A weekend of goodbyes. A long Monday.

Today was my last day at Folio. The summer is nearly over and it wasn’t till this afternoon, when I said goodbye to my co-workers and lingered around the corner outside of the office in Midtown, that I realized how quickly the time passed. I said goodbye to the people I’ve been working with for the past three months.

I read and edited a proposal on sexual selection, and then turned to the all-reliable slush pile. Did you know that the porn industry makes more in revenue than all of Hollywood? At five o’clock I found myself lingering… standing slowly, looking at the books on the selves… not wanting it to be over. My first day at the office, on the 1st on June, I filed contracts for three hours, and in the process asked about four dozen questions. That was the last time I filed anything.

As I stood around in front of Penn Station, I thought about how many moves I’ve made. All my life I have been traveling, packing up for a year or two, packing up for an adventure. You’d think that it would get easier with time— that, like anything, practice makes perfect. I’m good at packing up; I’m good at cutting down on unnecessary clothing and material stuff in my life. But goodbyes are another story. I lingered in the concrete park outside of the train station for half an hour watching midtown in rush hour.

I finally called a friend and we decided to meet downtown— we both needed a walk. Together we wandered aimlessly around the city— walked hard to move through the streets, to move through the day.

Leaving is a complicated feeling. Leaving is counting all the moments, faces, and people you treasure. Leaving is the chance to slow down and appreciate what is here, what is now. I have a complicated relationship with New York— a mixture of love and loneliness, a sense of overwhelming strength and independence matched by complete doubt. What if and what if and what if…
Leaving is a way to see who in my life will stay and who will fade away. Who will find me when I’m not a train ride uptown? Who will I find? The relationships I’ve made in the office, no matter how meaningful, are, in many ways, circumstantial. There are some people and relationships that will grow pale because of distance. There are some relationships that will end because of a move.

Leaving is slowing down, watching the rush hour; leaving is sitting on the fire escape with my friends, looking at the full moon over the Harlem Hospital and the 24 hour McDonald’s. Leaving it holding them close, leaving is watching time slip by.