Daryl/Zee: Where to next?

Stayed in the hotel room for a couple of nights, but I'm not exactly loaded enough to do that long-term, so I went looking for apartments, but as you might expect, that's also crazy in New York, even when you get to lesser neighborhoods.  I found one that looked pretty nice, and then I got Inn-brain and stopped short of signing a lease.

Breaking up with J.T. messed me up, like every breakup kind of messes you up for a while, except that every cell of my body had been changed from what they had been before I met him to facilitate being with him, and while I wasn't going to try and demand my old life back - it had been freely given with assurances about this very situation, and even if I had done so because I hadn't thought it was ever going to happen then, I'm not that kind of person - the thought of becoming a man again was certainly at the front of my mind.  So I figured, let's not commit to anything.

I don't think I'm gong to do that, though.  I've gotten used to being Zariyah Andrews, and while I'm at least the third Zee, so it's not like I've been entrusted this life by its original owner, I've tried to form some bonds with her mother and other people on her contact list because I feel like I've been entrusted with them.  I've been a woman for long enough that I'd have to not just adjust to all the details of a new life but relearn what it's like to be a man.  And, ultimately, after spending six years with J.T. and seeing it end in an afternoon, I'm ready to move forward.

But how?  And where?

I've come to really like New York, and while I could probably spend the next thirty years in Manhattan and never cross paths with someone I knew from dating J.T., I kind of don't want to risk it.  I don't want to accidentally run into Magda-4 or Harmon/Alicia, either.  Harlem is tempting; I've got a short-term rental there now, and I kind of hadn't realized just how much the Black part of my life was missing until now.

Going back home to Chicago is also tempting, but it kind of feels wrong.  I'll be tempted to return to familiar places, but form new relationships there, and drive myself nuts when they aren't quite like the old ones.  That's something I did being three of J.T.'s girlfriends, and it wears on you.  Plus, I might run into new-Daryl, and that's also weird.

A weird thing I kind of wasn't expecting is how many of the friends I've made as Zee find this course of action completely reasonable.  They know my backstory, that I met J.T. and uprooted my life to be with him and were sympathetic to both the impulse and the way it blew up and left me adrift, and it's a kind of funny thing that both sexes will react mostly the same way, but with slightly different different emphasis.  Men and women both find it romantic, but men tend more to "she's setting you up and is going to think it's funny when she dumps you" while women are usually more thinking about he might wind up hurting you without thinking about it and you'll be without a support system.  Not all men (does that rate a "TM"?), obviously, and not all women, but on the average.

So by the same logic, men will hear you talking about moving after a relationship ends and think you're nuts ("don't give her the satisfaction!") and women will be like, yeah, that's kind of extreme, but I get it and have sometimes wished it were an option for me - and are you okay, by the way?  Again, not everyone in a demographic, but there's a trend.

Looking over this, it makes it sound like I think J.T.'s dangerous, and he's not, and I don't think he would be if I stuck around but continued to reject any attempt to reconcile.  I just kind of find this really interesting and worth focusing on, because having been with him for so long, the fact that the end of a relationship can be an especially scary time for a woman is something I've avoided.  But it's something I'll have to keep in mind for the future, especially if I wind up someplace without other Inn veterans for support.

-Zee