New York City has been the biggest bitch to me lately.  Maybe she heard about my plans to leave her next year and now she’s pushing me away like Mr. Henderson did to Harry.  All I know is that when I lie on my bed and look up, this is what I see.  Two plastic-covered holes teeming with pipes and gross mismanagement.  Twin reminders of a living situation unique to this city: a shockingly expensive thimble-sized apartment managed by a landlord on the city’s Ten Worst list.  Three flights of stairs to climb to get there.  Garbage trucks outside my window at six in the morning.  Fire trucks screaming by at all hours.  A closet so small it has to be turned over seasonally.  A hot plate on top of a stove that doesn’t work.  This is what I call home.

In my relationship with the city, this time would be considered a low.

My street always seems to have some kind of construction going on.  Scaffolding, orange cones, uncovered manholes, the beep!beep!beep! of dump trucks in reverse.  As soon as one project ends, another begins.  There’s never a break from it.  But for the first time, a project has invaded my personal space.  And here’s the thing about me and personal space:  I need it.  A lot of it.  Last night I was at a dinner celebrating the eighty-fifth birthday of a friend from work.  I was seated between him and my Italian coworker.  They are both charming and wonderful.  But between his near-deafness and her Europeanness, my personal space was discarded with their every conversation.  I thought I was going to have a panic attack.  Which is how I feel every time I look up at those holes.

I am not good at the period of time in between original and new and improved. I am not good at dust and taped-up holes.  I do not like seeing what my ceiling and walls hide.  I don’t like exposing the messy parts.

But life has a way of showing you how necessary those parts are.  Like the period of time between mad and forgiven. Especially if you’re the one owing forgiveness, and you find the mad part easier.  So much easier that instead of moving through the mud of self-sacrifice you’d rather pitch a tent in the wilds of anger and spend the night there.  With two plastic-covered holes ready to fuel your self-righteousness with just a glance at them.  Then you realize that anger and love can only reside in the same space for a few minutes before one of them has to leave, because this closet doesn’t have room for both.  Time to turn over.