Craving and Contentment

Manhattan, Birmingham. Manhattan, Atlanta. Manhattan, Pensacola. I’ve flown between my two worlds—North and South—too many times this summer. I forget why I go from one city to the next…why I choose one over the other…why I leave my sister, newborn niece, mother and everyone else for an empty apartment in SoHo…why I set aside my martinis at the Four Seasons for fried food and flat beer…why I kiss Southern Boy good-bye and fly back to a city filled with egos and pretention and frenetic brilliance. I’m happy everywhere and nowhere.

Why did he and I have to meet while we’re still so young? This isn’t the path I planned. Our careers are supposed to be fixed, successful, lucrative and we should be in our thirties with many more relationships under our belt. We should want the same things. Instead, we’re both 25 and very green and undecided about everything except for love.

Ambition…

Indifference…

Craving…

Contentment…

Will we ever find our place?

I come back from my trips down South feeling more grounded and real. In a way, I feel cleaner. Greed and flash are in the past, I tell myself. But, then, I have box seats at the US Open, silk skirts brushing past me in the Bryant Park tents, dates that try to kiss me during the sticky, midnight cab rides downtown.

The poison—and the beauty—of New York City is choice. La Guardia will fly me anywhere. 9th Avenue restaurants will feed me anything. Madison Avenue will sell me the world. The people in the bars and lounges and coffee shops will let me be any woman I want to be. But, has the time come for me to be one person, with one man, with one grand life plan?