Philadelphia

Sometimes I just need to run away. For the past couple of years, however, the options were limited, since - let's face it - running wasn't realistic. Neither was walking, for that matter. But having hit some sort of watershed - whether it's the loss of 50 lbs, or the fact that the damn methotrexate is actually doing its job - I have the energy now, if not to actually run, then to just get away for a bit.

Too much is going on here. Another friend got laid off this morning. Too busy at work, grateful for my job but nervous about my issues with time management. I'm not writing, and not really exercising, which means my nerves are kind of shot. I've got some friends and family members in very stressful situations; facing divorce, caring for sick parents, looking for jobs, wondering if they're going to have jobs tomorrow...all those things, ironically, leave me wondering why I'm the lucky one right now. Is it because there's an unbeknownst shoe about to drop? Or have I already been through my craziness?

So I ran away this weekend. To Philadelphia, where I used to live. Where I had my first apartment, a huge, light-filled 2 room studio on Pine Street, with a big homey kitchen and a fabulous great room where I slept for 2 years on a pull-out couch. There was a lot going on then too - full time grad school, writing a book, exploring religious life, full time job, and two major transitional relationships...I was dating a real jerk who was never going to be the one and simultaneously hanging out with my so-called "best friend" - with whom the chemistry was painfully evident, a relationship so full of love and longing and questions that it nearly drove us both insane, which was, of course, half the fun.

It amazes me that I probably had even more going on in my life then than I do now - certainly some of the same elements are there. But now it feels like things are different. I'm sure part of it is the illness piece - looking back then I had no idea what I was in for now. I look at the cobbled streets and brick-lined sidewalks and remember the girl I was, the one with two parents, the one who walked with a quicker stride than anyone else, whose bag wasn't filled with seven different kinds of medicine for various nonsense. Back then, I had never taken a painkiller, never worried about getting through the day. My big worries were about the viability of source texts of female religious mystics, the suitability of certain Berenstain Bears titles for "story time" at Borders, and whether or not my best friend was going to let his unhappy, ill-timed, passive aggressive relationship go so that we could be together. (Answer? Religious mystics were not on the comps; the book "Berenstain Bears and the School Bully" ends with a trip to the school psychologist's office, and yes - he woke up - and yes, we were very happy for a while. but that's another post.)

In the meantime, I went back for the weekend. And I walked the streets of my old neighborhood again. I looked for that girl walking back to her apartment, looked for her coming from the direction of the Chef's Market, or from Rittenhouse Square, or the parking garage on Spruce Street. But I didn't see her. I wonder what I would have said to her if we'd run into each other. Would I have put a hand out to touch her arm, sat her down on a bench and tell her what was coming? Or would I have seen that million-dollar smile, the honey-colored bangs swept back from her forehead, the gleam of a novel-to-be in her hazel eyes, and just let her keep on walking?