This is just practice.
I don’t want you to hurt, I don’t want you to sink, but you know what I think? I think you’ll be fine.
I couldn’t even make it into the car before I started sobbing. My hand was on the door handle and all I could think was that the second I was on the other side, it was over. We wouldn’t see this city, these people, this life for at least another year, and when we did, it would all be exactly this bittersweet. And so I cried. It was so late and so dark and under any normal circumstances I’d probably be able to hide it, but even after six days he still couldn’t figure out how to get back to the interstate without my help and so I had to talk. I tried to choke out “then a right on Mt. Alverno” without showing how much I was falling apart, but he knows me better than anyone on the planet, so it just didn’t work. I don’t know why it was so important to me to act like this wasn’t happening - it seems so silly and irrational and ungrateful - but there you have it.
This sobbing was inevitable, really, it had been building for days. We weren’t going to go to Cincinnati this year. Frankly, with me traditionally being the higher earner of the two of us and 2011 being the year where I spent eight months of it unemployed, the money just wasn’t there. I love his family and I love our friends and it’s a fun city to be in for a few days, but between six nights in a hotel, two holiday-gouged price tickets, a rental car for six days for two people without car insurance of their own, Christmas presents, and the amount of bar tabs we’re going to pick up in lieu of tangible Christmas presents, we’re realistically looking at about a $3K price tag to go to Ohio for less than a week. That is a lot of money to someone whose boyfriend has had to pay her rent for four months. So I said no. No, we’re not doing it. And it became the source of about ten fights. Fights! For people who traditionally just do not fight! The end of it was that he paid for the whole thing and I resented it. Hard. But we went, because he did not see Not Going as an option and if we were going to spend Christmas together, it was going to be in Ohio. This year was too hard for me to wrap it up by spending the holidays alone in our apartment, so I went.
We very seriously committed ourselves to San Francisco this year. I needed something in my life to be real and permanent and static. It was the only thing that would let me commit to it. We can’t do marriage yet; there’s not enough room for that information here, but just know that we are not there and so we will remain boyfriend and girlfriend until we are. In my weaker moments, though, that feels scary and unstable. I couldn’t figure out work. I couldn’t figure out money. I couldn’t manage to slow down my social obligations long enough to stay in the house for two nights in a row. So San Francisco it was; if you can’t make your relationship or your job or your money or your life stable, at least commit to a place. In my unemployment, we finally decided that we would rule out applying to jobs in other cities. He can support the two of us if he has to. It’s not worth taking on a long-distance relationship after three plus years. So San Francisco it was. I fell fast and hard for this city I’ve already given three years of my life to. I let it charm me with its twinkly lights reflecting off the bay and mountains and food and dirtiness and it wrapped me up in the hug I so desperately needed. San Francisco and I came to an agreement.
It took about two miles on 75 North for us to get lost in our own giggles and excitement. “SKYLINE, HARRY!” I screamed as we passed the very first one. “CONEYS!” By the time we got to the magical place on the highway where the entire skyline of downtown opens up to you as you come around the bend and down the hill, we were bouncing in our seats. It’s coming it’s coming it’s coming it’s coming. CINCINNATI! HEY GIRL! My hands were shaking and I took an awful cell phone picture and I totally posted it to Facebook anyway. And there’s downtown, and look at that new building, and hey Bengals stadium hey exit for our university hey other Skyline oh my god it’s your old apartment, look Harry it’s a White Castle, remember when Andrew and Ian lived over there, is that where we went to that bar that one time, dude let’s just keep driving and go all the way up to your mom’s.
The city of Cincinnati basically shuts down at 6:00 on Christmas Eve, much unlike my transplant-and-broke-people-filled San Francisco which assumes that you couldn’t afford to go see your family and gives you a burrito and a beer as a consolation prize. I insisted that we stop at a gas station, the only place to get food when you don’t get to your hotel until almost 10:00 at night. We picked up two six packs: Yuengling, my bodega go-to while living in New York, and Barbarossa, which is far from my favorite but is at least brewed in Cincinnati. We jumped into bed, giddy with the prospect of drinking nostalgia beers and watching SportsCenter, giddy about the idea that we would actually get basketball on Christmas.
The 25th came and went; we exchanged gifts and I drank too much coffee and we ate incredible ham and taught his family how to play a game. The time change was hitting me pretty hard and I was ready to fall into bed entirely too early, but of course we stayed up until 12:30 in the morning watching basketball, because of course I found myself in the wrong time zone for the first Warriors game. The last seven hours of my Christmas tidily divided themselves between the NFL and the NBA, and that’s exactly what I wanted.
We had four days to spend with our friends. It took about ten minutes into the very first brunch for me to realize that wasn’t going to be enough. And so began my balancing act between being grateful that we’re able to see so many friends and make so many new memories and being wholly depressed that these moments are finite. Every other year we’ve visited, San Francisco has felt a little finite. We kept saying we were going to live here forever, but we were young and we still held transient hearts. I lived in four major cities over the course of six years; I assume that at any given moment I’m just going to sell my furniture, throw my sewing machine and computer in a couple boxes and move across the country to try and start something new again. We didn’t consider the side effects of choosing San Francisco; there was no reason we should. But sitting in Ohio at my favorite brunch spot, my favorite bar, driving up the hill in my favorite park to my favorite overlook - the refrain was on loop in my head. We Will Never Live Here Again. There Is Never Enough Time.
Living in San Francisco means understanding that your life in its current state is probably temporary. It’s not all that easy to live here. It’s expensive. If you don’t have a reason to stay here, it’s really easy to get lured to places with cheaper rent and more land. Friends cycle in and out of here, they join the burritos in the Alameda-Weehawken tunnel, they go back to the midwest and take $600 rent on a three bedroom house with a backyard and they get a dog and you only see them at Christmas. Friends join the Peace Corps, the army, some weirdo hippie movement, Portland. If you’re an over-emotional sap that’s already lost too many friends to the siren song of Other, it’s pretty easy to force yourself to enjoy this moment, to take it all in. A year from now, we might not all be sitting at this table. Cheers, fuckers, you guys are my favorite. But you never take advantage. You never assume you’ll be sharing this booth with these people ever again. You laugh and hug and scream and enjoy the Now, because Now is dynamic. Only fools assume this will never change.
But we were young in Cincinnati. I was young in Kansas City. I spent eighteen years of my life hating Kansas City, only to return as an adult and find that I’m completely in love with it. I spent my years in Cincinnati assuming that life would probably never change. I assumed I’d still be going to Northside Tavern and The Comet when I was 30, that my current friends would stay where and how they were. It all got pulled out from under me right after graduation, as it is wont to do. Everyone fled as far as possible as quickly as possible. Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Vegas, New York. It felt like a competition to see how remote and unreachable we could make ourselves; how hard it could possibly be to even get one bar night per year with the people we used to see every day. We started to lose one another. It happens. I can’t make twelve vacations per year and still pay my rent. You have to choose friends - not consciously, mind you, but suddenly you realize that you planned your New York trip, you planned your Vegas trip, and those are the friends you will see this year. The others will wait, and suddenly, you realize you haven’t seen someone you would have referred to as a “best friend” in four years.
We shot at least twenty games of billiards, played at least five games of Carcasonne and at least fifteen games of Dominion. I’m only promising I single-handedly put down thirty not-available-in-California beers because I can’t remember if the actual number is closer to forty. We laughed and danced and screamed. We told the same stories we’ve all been able to recite for the better part of a decade; we invested a little bit of time into introducing one another to new ones. People pulled me aside to ask how Harry and I were doing; I blushed and got real quiet and told them how icky love was in lieu of having to say we are tremendously, indescribably happy. I pulled people onto my lap and into my arms to smother them with kisses. I killed my cell phone battery every single day from excited texts and phone calls to old friends reporting our locations and plans. There were still so many very important people I wasn’t able to see, but we did just about as much as we possibly could.
The last full day in town was perfect, despite my attempts to overshadow it with sadness. We took a little time to ourselves in the morning. We went to a restaurant where our 24-year-old friend from three years ago is now the chef. We drank lattes and giggled at how weird the world is now. We visited our friends (again) so we could shoot pool in the basement (again) before going out drinking (again) with all the people I rapid-fire texted in about fifteen minutes time (again). We took separate cars, giving me a second alone to talk to someone I’ve somehow known for seven and a half years despite the fact that I met him as an adult. The “never enough time” speech came out hard and fast, words slipping out of my mouth about how unsure I am, how unstable I am, how the world is perfect but finite. I said “scared” a lot. I was pleading with something, anything, for just a couple more days. I tried to express gratitude but it got lost in all the sadness and longing.
I don’t know what the solution is. I can’t miss you less; I can’t keep myself from wanting more. All I can say is that it felt perfect. It felt comfortable. It felt more like “home” than that place ever has before but that doesn’t mean it’s where we belong. The takeaway is that I can make anywhere feel like home if I try it enough. I move from place to place and make new friends, I find new bars and beers and lattes. I am perhaps the most ridiculous type of nomad, jumping all over the country in search of permanence and not being sure what to do with it once I’ve got it.
I needed to be shown a lot of things this year and Cincinnati did everything it could to show them to me. The longing will die down with time, but the gratitude is for keeps.
