The Home Stretch

It's mid-May already: you blink and a week, a month, half a year, has gone by. The day you've been looking forward to before you even knew that day was coming is almost here. You can feel the electricity and excitement in even the smallest tasks. The morning alarm is welcomed and the 5 o'clock bell is celebrated. Everything just feels more alive, more real.

Two more weeks and another chapter of my life will be closed. Closed, but not forgotten. I know it will be awhile before I will be able look back on my time here in New York with total objectivity. I know that when I finally make my way back to the City, no one here will even recognize me, or at least not my personality. People here know me as a caustic pessimist and chronic complainer, but that isn't me. That's the city stifling me. That's the city never failing to show me the seedy underbelly of humanity. That's the city rotting me from the inside out. But not for much longer.

Now, when I see the trash blowing along the street outside of my apartment or the uneducated youth destined to be confined to a life of poverty during my subway commutes, it doesn't affect me. I can now realize that these are only temporary distractions. I can see past them. I can see myself thousands of miles away with a permanent smile. I can feel the real Tim forcing his way out. It's only a matter of rapidly disappearing time.