I stopped for coffee on the way to work, hoping to spark productivity on a meeting-less day. A cup of light roast with a splash of almond milk and, as I sprinkled cinnamon on top, I flashed back to Newark. Seven years ago, the two of us at the tiny coffee shop beneath my apartment on chilly weekend mornings.
I'm so often filled with regret that I stopped writing just before those years. I wonder what I would have filled my pages with -- tales of train rides into Manhattan, how much I struggled in my graduate program but loved the friendships it gave me, questions about every decision I made in that hazy year after leaving (and returning to) New Jersey.
What I have now are bits and pieces of that time --
/ trying on city life for a spell
/ reading more than I'd ever thought possible, all the while wondering what ifs
/ trying to fit into a job that wasn't quite right (square peg, round hole, etc.)
/ training for my first half-marathon -- hours spent on the treadmill when Newark still felt too new
/ late evenings in Hoboken, leaving 10th and Willow in the wintertime with cups of cocoa
/ Saturday afternoons spent with tiny boys, knowing I never should have left them
It's why I started to write again (admittedly, not often enough lately) -- pouring out the details of our days, in the hopes that someday I might be so grateful that I did.
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