A friend of mine likes to chime-in in the middle of conversations with this gem “here’s the thing…” which is always her way of somehow finding the funny part, the ironic part, or the lesson in something…anything.

With her crossing my mind, I have this to say:

Here’s the thing…about leaving your friends and family to move across the nation for a fresh start:

I’m alone.

I”m alone out here.  I moved out here four years and four months ago.  I was accepted to Marymount Manhattan, a college, to finish a Bachelors degree in theatre–which I quit and didn’t pursue after one year enrolled.  I moved in with a friend that I’d known since we were 12.  Two of them, actually.  I had two friends in NYC that I could crawl up to and be coddled by during my transition.  I left a man behind.  A man that, at the time, I cared a great deal for.  I fell for him quickly.  We crossed paths several times during my twenties, and the timing was never right.  I was always flattered by his attention, but remained faithful to whomever I was involved with.  Time had lined up…ish…and we began dating on St. Patrick’s day, 2010.

I moved to NYC in May 2010.  This man was still a part of my life.  He claimed love for me.  He said he wanted to come visit me over the next couple of years while I was in school, and bid me to come home to him.  And he’d love me, and give me the daughter I always thought I’d have.

A month after I moved here he broke up with me during a video chat session.  After all his years of flattery, and kindness, and patience…after he said he loved me–he quit on me.

But my friends were there to baby me.  We were only dating for a brief time so I was able to get past it without disappearing mentally and emotionally.

I dove into school and work.  I sometimes opened my store early, then would go to class, then come back and close my store.  All for $9/hour plus about an “extra” $5 in tips per week.  My friend did her best to help me.  She took me out for cocktails.  We stayed home and had girls night In.  We dyed eachothers hair as our roots grew in.  She helped me with rent and bills and train rides.  She took care of me, when I could not take care of myself.  She let me laugh and cry, as she had for the past almost 20 years at that point.  She was one of my best friends.  After living together for a couple of years, she moved on.  Life happens, opportunity knocks and …we can’t exist in one way forever, really.  She wanted to marry her boyfriend/fiance (they’d been together for YEARS by now) and have kids.  She wanted to have her kids in her hometown…our…hometown, where her siblings were, where her kids would grow up with their cousins and aunties and uncle near by.  I absolutely could not blame her.

But I can’t go back there.

I don’t see myself there.

My family, my friends, they are all there.  They are all in my hometown.

Here’s the thing…

I’m alone.

I have loved while living here.  I had fallen for a man that I was ridiculously in love with.  He was the first man I was so stupid for I wanted to marry him and have babies.  ME.  Babies??? He did not want to marry ever again, and he had a kid from his first marriage and said that kid was “enough.”  He didn’t want anymore kids.  Now that time has passed, I’m so glad we broke up.  His depression and alcoholism were toxic in my life.  He broke my heart on more than one occasion.  I’ve been unable to just let that part go, and consistently wish the worst for him.  One of these days I’ll think of him and actually forgive him.  For now, I rarely think of him ,and when I do–I hope his life is shitty.  Shrug. He said he loved me and moved out.  He said he loved me and needed to be alone then moved on to another girl three weeks later.  This is the kind of guy that said “when I’m having sex with her I think of you”  Gross, right?

Here’s the thing…

My family and friends are all in my hometown, and I am alone here

There is nothing for me in my hometown EXCEPT my family and friends.  I can’t move home and earn a good enough living and feel important and appreciated and acknowledged.  That town is just too small for me.  The people I miss fill my heart, the place they live in isn’t big enough for me.  It doesn’t offer enough for me

I don’t know what “enough” is.

And I am alone here.

My best friends moved home. For the better–for them.  And I have finally begun growing here.  Not that they were EVER holding me back.  I am so glad they were here when I first got here.  They were a great help.  Now, I have been growing and learning and figuring out life, on my own.  Life, as I will know it.

This past year I’ve settled in nicely with my own life.  I’m working in my field of “expertise.” I’m in school for something that compliments my career, the apartment lease is in my name, and my housemates are good; responsible people.  My credit score is slowly coming out of the ditches…

But..

Yes, I’m alone here.

I don’t know HOW to make new friends.  Me and my old friends share Old Memories, we don’t make new ones. Whenever I go home to visit and we spend time together, it’s 1)limited, and 2)talking about old times… 90% of my friends are now married with kids, or one of those…

Single, and alone.

Guys ACTUALLY say to me “why are you single?” or “how are you single?”

And the truth is Because I can’t be bothered with pansies–like yourself.

I’m alone here.

Gee, I wonder why.

Possibly because I don’t actually engage in the art of meeting new people or actually committing to them.  Possibly because I don’t think ANYONE I ever meet will ever become a Good Friend, or Mate, and therefore they are not actually worth the time it would take to “get” or “understand” me.

The people I meet now, I feel like I’m hiding from them.  I hide behind the Jameson, or silly comments.  I hide behind the sarcasm and “rules” that “as long as you are a co-worker or class mate you cannot be a friend” because I don’t want to complicate things.  I hide behind some kind of scrim, or screen that filters my reflection.  It filters my gaze and my breath.  It filters…everything I am.  And the people that I meet only see a small percentage of The Real Me.

Here’s. The. Thing

I’m Alone here.

Where are you?