Part 2 - A GOOD LIFE

 

What I did, now that I look at it - what I did was just as I did when I moved to New York over 30 years ago. I began a new life here in Buffalo. I made new friends and pursued my interests sans my family and boyhood friends. Its as if I were in another town away from home except I was home. Home. No. Hometown. Yes. Home town. I left home twice didn’t I? My home town and my real home - my soul home -  New York City. The place that defined me. The city that gave me my life. What made me think I could leave it. Well, I did. And, really, coming back to my home town wasn’t a trip down memory lane. The place looks so different. Buffalo is a ghost. Well, maybe that’s not fair. A ghost is the result of death. Buffalo isn’t dead. And its not dying. Its - what is it? In a coma? The kind you come out of after a couple of weeks. No, this coma has been much longer than that. So its not a coma. What then? I don’t know. It feels haunted and a bit sad and also strangely on the brink of something - something. But whatever it is, I do not recognize it. I didn’t come home. I moved to another place that I don’t recognize - to a place that doesn’t recognize me either. So, as I said, its like starting over. But I don’t want to start over. If I moved back to New York, my life would definitely resume. Then my occasional visits here would be as they were before - pleasant and shallow - which is fine with me - it would hurt less. Oh, much less.

                                                         

That is an option - leave Buffalo. I still have an apartment with Glenn in New York City. We do keep it up for our quarterly visits. I could keep the house and reverse this notion. I need to do something. This estrangement just hurts too much. I’m angry and sad and filled with contempt. Sometimes - a lot of the time - most times I truly feel I could just chuck it all. Accept it all. This is how it is, now. You have a loving husband, nice friends and no family. I feel I can live with that. I can. And yet…