Never Been So Sure

Or, the wildly unpredictable desires of the ever changing human brain

In a mood of unexpected nostalgia I decide to look at photographs from my trip to New York in 2012. The first photo I see is me wearing a hot pink, skintight, sequence covered dress with a blonde wig that goes to my waist. My friend Joel, cross-dressing in public for the first time, takes the photo of me on the steps of someone else’s brownstone. One leg stretched out and the other one bent, tilting my head and blowing a kiss to the camera. Like someone might do in an old Polaroid. Like we owned the place. Like we were real New Yorkers. A man passing offered to take a picture of us both and we sqealed yes with excitement. Falling down laughing for the next 6 blocks at our naivety -how the man could have bolted down the road with my camera the second we handed it over but didn’t: a girl in heels and a boy in taller heels not likely to catch up to him. But the man did not steal the camera and we have this photo of us, mid laughter, wigs blowing in the wind. I pause on this photograph, relishing the kind of way that can only be felt looking back and never in the present. Nothing ever as brilliant as it seems in retrospect. And I am always falling in love with what was a mediocre moment in time— made better by the distance.

I can’t help but twinge as I look into our faces on that New York stoop. In reality I had never been to New York before but had wished my whole life I had the guts to arrive with nothing but my suitcase and guitar. In reality, Joel was an aspiring actor who paid 1500 dollars a month for a closet sized room in Alphabet city. But we were alive in that moment. We were young and wild and free. Fearless. And looking at this photo I cannot help but compare myself to now. Living in a foreign country and struggling with panic attacks where the thought of going on a boat ride makes me sick, because it involves bus rides, transport and movement. But looking back at this photograph I realize that this hasn’t always been the case. That I hopped on every train rode on every bus, subway and taxi in that city and didn’t even blink. It didn’t occur to me that it might cause me discomfort-naivety often a blessing of the young. I reveled being in a constant flow of movement-sought it out even. But as I sit here in St.Lucia, on a Friday night, quiet at home I can’t help but wonder what has changed? I also can’t help but wonder if this change is good, or if I should even be trying to judge the change at all. I also wonder, and maybe perhaps a little pray, that I find my way back to that fearless girl again. In some small way. So that I don’t come upon situations expecting to feel fear-but instead command myself to stay in the moment- to walk down the streets of New York in a skin tight sequence dress and an 80’s leather jacket with a blonde wig to my waist. That girl, who doesn’t have time to be afraid because she’s too busy living. I suppose there’s a bit of both in all of us. A time and a place for each persona.

And I don’t want to judge the version of myself that I am now because I like her too. I like coming home, enjoying the breeze that comes through my window, listening to the crickets sing. I like meditating every morning and learning more about how to spiritually center myself. I like having the opportunity to work on my fears, no matter how extremely painful and inconvenient they may be. I like the familiarity of my life, eating well and reading books. Being barefoot in a flowy dress, drinking lemonade and writing a novel on my roof. Looking back perhaps there was a loneliness about her too, the girl in New York. A kind of cold bitterness that kept her distant enough to never be afraid. I kind of harshness that made it possible to walk around and not feel. A disconnect, that left me with the illusion of safety that would no doubt fall and force me to rebuild everything. Because real strength doesn’t lay in anger, but unfiltered vulnerability.

I remember coming back from that trip, that weekend in the big apple, never more sure of anything as I was that I would move there. I came back, fake black-rimmed glasses and all, ready to pack my bags. I hadn’t thought through anything substantial. Like the fact that I didn’t have anywhere to live or anyone to live with. My friend Joel had roommates, that would most likely continue to be his roommates, that would move to Brooklyn, get a house and in all likelihood possibly have a room for me by the time I moved there. Or Bethany, a good friend of mine who lived uptown above a pizza place. Her room mate was madly in love with a Turk and considering moving there so they could be together. So I could rent her room, if it all worked out. I also didn’t know what I would DO in New York. At this point in time I still thought I was going to play music and be a rock star for the rest of my life. In New York that adds up to a broke bartender with great second-hand clothes, dragging my dirty boots all over Brooklyn on the weekends. But I wanted it. I wanted the dirty boots and the Brooklyn bartenders. I wanted record labels who would reject me and tall buildings I couldn’t see over. I wanted an apartment over a pizza place, even if it meant I had to walk up 4 flights of stairs with groceries. I wanted New York but I had no idea that New York didn’t want me. I had no idea then, that who I was and what I had to offer was so much more than the broke, wig wearing, bar tending, boot wearing musician that I might have been. At the time, in the wintery cold of January 2012 I came back from New York SURE that I would move there within a year. I had lunch with my friend Becca that very day and as we caught up over soup and salad she looked at me and said, “You’re moving aren’t you”. “I’m moving” I said with complete certainty. That’s the funny thing about being certain. You always think you KNOW how you feel at the moment that you feel it. And maybe you do. But it’s malleable. Emotions, like time are always in motion. Always in the process of becoming. And Your thoughts, your life, your destiny-all of it molding and changing with every waking hour and ourselves the dream weavers-jumping in and out of reality and continually re-inventing ourselves.

I realize now, that I am never more sure about a decision I make just before I make it. But here I am, two years later, on a Caribbean island, serving in the Peace Corps, teaching children how to read and working on a personal memoir because I have never been more sure about anything-as I am that I want to travel the world, teach children and be a published writer. Never have I ever been more sure, except for maybe when I wanted to be a musician in New York city, or a gymnast at 9, or a wake boarder at 17 that I want to go to Europe and fall in love and get a dog and a garden and a horse. But for now my “never been so sure” is to help people. For now, my “never been so sure” is to finish this book even if it kills me because I have a story that is screaming to be heard, rather impatiently. For now, my “never been so sure” is to see more of the world than I can fathom, be more of a person than I ever expected and be a better each day than I was the day before. And of that, I have never been so sure.