Leaving Too Soon
I left Brooklyn Heights after seventh grade. My friends still talk about how good everything got after I left. I missed it all.
I left North Hollywood after my first eleventh grade. My friends still talk about what it was like to graduate together and then go to college together. I missed it all.
I left boarding school in Hightstown on time, after two years there, but I was never really attached. I am now more attached to the privilege of going there than to that moment in time. My friends still talk about me being there. I didn’t miss it, but was I really even there?
I left Babson College after two years due to pathetic grades and a two-hundred-pound weight around my feet called a dying mother. My friends still talk about those last two years. I missed it all.
I stayed at Hartford. I stayed in law school in Fort Lauderdale. I worked.
Then 9/11 happened while I was sitting in my government offices in downtown Fort Lauderdale, watching the Twin Towers fall on my small television that we so often watched DUIs or taped confessions on. So, I left again.
I stayed in Sarasota until I wanted to go home.
I came back to Brooklyn Heights. I moved to DUMBO. Then I left again.
Verona, Montclair, West Orange, Mendham. Watch the trolley drop me at all of these spots while other people commute to work and then go home to the same house they’ve lived in for twenty-two years. I am on a carousel.
I’m here, but I am thinking about leaving again.
Every time I’ve left, it’s been on the precipice of something bigger.
I left Brooklyn Heights right as puberty was having a strong conversation with me. I left North Hollywood right after I got my driver’s license and was free to explore Southern California. I left boarding school for college right after my mom told me she was going to die. I left my first college before I ever played a second of varsity basketball.
I left Hartford on time. I left law school on time.
But I left Fort Lauderdale when I was on a direct path to become a judge. I left Sarasota when I had a firm grasp of the area's arts and culture scene. I love letting things fly out of my car window on a road trip as they disappear into the sky.
I went home again. I left home again.
And now I move from place to place looking for home.
I spent my summers growing up in the Hamptons. My dad is buried there. My aunt and uncle are buried there. My stepbrothers’ dad is buried there. I sat on the backs of green Broncos eating a chicken salad sandwich from the Bridgehampton Town Deli. I sat in the gate house at the Bridgehampton Tennis & Surf Club, on two hours of sleep, selling chits to people when I barely knew how to use the credit card machine. Summers were always temporary. I always left.
I’ve quit all of my real jobs as an adult. I quit to move my family. I quit to open my own law practice. I quit because I didn’t realize startups bootstrap funding. I quit to go from gallery manager to museum curator. Later, I quit because I was being stifled. How can someone be a curator if their vision is being blocked by rogue hands and lampshades? I don’t remember stopping teaching at university, but I did. It seems I am always in motion.
Maybe I leave too soon because they left me too soon.
I leave parties early. I leave things. I like a clean slate, even if my old chalkboard had no chalk on it.
I can make arguments about anything, except leaving too soon.
© Jonathan Greene, August 1, 2026
