For the Hope of It

We had just returned from Europe.  It was January in Sacramento, California so most days were warm enough to barely require a light jean jacket.  And the nights were dappled with the hanging lights of outdoor patios at local restaurants and the liquor infused laughter of patrons.  You had moved into your new apartment and I hadn’t yet moved back to Chicago.  On a Sunday we rented a car and drove to San Francisco.  For the past two years, San Francisco had been our place.  We revisited it whenever we could and when we couldn’t be there, we would be building it up in our heads.   Even through our travels in Europe, San Francisco had remained the promise land. 

I’ve never allowed myself to say it—to say that I wonder if maybe some alternative to my current life still exists in California.  Maybe there is a me that stayed, that didn’t get on that plane out of Sacramento, flying into Chicago just in time for a February blizzard.  Maybe nothing that followed happened to that other me in California.  Maybe in California I am still the girl carrying a painting of Prague and a heart heavy with hopes, up the escalator, into the airport, into the sunshine sky, on and on forever.  Maybe in California the martinis didn’t happen, rape didn’t happen, New York and all these damned disappointments and the scar on my ankle didn’t happen.  Maybe I never got my heartbroken.  Maybe in California I rented an apartment and hung the painting on the wall and lived happily enough—ever after.  Maybe I moved to San Francisco.  

And maybe I would give it all back.  The past four years.  France.  New York.  New loves.  My MFA.  Everything.  I would give it all back just to feel the hope of someday having it again.