll ask me. it burns… the feeling of defeat. but i also don’t think they were the right roles, you know?

and there is one internship that i would really like but is it good to manifest? is it corny? will we grasp at straws, hail hope in our most crucial moments? i would like that place. i think i really would. i really want it to work out. would, wood. same thing some say. it hasn’t been an uncontrollable sense of anxiety and overwhelm but as time ticks, will i wonder that? i hope i’m good to myself, i hope life is good to me, and i am good to life. i hope life takes care of my family, i hope that i can grow as a person. i can be stronger, more resilient, more sure of myself. more confident in what i’m capable of and able to close the deal. i always struggled with interviews when i was younger but it’s hard to discount that i’ve changed in the eight years since then. i have so many amusing anecdotes of interview foibles but i’m older now, i know what not to do. can i seal the deal? can i get the offer?

i have this dream of what i’d like to do and the person i’d like to work to become if i can perhaps secure an internship soon. at least i won’t have that hovering over my head and i can focus on making quality friendships, really investing in myself and i can save what i am slowly spoiling in terms of an incredible opportunity to explore new york, to really live in it, something i haven’t really done because i’m so focused on the next goal. and i know life is what happens when you’re busy making plans, but you know, old habits die hard. i’ve only walked at a certain tempo and i’ll inevitably stumble the first steps that go faster, that become livelier.

i’m not sure if i’ve been less hard on myself. i know that i’ve done my best given the circumstances, but now that i do know what i didn’t know before, it feels like there is an onus to get better at that, to plug the holes, make it all smooth and shiny. it’s a clean product, they say.

i suppose i’m almost out of time on this 10 minute rant so maybe i’ll end with this. I can do it. I can secure that internship. I can only be myself, and I can be the most prepared version of myself. I can make things happen for myself, because I do. I persevere. That’s something I could never not give myself credit for. I persevere. I succeed. I winnow, I poke, I pry, and that one step becomes a jog, becomes a run all around the larger path of Central Park. I can do it.

Much love. //xx