Home Again

I have been trying since I got back to New York on Monday, to blog something heartfelt and coherent about my trip to Charlotte. But I kept plagiarizing my own journal entry which was composed on the airplane Monday night. So I've decided to just share a few excerpts from that piece, as it seems to be the best I'm going to do. I've removed a section at the beginning pertaining to MGM as it has recently come to my attention that he has access to this website, and I don't feel particularly compelled to share any more of my feelings on or with him at this time. Call me hypocritical...I know I said I'd never censor.

Ahem....

"....The weather was beautiful and the time was kind. It crept along rather than racing to leave me. There were lots of friends, very long walks in the sunshine. My gym. My coffee shops. The places I remember as though I never left them.

I can't shake the feeling that Missie and I are meant to be together. I feel connected to her in a way that closely mirrors the connection I have with my own family. She understands my sadness over the loss of [MGM] and of Charlotte, and also my inability to tolerate either. She understands my insecurities and also my extreme arrogance. She's compelled to be honest with me when other people are not. She is fair to me, and amidst prevalent selfishness, she gives to me without question. I believe, and I hope that this is true, that I am these things for her as well. I believe that we are friends because we are the same in the ways in which it is important for friends to be the same. I am confident now, that our friendship is unconditional.

It worries me a little how sad I felt to leave today. I am, as I always am, excited to go home. New York, and my life there, are above all else, what make me happy. And never a day goes by that I imagine being able to leave. Still, I longed today for only a moment, for Charlotte to have been enough. For my life there to have made any sense. For a chance to have been happy the first time around. Missie says that New York has done well for me. She says how much she has seen me grow. She says I seem prettier. She says I seem older. I am all of these things. And I know that I did the right things. I realize now that what was wrong then wasn't only Charlotte. I faced so many things for which I wasn't prepared, that perhaps no city could have supported me then. And no boy. And now I am able to see that. Now I understand.

I would like, sometimes, to be the girl who showed up in Charlotte the first time around. The girl whose friends surpassed all other priority, who would never be in love. The girl who thought that everything was easy, that who you become is nothing but a series of decisions. That positive results were a product of smart choices. But I'm not her anymore. And I know that this version of me has far more to offer-- and is capable of accomplishing far greater things. But as with any city, any time, or any person, it is hard to say goodbye to myself as I once was.

The trip was perfect. The Bobcats game, the coffee, the walks, the bars, and the Dance Party @ Chateau Johnson. And whatever the result of it all-- lessons learned, stories told, feelings reignited or bridges burnt-- it was well worth the cost." -1/16/06