i used to think it was a curse you came to my town and took over in a way that i couldn't; the way you lived this life that seemed privileged and privy to your whims. the truth is i was jealous you lived in an apartment in a lovely part of town near my two favorite places. that you biked around the city that i loved and made friends with all the queers, and went to all the clubs and ended up with a model girlfriend. i was jealous that i didn't have that life too, and the community that we had met together, that I felt you later inherited. but you chose that, you earned it, you made it your own, and i respect you for that.

we all make our own way. and there's something about being in a foreign city that reminds me of this. that you have to really want it. you have to come to a city and propose on both knees like you are pleading for adoption to its every street and custom, that you are willing to submit to it, to unfold yourself, to break down everything and embrace what is. and only then will you find yourself home. because home isn't where you are born necessarily. it can be, if that's your fate, but often people born in one place take it for granted and never really love it the way it should be loved. i think that in part is the case as to where I'm from. i love her that city of mine, we are intertwined like the way we are made, nature and mechanics so brilliantly devised. i will never long for a place like i long for the home where my formative years collected and revealed to me who i am today. but somehow i feel i have outgrown it, or grown differently. its a friendly reminder that i could probably make it anywhere. so long as i loved it the way i loved them. the way i loved every lover Ive ever held onto deep into the night, limb for limb interlaced so tenderly. life is like that you see. it is one of those blessed things that you get to hold onto in any way you like, should you commit to it. should you say yes. there are far more things, more experiences and realities that i choose to say yes to these days. i admire that about myself. about this process of growing up. it really is that. there is so much to learn and so much that i can feel proud of in this journey. i am genuinely thankful that there are so many reminders along the way.