Nowadays

 New York feels stale in the summer. Like everyone is moving, going places, doing things, but they aren’t reaching a destination. Everyone looks happy, healthy, living but none of them are really alive. It feels like an influencer's Instagram feed- the pretty picture is there but there’s something beyond the happy hours and selfies on the beach and mimosas for breakfast that we don’t get to see. Summer feels like we are yearning for something, like we are on the precipice of the life we want. Then winter comes and everyone is reminded of how fleeting life is, how quickly we can be robbed of the experiences that keep us going. The light fades away much quicker than it did before. We are reminded of who we really are, and that terrifies us. We are stripped of the distractions. We lose the one night stands and sunset sets at music festivals that turn into hugs from strangers, reminding us that we don’t have to walk this earth alone. 

We have the memories of chain smoking cigarettes on the beach and watching the sunrise while high on cocaine at a table at the Brooklyn Mirage, wearing lingerie on the Uber home and staring at a photo we took of a mailbox with “this feeling is forever” written on it until the drugs wear off and we fall asleep. We sleep until noon and forget to call our sponsors and forget that we have friends and forget what it feels like to put on our headphones and listen to Tash Sultana while taking photos of the city we fell in love with when the club threw parties in the backyard and we met up with friends in the park and we actually enjoyed going out into the light of day because the sun didn’t set until 9 so we didn’t have any other choice.

It is winter now. We start seeing our therapist twice a week and pay out of pocket for the medication our insurance doesn’t cover that we need to make it through to the sunny days of 2022. It is winter now. We get out of work when it’s dark outside. We do not book plane tickets. We do not wait outside the club to see our favorite DJ. We do not spend money on a rack of ribs for our family. We eat soup and popcorn and chocolate covered pretzels for dinner, our only meal of the day. We eat it alone in our room. We do not wear pasties and a thong and ask strangers to take photos of us on top of a hill at the Gorge in Washington. We do not have anyone ask us if we are one of the dancers. 

It is winter now. We are 26. We have to find a new job and get our own health insurance. We have to ask ourselves if New York is worth it. We have to come to terms with the fact that our stepbrother is dead and cancer is something that could come for you, too. We have to call our grandmother because she is old, because she doesn’t take good care of herself, because we don’t know if she will make it through the winter because she isn’t immortal and neither is your father. He is also sick. He gave you the same sickness because it is genetic and the illness might kill him but we are doing everything we can to ensure it doesn’t kill us. We have to understand that our parents do not give us the support that we need to deal with this illness. We look for it elsewhere. 

Summer is over. House music gave us a good time and enough memories to last a lifetime. It did not give us a safe place to land. The parties and the coke and the unprotected sex and the whispers inside a tent late at night that what happened to us in South Africa and how we were treated in Oregon is fucked up did not give us everlasting love. They did not guarantee another weekend just like that one. House music promised us just one more taste, and because we are an addict, and because we are healing from sexual abuse, and because we need to find out if we are worthy of love, and because we are in so much pain we contemplated jumping in front of the tracks of the L train, we believed whoever was on decks and everyone watching them could give us a place that felt like home. Avicii is dead now. So is Mac, and Amy, too. It is winter and we are not the same. We are not different either. All we know is that summer is over. There will be another one. It won’t be the same. It can never be the same. I hope to god it’s not the same…