In Suspension

My mom has told me many times in my life, both in the past and continually now that I've been here, to accept Not Knowing. Not an easy thing to do, but an important one. Right now my life is a national parade of Not Knowing. Each day I struggle with all kinds of uncertainties and trials, the ringleader of them all being not knowing where I'll be sleeping in a few days or what part of town I will call home.

Lately my daily life has been a mix of hard work and tough judgement calls. For example, after much deliberation I left my cafe job yesterday because ultimately the job wasn't a good fit for me and it was impossible for me to work every day and put the energy I needed into finding a place to live. I've never left a job so soon before and I know I won't be making enough now to pay rent, but I decided to do it anyway. Today was my first "day off" since I got my jobs, or my first real day of apartment searching. I ended up only seeing one room (the first one got taken before I got there; the second viewing made me late to the third so we rescheduled) and don't think it was the right one for me. I wasn't sure whether or not I should try and nab it or if I should hold out for the possibility of something a little better. I resolved to continue my search.

The last few weeks I've been constantly suspended between places, between people and appointments, between forms of transportation and jobs. It's hard to think I could be going to sleep tonight with a New York address of my own, but the truth is I opted to wait and therefore to maintain my suspension. I opted to again go through my evening ritual of meeting my dorm-mates, of navigating an unfamiliar street in search of something affordable and tasty to sustain me, of having reliably bizarre hostel dreams that incorporate hard-partying Ukrainians or sharing a tiny studio apartment with four German-speaking girls. I opted for present unease and more challenges in the hopes that just maybe I'll find a better living situation tomorrow, or next week.

As for my friends in the city, I haven't seen any of them. As for sites, if it isn't an underground transit system, a monumental library, or on the way to somewhere I'm scheduled to be, I probably haven't been there. I won't go into all of my daily struggles, but I will sum them up by saying I'm simply suspended in air right now. And I won't be able to focus on much else until I return to a solid footing, until my life has the stability of things like a schedule and a permanent location (perhaps a private shower??)... I'm not going to pretend I'm completely comfortable with all the Not Knowing, but Mom, I'm learning to be.