Tomorrow, I'm flying to New York for a couple of weeks, with a long weekend in Chicago. My agenda is to see people (and eat a real bagel, have real pizza and a burrito), and I'm having to balance jamming in face time with the knowledge that if I overdo it, I'll pay for it, usually the next day.
As well as being unable to see all the people I would want to, it is a bittersweet visit. My first return to the city now that I no longer live there. I have so many memories of the place; I've had the best of times and the worst. I was there on 9/11, working on Wall St. There, my first tech talk at Google was when the International Space Station called. ("Where are you?" "Let me look out of the window... over Europe.") That's where I had my strokes. That's the city I went back to, and tried hard to live again.
It's a city I love, and I can't live there any more.
Normally, I don't regret that my life has changed. It's not like I can change it back, and change is part of life. I wasn't expecting such a big alteration, but, again, life is change. However, returning to NYC fills me with disquiet, I've realised. I'm reluctant to go, which is weird and a bit horrible. Even before I lived there, I enjoyed the prospect of traveling there.
It helps that I'm staying with wonderful friends and will have no trouble watching The Last Leg live from Rio while I'm visiting. If you haven't seen it, find it online at the Channel 4 website, it's great.
Anyway, I'm trying to get sorted for traveling tomorrow without thinking about the reality of it, because it hurts.
