who i am is not who i was

i lived in a spacious, light and love filled one-bedroom apartment on guerrero street in the mission district for a number of years.

my now-fiancé and i took a year to fill it with furniture and knick-knacks and despite all the second hand furniture and effort: it never fully felt like home. (at least not in the way our place in brooklyn does now.)

zipping down the main thoroughfare that is mission street— i can hardly recognise much of it in the dead of the night. but everything looks more ominous in darkness, even though some of the most beautiful creatures appear from the depths.

daylight highlights the contrasts of what used to be versus the present reality. the sun illuminates the obvious: this city is fully gentrified. the young families in noe valley pushed over to parts of the mission. it’s quieter, the streets are mellower than they were pre-pandemic. people walk into stores and coffee shops fully masked. there seems to be better regard for public health here than in nyc.

we’re only here for the work week. the misfortune of succumbing to the planets means retrograde lands us squarely in the city during conference season. prices are expensive and we end up booking at a bed and breakfast not too far away from our old place.

my love and i find ourselves getting up early to roam the streets for caffeine, but also to scope out our old digs to account for the changes. ahead of our trip, we mourned the loss of our favourite neighborhood restaurant. we spent many an impromptu evening serendipitously making last minute reservations and would bring our late pup with us outdoors. clark would plop down and pick at his food (we brought his meal to eat alongside us) while we paced ourselves through a two hour prix fixe meal. when a fire truck roared through, he would sit, wait and then let out a hoarse howl to join his artificial brethren.

when i stroll down valencia later in the week, i find myself giggling while passing the restaurant that gave my friends food poisoning. (lesson learned: we will never accept free meat dishes without wariness first.)

not many of us are left.

during the pandemic, my friends fled the city for the suburbs, or for home. or if you’re one of my pals, stalked me out to brooklyn. that had its issues too, though. cities turned into former shadows of what they were.

the people?

they’re different.

more developed.

older.

better, i think. including myself.

the only ghosts i left behind in san francisco have to do with my career, my ambition, the dreams that i moved there for in the first place. as i walk past the BART station, i recall all the times i would hike myself back and forth, transfer to the NL or my grad school’s shuttle. i remember the evenings and weekends i had to trek to finish a microbiology lab assignment.

the time i spent here was marred by saturn’s transit in capricorn.

i had to learn boundaries, i struggled with my mental and physical health, i broke down constantly due to the demands and pressures of potentially getting into medical school. the year i finished, i possibly could have earned a second undergraduate degree in biology with the stipend i was earning as a graduate teaching assistant. but i hardly did anything as i was bogged down by intense stress.

i left all my regrets behind when i moved out of the bay in 2019. i did not have any immediate plans to ever return.

being back, amidst a pandemic, is a surreal experience. i didn’t expect to confront my failures so head on like this. but i’m also stronger, more resilient. i’m more comfortable in myself. i no longer feel this external stress to apply to a demanding program that i know i want to do, but do not have the physical or mental fortitude to put myself through. i have a partner who supports and loves me, and has committed to joining me through life. i left with a senior pup, and i came back with love dogs waiting for me back in brooklyn.

who i am is not who i was.

and while i miss who i was— i needed to come back to this place to appreciate the pain i went through for the five years i lived here.

a young woman left san francisco for new york city,

& a beautiful, crone-esque blob came back to see what changed.