My best friend is leaving New York. She got a job in Chicago, a real one, the kind you don't say no to, and on Thursday we had our last dinner in the Lower East Side and I have not stopped feeling it since.
We went to the dumpling place on Eldridge that we've been going to since our broke first year, when we'd split one order and pretend we weren't still hungry. We are less broke now. We ordered too much on purpose.
Here's what nobody warns you about: when a best friend leaves New York, they don't just take themselves. They take entire neighborhoods with them.
The corner of Ludlow where she cried after the bad breakup. The rooftop where we watched fireworks. The specific bench in Sara D. Roosevelt Park where we plotted our whole futures like we knew anything. All of it now has her fingerprints on it and she's taking her hands away.
We cried in the restaurant. Then we laughed at ourselves crying. Then we cried again. The waiter was very patient with us, two women weeping over dumplings, which is possibly the most New York scene imaginable.
She was my landing pad here. My person. The one who understood exactly what I meant when I said I missed home in a way that didn't have words in English. She'd just nod. She'd order more chai. She got it.
There's a line in a Bollywood film — there's always a line — about how the people you love don't really leave, they just change addresses in your heart. I hated how much it helped.
Watching a best friend leave New York is a strange grief because it's dressed up as good news. I'm so happy for her. I'm so wrecked for me. Both are completely true and they don't cancel out.
We walked to the F train after. I hugged her too long on the platform. She said, "Come visit before it snows." I said I would.
The city is still here. It's just missing a person.
Go be brilliant, you. I'll keep the dumplings warm.
Love,