On Where I Am

Let me preface this by saying Kristal told me NPR said that today is the most depressing day of the year. I wrote this not meaning to depress, although I was a bit tired.

It is natural to reflect on where you are. At this point in your life you could have been anywhere else, but you chose where you are.

When it rains in most cities and it’s fairly warm, it’s very dizzying and romantic and it seems like either growing new greenery or washing away the dirt. When it rains here in Charleston, I can barely even stand looking out the window of the pretty little attic where I work. I know that the streets are flooded downtown and the pastel houses are all dissolving and the drivers don’t turn their headlights on but their brake lights blink incessantly.

I do not understand it here when it rains because I cannot stand the way people drive.

The rain makes it grey, and I figure that I don’t like it because it takes away the complication. It is easy to dislike somewhere when the streets are flooding.

But I am planning to leave once it has gotten pretty again, and the girls will wear clothes that are too small for their bodies, but it will seem endearing. There won’t be rain for a couple of months and only sangria and sun. And I’ll go to some of the last smoky bars in the country and I’ll probably sob. These will be sweet months of farewell.