Never Can Say Good-Bye (Return to New York)

What can I say? I returned - after 3 years at "home" where I grew up, with 6 weeks volunteering in Vietnam, 6 months in New Haven working for Yale, a year in Huntingdon Valley outside Philadelphia living and working in a retirement community and that whole COVID lockdown (which is ongoing.)

In Sept 2022, I left my remote contact tracing job at University of Pennsylvania (and the retirement community job in August) and started a job with the New York State government for the Department of Health AIDS Institute. My first week there, I gave a presentation on the NYC water system. 

I also just began a long-distance relationship with PSG, a guy I knew from college, who lives in Philadelphia. We had lunch the day before I began my new job and it went from there.

And in Nov 2022, I picked up keys to my garden apartment in Jersey City, NJ. I can see the World Trade Center when I turn the corner on my street.

A lot of this looks like May 2004 when I moved here officially for the first time.

But make no mistake. It's way different. 

That cabbie in March 2004 wished me "Good luck in New York" and he wasn't kidding. That was a statement, not only a well wish. Nearly 20 years later and I thank that guy for saying that to me at that moment in time.

Good luck in New York.

Yes, indeed.