Past Life

Recently, I met with my old college roommates up near Columbia University. I say college roommates.. but we stayed roommates long after college ended as the apartment was in Manhattan and rent controlled. So we stayed. And stayed. Long past our college days.

But still.. we all left. In my case, it was 15 years after graduation, when I met my future wife who ultimately was the one who pulled me from my Manhattan world and landed me in New Jersey where I had a dog, house, and a marriage that lasted roughly a decade before it became a divorce.

Now I live and work in New Jersey and walking in the old neighborhood felt like a dream. The desk clerk at my old building was still Ali and George still ran the building and the Hungarian Pastry Shop still had the same owner as well, if different waitresses. I recognized some of the patrons as well. An older man who was a bit older was in his same spot. He never said hello to me then so it felt right that he never acknowledged me now.

I miss the energy. The NJ town that comes the closest is Montclair but Montclair isn't Manhattan. No place I've been has that dynamism where every block has every kind of human imaginable. But I don't feel part of it now, not even as an observer. There was a time when I worked in Manhattan but now I'm a complete and total New Jerseysan and a New Jerseysan is not a foreigner, not even an out of towner really, just New Jersey.

I could tell that I was a New Jerseyan from the relief I felt seeing my car again. I am glad I saw my dear friends and I am glad I got back.