Maya moved back to London on Sunday. I helped her carry two suitcases down four flights in Williamsburg and then I walked her to the L train, and that was that.
This is the part of New York nobody warns you about. The city gives you people and then quietly asks for them back.
Maya was my first real friend here. We met three years ago at a fashion thing in Chelsea where neither of us knew anyone, both of us clutching warm white wine and pretending to read our phones. She is from London, I am from Ahmedabad, and somehow in the middle of Manhattan we found each other's exact frequency.
She is the one who knew about the homesickness. The 2AM calls. The way an Indian friend and a London friend both understand what it is to love a place and leave it anyway.
We did everything on the L train. Brunch in Bushwick. That terrible pottery class. The night we cried on the platform at Bedford because we'd both been dumped in the same week, which felt less like a tragedy and more like a sitcom.
And now the L train goodbye. I walked her to the Bedford stop and we both knew we were doing the thing you do, where you say see-you-soon instead of goodbye because goodbye is too heavy for a Sunday.
She swiped through the turnstile. Turned around. Did our stupid little wave. The train came almost immediately, which felt rude of the MTA, honestly, the one time you want it delayed.
In Hindi we don't really have a word for goodbye. We say 'phir milenge' — we'll meet again. I think that's the only honest thing to say to a friend who's leaving. Not goodbye. Just, again, somewhere, somehow.
The walk home alone in Williamsburg was the longest five blocks of my year.
Here's what I'm learning about the L train goodbye, about all of it. This city is built on people passing through. You don't get to keep most of them. But for a while, on a train under a river, you got to be each other's home.
Love the ones this city loans you. Then let the train come.
Love,