Riverside Drive

I got a strong feeling to get off the bus somewhere on Riverside Drive. I wanted to walk for awhile, take my time and look at the architecture, I could always catch the next M-5. I'd walked only a block or two in the heavy heat when I felt a wave of familiarity. It got stronger until, somewhere near this window box, I realized I was standing in front of the building where my boyfriend had lived, twenty years ago.

The facade of the building had been updated, but its core was the same. I stood there frozen, looking up at the window I used to sit in front of, looking down. When the doorman came out, I moved on. I passed the corner where we always turned left, I passed our bus stop, and the grocery store where we bought an Enteman's chocolate cake almost every Saturday night.

Walking slowly down those blocks, I remembered those days and their feeling of being young and having forever, combined with feeling overwhelmed and lost. I remembered feeling "Is this who I'm going to marry?" simply because I thought that was a feeling you were supposed to feel, even though I didn't really feel it. I remembered feeling like a country bumpkin in the big city, and the feeling of feeling like I felt too much.

Then, unexpectedly, I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, turned around, and walked back to that building. I planted myself in front and consciously gathered back any energy I had lost to that time. I breathed back in any of the longing that may still have been hovering around that window for twenty years, unsure of where it was safe to land.

Sometimes you're sent on a journey that you did not plan. One that doesn't make sense to yourself or anyone else. Then, somewhere in its unfolding, it starts to make sense, even though you can't explain it.