Chapter 7

I grew up in New York City. I grew up in the boroughs. MetroCards became collectibles. You were bound to find a pizzeria and a bodega on corners connecting city blocks. They weren’t just sidewalks. Blocks were communities or refuges. I lost one of the last subway tokens. Yes, I was alive during that time.

My personal trainer who I only met a couple of weeks ago asked what Long Island town I lived in. They take zip codes very seriously here. My zip code refers to one town, but if you cross the street in one direction, you’re in another town. I live on the fringes;  I am at the epicenter of three towns, but it has been decided that where I reside, my mailing zip, is simultaneously the demographic to which I belong.

“Oh, so you went to that high school. Do you know -“ my personal trainer trailed off before I cut him off.

“I grew up in the city. I didn’t go to high school here, which is nice because I can go to the gym or anywhere for that matter, and not run into anyone I may know,” I said.

“Do you like it there better,” he asked me as if to challenge me.

“I do like the city more,” I replied. I saw him twitch. “It’s more unsafe now than it was back then,” I said as an aside to remain diplomatic. I think I believed this to an extent as well. Everyday someone is being shoved onto the train tracks.

“My brother is a cop in Jackson Heights. He just handled a three-person murder. It’s really unsafe,” he replied.

We got back to our session. He was showing me a motion using the cable machine that targeted my obliques. I felt something. And then I felt nothing. It was only our second scheduled meeting together.

Ironically, that very morning - at 4 am- when me and my parents with whom I live are awake, three hooded men jumped out of a dark car, surrounded my mothers parked car directly in front of our house and stole the catalytic converter. They also smashed the driver’s side window. I heard my mother hurriedly say our address in hushed tones. I grew suspicious and stepped out of my bedroom when she told me to stay away from the landing. I tiptoed back into my room, darted to my window and spread apart two blinds, peeking through as I witnessed the crime take place. A scream escaped. My heart raced.

I felt unsafe. I already felt unsafe. I feel like the house I live in, a no longer new-build, sticks out like a sore thumb, attracting unwanted attention. It has curb appeal - its completely brick - a salmon pink with dark burgundy outlines.

And then today, about two weeks later, something else happened that made me feel unsafe. My car collided with another car in the parking lot of the market I go to daily. It’s the only place I felt safe driving to and from. It’s one straight shot - literally. We collided as we were both pulling out to leave. I was headed home.

It’s a lazy Saturday. I wasn’t in a rush as I had nowhere to go to. Hell, I didn’t even need to go to the market, but I had wanted an outing. I regret not being able to appease my appetite for stimulation with television, reading, or just being. I was just starting to get comfortable driving after another mishap happened about a year ago, when I had jumped the curb and accelerated head on into a metal dumpster.

All of a sudden, I feel incapable of driving. My mother reprimanded me and gave me the silent treatment. Even as an adult, those actions sting. After, I called my brother - a surgeon coming off of work - and vented. He suggested that I take driving lessons- that last of which I took when I wasn’t yet 20. I’m aging myself, again, but to be clear, I am 33 years old. It wasn’t the accident that prompted him to say this and instead was my constant desire to live in the city- a walkable place that I did not need a car to live in.

I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I’m unemployed and have zero capital to my name to be able to scout out a place to live in with intention. I’m tethered to my family, like I always am, unwilling to leave New York City for graduate school after I had already accepted a seat at Northwestern University in Illinois where my parents dished out money to make my new dorm room as comfortable as possible. I’m tethered to my culture- unmarried as it were, relegated to living with my kin. I constantly reframe all of this: I’m privileged to be growing old with my aging parents. I am living knowing that I am spending as much time as possible with them.

I feel safe with them, even at home where I fear trespassers, and even as a passenger with them in moving cars. Now, I feel like I can no longer go the mile and a half distance to my local market or make the one and half mile trip in the other direction to the cafe. The cafe, where I feel as though my fellow baristas have my back, makes me feel safe, too. But the major turnpike I have to merge into oncoming active traffic in order to get home from the cafe is hell. I feel unsafe again.

The world has revolted against me and others too, I suppose. Though my anorexia and litter of job rejections predated the pandemic, the economy, civic sense, and politick have been corrupted, imbalanced, and lacking ever since Covid. Inwardly, however, I’m starting to think that my brother was correct when he said I am afraid of adulthood.

I’m afraid of driving, of being driven, and of others driving. I’m afraid of commuting, of missing time out with my family. I’m afraid of intimacy. I’m afraid of car accident police reports and calling up auto insurance. I’m afraid that I don’t work enough hours at the cafe to qualify for health insurance. I’m afraid that I am relieved when I am scheduled for less hours so I won’t have to go in and confront my truth: that I hold degrees from prestigious institutions only to sweep the cafe lobbies, occasionally bathrooms, and constantly answer that I’m doing very well when asked how I am. For someone who started drinking coffee at the ripe age of eleven, growing up feels so burdensome that it pains me.