New Stuff

So I think my goal is to make this blog once again a daily affair, or at least something a lot closer to that sense of familiarity. It's different now - you who read it are the same people who will end up being in it, in a lot more cases than it was before - but I feel like it's a good exercise for me to try to put my thoughts down on a regular basis whether or not it's as exotic as my travels to New York were. Once I get internet in my apartment, it'll be an easier business to write regularly. Before I go to bed, after I wake up, whenever I have a minute to steal away. But for now, I'm still settling back in and trying to decide what's necessary and what isn't. It'll take a little longer.

Coming back was strange, but I felt like I approached that jolt really well. I drove back down, which gave me 12 hours to readjust my entire mindset. I think I've said it before, but flying from NYC to SC really creates an odd effect - there's no readjustment time, no quarantine to speak of, so one minute you're in that breakneck speed and you're alone and you're surrounded by thousands of people, and the next you're in the arms of someone you love in the much slower SC pace surrounded by a city that has known you since your birth. There's a sense of shock there that's really hard to put my finger on. But those 12 hours in the car with Brian (I'm going to start using his name now, as part of my SC-blog changes) while I unwound and sweated like crazy (the AC was only on about 20% of the ride home) allowed me the opportunity to say goodbye to that world in a slightly less harsh manner.

I tried to go back and read the first blog post about a week ago. But I started it, and had an instantaneous rush of all those emotions from those first few weeks - despair, terror, and absolutely loneliness - and had to stop. I still have such a visceral reaction remembering what I didn't write while I read what I did write that I couldn't even finish that first post. I say with all seriousness that the only thing that got me through those first few nights was the encouragement that I received from Sarah and Brian. I still have one text saved from Sarah - I won't transcribe it here, but she told me that I was strong and brave and that I could make it through this. And Brian, stopping on his way to some other event, calling me and talking to me for an hour while I let my panic die down little by little. I'll adore you both forever for that.

I know it's ridiculous to say this after two and a half months of hating being in New York, but there is definitely a part of me that misses parts of it. I miss driving out to Coney Island on a rainy day - although those best times were always with Brian - and feeling that strange, old energy wrapped around me. I can definitively say that I miss the buzz the city has. I find myself thinking about when I can go back, even if only for a week, but do it on my own terms and decide whether the city holds quite the kind of sway that I was offered the last few weeks.

Settling back in, only to have school and a new apartment and a new set of obligations thrown at me, has been an interesting experience. One that I'll discuss in more detail later - my new job at the Film Archive has been a really great experience so far, even though it has meant dropping one of my shifts at Cool Beans. Starting back at Cool Beans has been a little funny too, after two months of working for the crazy one with all my strange New York co-workers. My life has completely flipped, for better or for worse, and I find myself fully back in this world with little or no overlap from the previous.