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Tuesday, August 05, 2003
" "
August 5, 2003
I sat on my bed, my pillows propped up against the wall as some kind of cushion between me and the hard brick. The TV remote was on my knee, as I channel surfed at my normal pace. I stopped on CNN for a moment, just to take in a breath or two of Anderson Cooper before continuing on my journey. I sighed heavily, and glanced over the TV and out the window.
They say that 15 million people live in this city, but I haven't seen more than a thousand of them. Sometimes I go and sit on my fifteenth floor balcony and just people watch, to see what kind of people walk along Lexington on a Tuesday afternoon, but it's pointless. I should be down on the street, asking those people what they're doing, what they've done, where they're headed. Y'know, get some ideas or something.
And somehow I'm back on CNN. "...a federal judge will consider an environmental group's request for an even longer delay." I groan, asking myself why am I watching this? Do I really think that, if I pay attention to the plight of the residents of this Alabama town that I'll fully and completely understand what they're going through? Finally I turn the TV off and toss the remote onto the ground. I'm not going to learn anything about the world from my bedroom. Nothing. I'm not going to know how things work without experiencing them for myself.
I had too much tying me down in New York. I couldn't leave, even if I really wanted to. At this point it would be more like escaping than anything. "Escape From New York". Sounds like a Kurt Russell movie. I had a job that I sort of liked, I had a boyfriend who had more interest in the girls at the Starbucks on the corner than me, and I had an apartment that grown woman would beat each other in the street for that was decorated kind of nicely. Did I want to leave? Didn't we all want to leave? Just.... take off and not look back, only forward to a life that we're completely unsure of? The mere thought of a future that was unwritten both excited and paralyzed me. How could I deal with a life that hadn't already been written and acted out for me?
I thought about packing a bag. I thought about leaving my boyfriend a note. I thought about giving my parents a call to tell them I was going on a little road trip. I decided against all of this. I grabbed my purse, my keys, and all of the money out of my boyfriend's wallet, all $1100 of it. On my way out the door I smirked at my reflection.
This is my great escape.
posted by Amanda L. on 9:10 PM
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