Sometimes I have to re-visit old truths

The main thing is this:

Transition is Tough.

I know I've said this approximately 72 million times in the last 2 months (oh who am I kidding. . . since May), but it's once again eminently apparent. This time it's after a conversation with M, a fantastic woman who fits somewhere between the category of former boss and older sister. M is in New York this week with my friend J (M's 6-year old) on vacation from sunny San Francisco.

Over a glass of wine I quickly recounted the shorthand version of the last few months- medical mishaps, romantic entanglements and their eventual (sordid) dis-entanglements, new beginnings, therapy. . . just the good stuff, really. I stayed in and played grown-up for a few hours with J (and G) so M could go out with her long time friend, L, and when they came home later M and I played catch-up a bit more.

Part of my mood for the evening has been a lonely, melancholy reflectiveness. Which is a really silly way of saying that I've been lonely. [which is incredibly understandable] My body has been unwell for some time now, and though it's on its way back to good health, there are still tons of hormones running a muck and dictating far more of my life than I'd like to admit. I also tangibly miss my dearly beloved people, who seem to be perpetually scattered across the country in a most inconvenient fashion. Not to mention I'm still nursing a bit of a bruised heart. It's completely natural to feel a bit lonely at times like this.

Especially when one's friend comes to town and one realizes that she's lost two major front teeth, grown several inches, and learned to respectfully speak her voice when someone hurts her feelings.

During my conversation with M at the end of the night I spent quite a bit of time talking about New York. We talked back and forth about how difficult it is to start over in a new place, about how the East Coast is particularly difficult for social freaks, about how amazing the cultural and artistic opportunities in New York are (especially when compared with San Francisco), and how it was still so early in my move. As I walked out of the biggest apartment I have ever seen and hailed a cab to take me across town and to my bed, I thought again that this is such a tenuous time for me.

It is understandable that I have been feeling melancholy, but it is unfortunate that I have been coloring my impression of New York as a new home with only the grays of my current emotions. I have been understanding of the fickleness of my opinions (having only just lived here two months) but I have not been particularly forgiving of New York for not being San Francisco. Or Michigan.

Tonight I (yet again) realized that transition is difficult. That I will feel completely differently about New York once I have established even a short history here. That though I love San Francisco, what I have really been longing for is the familiar.

Because transition is fucking difficult.

But the difficulty of this particular transition will wane, regardless of my acquiescence or lack thereof. San Francisco will probably always hold the same lure but New York will not always feel so emotionally bleak. The universe will bring more and more people of my sort to my life. I will be part of a beautiful community here, I know it. If I am patient (and diligent in my pursuit of diversion and challenge) I will someday in the not particularly distant future find myself fully entrenched in an active love affair with this town of apples and insomnia.

It's just tough for now.