Tuesday, April 13, 2010

I no longer fear the city.

Up until recently (say, in the past 3 years or so), San Francisco was just that to me. San Francisco. I had my first job in the city. I felt important, commuting to work at age 13. I WAS cool. My friends were jealous. They did odd jobs, but I was officially on payroll. Payroll! At 13!

But then something happened the next year. I suffered through daily panic attacks with no knowledge of how to control them. The Victorians lining Geary Boulevard leaned in to swallow me whole. The cars plowed through crosswalks faster than usual. The City began to go after me. I ran from imagined, terrible deaths only to confront a new and even more terrible (and still imagined) death. Every morning for four months I woke up with my heart pounding. I wouldn't stop thinking about the End until I went to sleep, and even then it followed me in my dreams.

The next summer I got laid off. The workload dwindled and dwindled. I'd come in at nine only to be done at 11. I left the office to eat a pastry at Royal Ground, or to walk along the shining counters of Neiman Marcus. Death no longer chased me in my black patent shoes, up and into the golden day, but rather it waited in the envelope of my last paycheck. What followed was depression, loss of interest in photography, a friend getting hit by a truck, and finally hope. The next summer didn't bring a job, or the one after that, but I could traverse the streets once again. Despite losing a contact while driving in circles in the Mission and subsequently making it home in rush hour traffic without slamming into someone, I was okay. I had the occasional well of fear now and then, but it was nothing.

Today I remembered my old route home for work. The City and I are friends once more.

No comments:

Post a Comment