Despite having done hardly anything on my to-do list, I spent the past couple of hours re-reading my personal (paper) journal entries from a year ago. They are almost verbatim to what I am writing now, except that instead of talking about going to NYC I am talking about leaving it. I don't know why this surprises me, but it does.
The most prominent constant is the notion of faith. I came here with an abundance of faith - in myself, my friends, my love for someone, my ability to find another interesting job, the city itself. Looked at one way, I succeeded: I found an apartment, a job, and navigated the subway just fine. Many people have spent 7 months in this city and accomplished much less.
At the same time, I'm leaving pretty disillusioned about the whole experience. In retrospect a lot of the decisions I've made over the past few years weren't the best ones I could have made for myself. I feel like coming here actually WAS the best thing I could have done for myself, and yet it was still a disaster. Neighbors from hell, a job that defied explanation, a much-hoped for relationship never came to pass. Am I giving up by leaving? Was I supposed to stay and fight? My dad always says that the things that are hard are usually the things worth having. These were some of the HARDEST months of my life, and I just want to watch them disappear in the rear-view mirror. The quote "You have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light" has been rattling around my head lately, and I'm just trying to have faith that there will be some light soon.
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