Smackie the Frog

On March 27th I got a comment saying that there was a possibility that I could get a job in New York. And since that comment, my life has been completely insane. I’ve interviewed for a job in a different city, taken that job, moved my whole life to a whole new place, lived in a strange city for almost 5 months, gotten a job back home, and am now on the verge of returning pretty much back to where this whole thing started. In my head, I haven’t felt like myself for the past 7 months. Now I’m 7 days away from returning to “normal”, and I’m wondering if I’ll feel like myself once I get back home.

I’m very excited about getting back. But I don’t know that it will solve everything. Sure, it will solve some things – a challenging job, a car, a nice apartment that is mine alone. That doesn’t necessarily equate to normal. And maybe the real issue here is that there is no such thing as normal. Normal is something we only feel in retrospect, and currently everything always feels weird.

I’ve also been worried that when I get home this whole New York experience is going to disappear. I can see myself in a few weeks feeling like this time never happened. I’ll be working in the same building that I used to work in. I’ll be driving my car. At first I’ll even be living at my parent’s house. Come Thanksgiving am I going to have forgotten what it feels like to wait for the Subway or walk through Central Park? I really hope not, because even though my time here hasn’t been the greatest, it has been mine, and I don’t want to lose it.

This is getting a little rambly, and personal, which I hope to avoid, but whatever. Ultimiately I thought that moving to New York would be a chance to start over. But I was never able to actually do that, since I knew this isn’t where I wanted to be. But maybe moving back home will allow me to start over, at least with some things. And I don’t really know what those things are, but I’m most excited about them.

And my car. Ahh… My car…