Outside Looking In

There was a stretch during my relapse, maybe even before it, where I would drive down Paseo Padre near Quarry Lakes and stare at the new townhouses on the corner.

Not because I wanted the countertops or the square footage.

I would look at them and feel outside of life.

Priced out.
Left out.

Like everyone else had crossed some invisible threshold into adulthood or stability while I was still standing across the street looking through the glass.

I realized recently that this feeling has followed me for a long time.

Back in 2001, when I lived in New York, I used to walk down 10th Street toward 5th Avenue at night and look into the lobbies of apartment buildings. The lighting. The doormen. The quiet. The sense that people inside those walls belonged to a world I was only visiting.

I have felt it in San Francisco too. Driving through neighborhoods and wondering what it must feel like to simply exist inside one of those homes without carrying the constant awareness that it could all disappear.

For a long time, I thought this feeling was about money.

Maybe part of it was.

Still, I do not think money was the real thing I was looking at.

The townhouse became a symbol.
The lobby became a symbol.
The neighborhood became a symbol.

Not of wealth exactly.

More like proof that everyone else had figured something out before I did.

Maybe the shift is not learning to stop wanting beautiful or stable things. Maybe the shift is finally understanding that my life is not happening somewhere else.

I do not think this realization is finished yet.

Something about it still feels unresolved.

I just know the townhouse was never really the point.

I think I have been looking through windows for a very long time.