I always thought New York was pretty at night. Then I moved there. I’d hoped to start over, and leave my past behind. After all, no one can judge you when you live by yourself. But, now it just all seems like too much. The lights are too bright, my neighbors are loud, and my laundry pile is overflowing. I thought I could make it. I won’t call my parents yet. I don’t want to hear the words behind their silence quite yet. It is the only quiet I don’t miss.
I alway hoped to find my place in the world. My answer changed every time I was asked what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. When I was six, I wanted to be a doctor. At age 11, a lawyer. And when I was 16, none of those answers seemed to fit anymore. It seems so hard to change the world. All of a sudden, the quiet was too loud. I needed to be somewhere else where everyone else knew what they wanted, who they were. Maybe it would rub off.
I always said I wasn’t cut out for small town life. Then I left it. The memory of how it used to be is fading. How the lamp posts gently glowed at the end of driveways. How my neighbors used to turn their house lights off at 10:00. How my mother’s meticulously folded clothes looked in my dresser. I miss the way my mother’s voice could fill any quiet, drawing everyone to her with just a sentence. Why couldn’t I ever be more like her?
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