Just one left
I’ve approached the 11th-month mark of my stay in Pennsylvania. I like to say that I have it all figured out by now, and I know where and how are things. Still, I feel like a stranger in a strange town where all the foods come with onions in or on them.
I try to think about why I left Virginia in the first place and that this was the right move to make. For the longest, I looked at everything through the lens of shiny and new, and I began to feel that the troubles I previously had were the next-to-lowest points of my life and that it was only clear skies ahead. But as I approach my one-year anniversary, I see the burned edges of the utopian life I sought here.
Instead of the $700 per month rent I had in Virginia with the three sets of partying, West African politics-debating, bowling ball-dropping neighbors, I now have the $575 per month rent with the meddling neighbors and passers-by and the drunken landlord seeking any opportunity to curse me out. Instead of the 10-hour workdays with little help, I have shorter workdays but with the added pressure of a larger circulation and an earlier deadline. Instead of being in the grasp of losing longtime friends and only seeing them four times a year, I have no friends here at all. Plus, I no longer have quality barbecue and fried chicken within a reasonable reach, and I am left with only one grocery store to do my shopping.
Nevertheless, as I look back at how things were 11 months ago, I don’t regret taking off in a slightly new direction. I needed it, and I’d do it again knowing what would happen.
permalink | | observations | 07/29/2008
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