Houston St. Problem

Spring. Greenwich Village loft. Stripped to its bones, naked and quiet, just as it was that late December day when we signed on two keys to the same lock. Late-night Artichoke slices on cardboard boxes, stacked on undressed floors, unfurling well-intended plans of pup-proof couches and Restoration Hardware credenzas, and what level of IKEA hacking were we able to stomach. Turns out, it wasn’t much.

Houston Street happy hours. Perfect sleepy Sunday mornings and late afternoon brunches with Jack and Jill at Jane. Another serve of a boozy brunch mainstay—the crispy chicken sandwich with jalapeno jam. I eschewed your benedict, as I did every time. You always thought it was funny that I loved chicken and hated eggs. It’s the texture. So, when I got ahead of myself, I always stated that I put the chicken before the egg. The chicken can’t be the chicken if the egg isn’t prioritized. Flawed logic for modern poultry farming, but I let it pass and roll my eyes as my corner lip curls into my last sip of peach bellini. Another round, please.

North Lake George ebbs and flows. When you lost your mother, we headed North on a Tuesday. It was my first time there and meeting your family. I said I liked it here. You said you loved me, and the sound of those longed-for words was tinder to my soul. Welcome fire, necessary warmth. My palm met yours, steadfast and sweaty. You said she would have loved me, too, as your front teeth purposefully pierced your cheek and you held in a river of everything you couldn’t say. Wouldn’t feel. You hated it when anyone saw you cry, especially me. And your dad. We pinky promised to come back and make happier memories here. Sad we never did.

Balthazar supper. 10 pm reservation. I hated eating this late. It fed unwanted, undigested thoughts and harmed my sleep. But you waited too long, and this was the only available reservation. I knew you’d probably forget, so I told you I could make the reservation. You said you would. I was correct. I felt equally pleased in my rightness and sad it was so.

Platitudes and pleasantries peppered through sips of wine and scrolls on our respective phones. After the main, without hesitation, you told me you met someone. It wasn’t my fault, we just sort of grew without needing one another anymore. And you needed to be needed. I didn’t beg. Just sat across, sipping the last bit of sancerre and eating bread. You got up and paid. Then we walked the 22.5 blocks back to still-our place, but it was no longer ours. Just temporarily yours and mine. You unfolded a blanket on the couch and fell asleep. That was that.

Those New York blocks. Years later, the settled-for-now ocean adjacent on the left coast. Another Manhattan, but this one’s a beach. It’s nice—for now. Just cars whizzing and standing on the freeways, but free of any proper blocks. Blocks of weight. Blocks of progress. Blocks of trauma. Blocks of years - our entire 20s. Hazy blocks of late-night memories and tear-stained IKEA sheets and my favorite NARS on your left cheek and the map of all of the things that we thought would stay. Turns out, as temporary as a City summer’s day. Dark winters do shake anything dear and not held. Winter permeates the bones. Crisps the marrow until it lies a crumbling pile of dust and ash and could be. Only the strong survive enough to rise again in the spring. And I guess that wasn’t written for me. And you. Maybe we weren’t the Phoenix, but a Green Finch and a Linnet Bird, wanting to fly, learning to sing. Sondheim always knows what to say.

And sometimes, when a hot, sticky breeze slips through storied palms and sticky thighs, I think of those 20-something, lower Manhattan blocks in our 20-something lives when everything seemed perfect. Young and breathless, running toward everything and nothing at all. And that, in itself, was the problem, my dear—our destination.

You wanted a rental, and I, to invest in a home.