Be Brave Project Day Six: A Bit Bummed Out

8.46 a.m. and I've awakened feeling rather crappy. I'm heading up-state for the weekend, leaving at noon, so I've got plenty to do this morning. Pack, work out, call the guy at the law office who I hope can explain to me why I'm receiving letters harassing me to pay debt I already paid. . .need to call sous chef, need to cheer the hell up.

But my first thought on awakening this morning was: I don't want to leave New York City. I'm not talking about leaving for the weekend--I'm talking about how incredibly difficult, the mortgage person at Bank of America made clear, it will be for me to buy an apartment here. Ever.

This town has saved my 2x: The first time, when I was a waitress in Illinois with no clue how to jump start my life--I got into school here. The second time was less than three years ago, when I crawled back to this city after I'd lived abroad, damaging my heart and my liver and my financial future by what happened after I decided to simply run away from the Bush years in America.

Obvious Lessons Learnt The Hard Way #839: Running Away Doesn't Solve Anything.

I have always loved NYC, but I fell hard for an Englishman and when I lost my Manhattan apartment I went over there--and I stayed. For 5 years--it was wonderful, garish, depressing. I dream of London more often than I dream of my childhood home. I was engaged to a posh and stubborn man, and the cold embarrassing fact of it is that happened only because I hoped marriage would keep me there for good.

However, he had problems. I had problems. And the breakup was a relief. Then I moved to a small studio in SW London and lived there for two and a half more years, dating younger men, finding myself drinking more, drinking alone. . .

And I had to leave. I knew I couldn't quit drinking in London--it's part of the culture, it's saturated into the very seam of daily life. But NYC? Plenty of interesting sober artists who are still funny and fascinating. . .I knew New York would still be glittering and hard and all the shiny things that distract me, but also that it has a hidden softness. Which might save my ass.

So now I'm sober. And I tore apart my life and my finances for my grand gesture of leaving Bush's America. Somehow I have a feeling that it might have hurt me more than it hurt him.

But yesterday I learned that my romantic, meaningless gesture cost me the chance to buy a place of my own in NYC. Real Estate's gone through the roof. Any money I had is--pffffffhhhht. And right now that hurts.

BBP Notes: Well, I've done 5 VERY big brave things in the last week, which is my new quota. So I'm done here until next Monday.

However, I think that my next fear faces will be a big one: Fear Of Needles! I think I'm going to give an injection. Holy Mother of God.

P.S. Gigi Colette and her teeth are doing fine; she is also going upstate--in the company of a very large tabby male who she alternately cajoles and assaults. Women.