Beat Jeremy Coon: Good-bye Rachel

Chicago was the end for Rachel and me. Since we knew the whole time that we were going to break-up when I left, it was kind of like being together for one last, pretend time.

But then, a couple of days after I came back to New York, Rachel got word that the New York Teaching Fellow program wanted to interview her. She was scheduled to come to New York just a few weeks after we broke up! Trauma and joy!

So she stayed with me, and we were almost in a pretend relationship again for five more days. Except a lot more break-upy and sad.

Remember when I said that New York was sad and lonely when you've lost your love and all you have is a Cribbage board to show for it? Well, now I've got a clean room too.

Rachel re-organized my room while she was here (spending a really good chunk of her New York time on it), and it looks amazing. Photos of that to come soon, since I've still got an American flag and a few more plastic hooks to put up.

When Rachel arrived in New York, I only met her a third of the way because I wasn't sure what boundaries I should establish, what was too boyfriendy or too sacraficey. On her way out, though, I realized that stuff didn't matter as much (though I did ask for a 30 day break from us calling each other). So I took her all the way to the AirTrain.

Here she is, about to go.

And here she is, going.

This was the end-end of us.

I stood there and watched her from afar as she waited for the floating train to JFK. I don't think she saw me. It seemed like she was talking to someone who was either sitting down or in a wheelchair. At one point she opened her backpack and took something out of it, possibly a pen to write something down.

I was tempted, so tempted to run, jump over the AirTrain turnstyle and give Rachel a last hug and kiss good-bye. But my vivid imagination, which terrified me with scenes of security guards shooting me down, discouraged it.

Then Rachel got on the AirTrain, which was to take her to the JetBlue terminal. Can you believe JetBlue flies from New York to Austin now? Can you believe that this fact, though such exciting news at first, now seems to have no bearing on my life whatsoever?

I turned and walked down the frozen escalator, nearly sobbing. I moped like this all the way from the shuttle train to the E train, slouching, crossing my arms, and staring at the ground.

While on the E, however, I pulled out "Solitude: a Return to the Self," a well-researched manifesto Rachel gave me in Chicago about the joy and neccessity of aloneness, especially for creative types. Reading it was making me feel better.

I eventually had to put it aside, though, when I had a few good ideas that I needed to write down. Suddenly, I was feeling pretty happy.

"Huh," I thought. "Being alone and creative seems to be my natural state."

And then I thought about the projects I have ahead of me. The screenplay I'm working on with Michael, and the new musical that I just started brainstorming with Joe last week. Times didn't seem so dark.

At the Greenpoint stop on the G, a woman and a man (who were getting off there), came up to me.

"Excuse me, may I ask you a question?" the woman asked.

"Sure," I said.

"Do you work at Angelica Kitchen?"

"Uh-huh," I said, looking at the train doors, which seemed to be staying open longer so we could keep talking.

"And do you have a blog?"

"Yes."

"It's great," she said.

"Thanks!" I said, kind of shocked.

I smiled, glad that they'd discovered me in my natural state - writing ideas and reading "Solitude," not slouching and crossing my arms like I had been on the shuttle.

"She's a really big fan," the man with her said. "A really big fan."

They walked off the train, the doors finally closed, and I felt like I might have a place in New York afterall.