I am in constant turmoil, with this city. This city is driving me insane. I want it. I don’t want it. I need it. I don’t need it. I hate it. I love it. I don’t see happy people here, no one has that glow, that satisfactory smile. I feel like everyone is tired, like me, always. There is such distance between us all, no connection, no sober conversations, no meaningful glances. Have I become just as sad and cynical? Have I lost my appetite for new things, new people? Lately, I don’t even introduce myself to new people. I don’t carry conversations. I get bored. I zone everyone out. I half-listen. I don’t listen. I don’t talk about myself. I don’t give out my real name, my nationality, my very complicated past life. I leave out names and relations. I am just distant. I am tired of connecting and proximity. I just want to close my eyes. Maybe I want to go back to that fantasy New York, the one that is unlike the version I live now. The one that was sort of perfect in my hand, unreachable with a certain glow, the one I was passionate about. I used to envy everyone who was part of the city. I used to be really sad when I left the city, driving home, thinking I had nothing to go back to. Now, I have what I wanted. And I almost don’t want it. I am tired of transforming myself all the time. I am sick of my self-criticism, my self-deprecation. I am really just sick of it. I want all that negative thoughts of myself to be, I don’t know, sucked out of me or something.
I am tired of transforming so I just do the everyday thing and I don’t try to make it happen, I just let it be, you know whatever is meant to be. If I happen to run into someone, I say hello. If a group of musicians come to the train, I hit pause on my iPod, and then when they leave, I am back in my own head. And some days nothing happens, and it’s okay. I just go to bed, not even hoping tomorrow would be any different.