Day 158

If you were fighting a battle that you know you can't win, would you become a loser through surrender or defeat?

If I were to fight a battle that I knew I couldn't win, i'd be defeated anytime before considering surrender.


With a lot of things looking up, I started to adapt to my new home. However, most of my friends were away at college or left Yonkers altogether, I was still unemployed and looking for work, my finances were taking a massive hit, and I wanted to make up for the time I lost feeling defeated - I still had to start from scratch. I looked for any opportunity I could, the first important one came in the form of concerts. I was hesitant at first. The concert I brought tickets to was in Madison Square Garden, which I had never been to nor traveled to on my own. I still didn't have a form of income to cover the cost. And I've never been to an event that would end so late at night in a different city. But before I knew it I remembered the hospice video from my move across the state and found myself buying concert tickets for the event.

The morning of March 5, I got ready to head to Manhattan to find my way to MSG. I went really early because I didn't trust myself to navigate the subway system that I've rode once before over 7 years ago. Upon stepping out the subway station, I was astonished by everything. I saw a limousine, tourists, and textbook infrastructure. As I was crossing the street to my restaurant reservation, one particular building caught my eye. It was a skyscraper with a perplexing shape - it seemed like a rhombus, but then showed off its triangular exterior the more you looked at it. Something about it just captivated me while crossing the street until a car honked at me for standing at the green light.

I never found the name of that building that day, but I never forgot about it either.

I would just wander the city in search of all the eye catching attractions. A couple random runs around different blocks later, I ended up at Washington Square Park. The more I wandered, I found a scenery that caught my eye - a beautiful arch in front of a fountain. The moment just made me want to stop moving around and sit by the fountain, where skaters were running laps around the interior as it was not running water. I stood there for a long time, I'm not sure for how long exactly but I was there for hours until I noticed the time. Before I left, a nearby photographer took a photo of me in the center of the fountain. After he took the first photo, he pointed behind me. "Turn around!" The arch lit up brightly [shown as the cover photo for this Hospice phase] and I was blown away at the once in a lifetime moment that was fortunately documented.

On the way to Madison Square Garden, I saw another triangular landmark - the NYC AIDS Memorial. Even though I needed to be somewhere else, I felt like I arrived at my destination here. I took a little video in the moment and, for the minute I was there to observe and live in the moment, I felt complete. I felt how I did before any loss ever occurred. The trademark photo for this phase [Recovery] captures the moment I felt whole in months, something I was deprived of and thought I could never achieve again. Needless to say, the concert and the rest of the night was the perfect cap to the day and I wouldn't change anything that happened in those 24 hours. I didn't think of my losses from Albany at all.

The next morning I thought of my losses from Albany. My job, my best friend, my old life that made me just as happy as today.

But at the very least, I fought against this dread from loss. This dread wasn't permanent. But it was an uphill battle that I couldn't logistically and financially afford. There were opportunities within my grasp that my woe wouldn't allow me to accept. "I didn't deserve it," "It could never compare to what I had before," "I probably won't enjoy it." Despite this, I chose to fight anyways. By the end of the month, I found a job as a pharmacy cashier, had a fun time at an escape room, and went to another concert out-of-state with my first paycheck.