I am sitting in the airport in Cleveland, OH.
The last time I was here, Rickie and I were flying to our new home in New York City. We had just officially finished grad school, our apartments were up for rent. We slept in my freezing cold apartment on the floor while our respective significant others learned our neighborhood on the Upper West Side. We were miserable and uncomfortable. A place I loved and lived in for three years didn’t feel like home any more. Home was in New York because that is where he was.
I never thought I would be sitting here again. And being here again makes me realize how often I would sit, right here, reading and excited to see Peter, excited to go home, to see my Grandmother, my parents, my brother and sister.
Things are different now. And a two of those people are now lost to me. One from death, the other from heartbreak. (And isn’t death heartbreak and isn’t heartbreak a death?)
I was so sure, so many times sitting here, that I would be able to figure it all out. That life would, in someway, look something like what I wanted.
That is not true.
Life is different now. It has twisted and turned into a new shape. I stare at it sometimes in wonder, and sometimes in horror but always in awe. I suppose that is something after all this mess and frustration: I am in awe of it.
I am here for the week to work with Cleveland Orchestra. I am staying with dear friends. I am working with a great actor and classmate. I am reciting Shakespeare. I am grateful.
I am home again in someway. Cleveland was my home. The theatre was (is? was?) my home.
And yet so much is not what I thought it would be, I feel as though I am trying on a coat that no longer fits if I cross my arms but fits just fine when I stand still.
You know the feeling. I am both too big and too small for going backwards, for the coat of my old life.
But I’m glad to keep away the cold just the same.
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