San Francisco in the '90s

This piece has followed me for decades. I bought it in San Francisco in the mid-90s, when I was 22 and had just left Buffalo behind for California. I’d left in the midst of a storm brewing, also known as my older brother Jim. The fight with him was so memorable that I can still see the shadows on the wall, cast from the single bulb hanging above the landing at the top of the staircase. My brother was at the foot of the stairs; I was standing near the halfway point.

My oversized, plush loveseat that I was leaving behind took up too much space in my sister’s living room. But it was beautiful furniture, and I couldn’t bear to sell it, not yet. I didn’t know how long I’d be gone. I just knew I was going. A few days later, I got on a plane with barely a word to my family or friends.

I landed in San Francisco with no plan beyond staying at my ex-boyfriend’s uncle’s house, the same ex-boyfriend who had cheated on me with my best friend. The same ex I cried over years later when he died, and I was married with my third child on the way.

It’s funny how a souvenir can evoke memories that have little to do with the souvenir itself. That fight with my brother has haunted me for years, because it told me that I wasn’t allowed to choose what made me happy. I often think back to what my life would have been like if I had stayed. Would I have extended the generational poverty of our family, or would I have broken its grip on us?

I think I was searching for belonging even then. Leaving was the only way I knew how to find it. I only stayed in California a few months—long enough to get my appendix out, date a cute sailor, and buy this souvenir. Now, when I look at it, I don’t see something I picked up in Chinatown. I see freedom.