6/12/2004: I’m going to New York...

To see the ‘true America’, as I was advised. But mostly, I’m going there for the fireworks. I hear it is awesome, especially on July 4th celebrations. Of course, also to see a highschool classmate, and maybe also an old classmate from Chicago (who is from Atlanta but now in New York). When someone asked why I was going, I jokingly said I was going to meet someone on top of the Empire State Building. Up until I said it I did not remember that yeah, the Empire State Building is in New York. Having been immortalized in so many movies as the place to meet one’s soulmate, it occurred to me --- what if I did go up there, will I meet her there? How foolish, I thought, because the only one I ever want to meet is nowhere in this continent, but across the Pacific, many miles away. And there is no way she will happen to be there. She is in the place I call home, and she doesn’t know that I utter her name 3 times into the lonely Chicago sky every night, yes, until now, more than a year after we met. I had meant to say goodbye, but something always happens that prevent me from doing so. Truth is everytime I’ve psyched myself up into saying goodbye, that I can actually do it, I see her and then all my feigned bravery crumbles too easily. I once told a friend that my hesitation in putting an end to it is that I feel it is such a waste. How, I said, can there be someone who could make you so happy just by “being” and yet not be able to be with that person, to bask some more in the joy that she gives? If only she knew, there is no place I’d rather be than beside her – not New York, the Empire State, or Chicago – but where she will always be close.