I thought about leaving for a year and a half - which in your late 20’s, is eternity.
I considered it on the open air porch of my apartment in Duboce Triangle in San Francisco, watching the soft sunrise over the bay. I thought about it over flinty Bix martinis with my charming and pedigreed boyfriend. I thought about it openly with coworkers, in early morning heart to hearts over Levi Plaza breakfast burritos, before others trickled into our office, and brazenly again in semi-annual reviews (an absolute over-step).
At one point, and I can’t honestly remember why - I pulled the plug on it all. I left my life as I knew it in the city, with everyone, and everything behind.
At first, I traveled. Bound to the common identity of millenial-woman interrupted, my obligatory Eat, Pray, Love moment landed me, of course, in Bali. Tanned, toned, and partial to sun, salt, the intoxicating allure of verdant tropics, I stayed for two months before returning to the world as I formerly knew it, but now, shut down. Descending into San Francisco International Airport, a despondent cloud of fog, desolation and viral plague, I shivered while looking out the window - there was no more of anything down there. “I give you six months,” I recall a friend provoking my imminent return from city retirement, prior to departure. Not so much, now.
A year has passed, in my parent's house in South Bay and everyone under its roof. A year for San Francisco of whipped, South Korean sugar coffee, happy hour at 3pm, and God knows how many sourdough starters neglected and dumped in the garbage. A year for me in a house with my family, riding bikes, reading, writing, and making St. Germain lemon drops from Meyers lifted from the neighbor's tree down the street (we’ve been caught twice). With two periwinkle violas for luck. The time has passed.
But just an hour north, the ground of the city is warming, and soon she will open and turn her face towards the sun. The trolleys are even starting to run again.
But do I miss her?
I don’t miss the climbing and the speed and the exhaustion - the feelings I was running away from to begin with.
And I do. I miss the city's romance and nuance, its hidden gems. Dressing in wafting silks and heels, cutting through streets of North Beach to slurp oysters and balance bites of caviar and toast to birthdays, another year in this great city. I miss piping hot croissants from Arsicault, gooey chocolatey collapsing divinities, or fresh focaccia of Luguria wrapped in butcher paper and string. I miss Robin’s wagyu nigiri melting on my tongue, with 2000’s hip-hop pouring into the room, whispering to the girls at the table, “No one has it better than us.” And I miss roommates debriefing in an unfilled bath with mugs of coffee in the morning, in that electric season where we were all single and had good skin at the same time. We ran the city amuck. And I miss that.
I miss going out dancing the most. Rendezvousing with Ibou at Bissap Baobab to slug hibiscus cocktails on Fridays and groove to dancehall in workout clothes - or vogueing the neon squares of the Castro after slugging 2 for 1 Peach Blossom Tonics during Drag Race. I miss the rooftop Shania Twain episode where the cops got called with only 6 girls in the house.
But none of these things exist now. They haven’t for a year. For me to say I miss them, when there isn’t something there to miss, means the missing them is different. I am missing them, not missing out on them. And those aren't the same.
But the test of time will soon reveal itself. Does missing feel worse than staying?
Maybe I will come to find I was correct all along. I’m in my 30’s now. Nesting is natural. I spend more time outside, feeling, doing “the work.” Less of my time is devoted to puzzle piecing, trying to gain edge, or prove I have one in the first place. The city takes a very special kind of person, and I’m not sure I’m that person anymore.
So perhaps I was just passing through, trying to ring the juice out of my 20’s, which I did and then some. From now on, I will head back for a night at a time, to go to art shows and dine in window seats with old friends and strangers, and I will sleep in my best friend’s bed with her next to me. After that, I will get up at 6:00am to leave, swaddling her feet in the comforters with both my hands, and give a squeeze before I dip, quietly out.