His throat parched, Mike walks over to his fridge where he takes out the Brita water pitcher and pours himself a tall glass of water. The glass becomes cold immediately and in one gulp, the coldness spreads down his throat and around his ribs. There is a cleanness to the water he enjoys and he takes a moment to examine the clear and odorless liquid. Even New Jersey water, supposedly inferior to the Catskill-served New York water, can please the senses with a bit of filtering. He doesn’t feel too bad about the $30 or so dollars spent on a box of filter replacements. A feat of man worth appreciating.

Taking a smaller sip this time, he thinks about the PSAs he’s seen in the past. How clean drinking water is a great privilege and how millions — or perhaps it was billions — of people around the world struggle to find clean drinking water everyday. It’s a sad thought, but he feels a disconnect between the images of people half a world away and the ease with which he can refill the pitcher at his faucet. He believes that he lives a simple, minimal life, but he is no less luxuriated than the wealthiest when it comes to water. There is a part of him that wishes he had joined something like the Peace Corps or the military where the scarcity of clean water could have been a real experience, something to make every clean-filtered sip a true blessing. His limited exposure to life outside his comfort zone, he thinks, stifles his ability to observe and relate in an interesting way. All he can think of is how he used to pour unfinished water into the pot of ever-growing pothos and how he felt good about not letting any water go to waste. He realizes that he has not had a single plant in his apartment the entire time he’s been here. The next time he gets paid, he decides, he’ll pick up a small pot of something green.

Mike remembers the clear spring mornings when he would walk to the subway station. The streets of Brooklyn, lined with grand brownstones and beautiful cherry blossoms. In one hand was his thermos full of freshly brewed coffee — Fairway’s Stairway to Heaven Blend — and in the other hand the current week’s issue of New Yorker containing at least one or two interesting articles waiting to be consumed during the ride into Manhattan. The convenience of 99 cent stores and specialty shops side-by-side, the charm of small cafes and reliable dive bars, and the availability of public transportation — these facets of urban life delighted him. He told himself that he could never enjoy life in suburbia and he shuddered at the thought of parking lots, chain stores, and cul-de-sacs.

But many things can happen in the course of a year. He could have stayed somewhere else in the city. Maybe Astoria, maybe Greenpoint. Perhaps with roommates, to keep the rent down. But the thought of self-exile appealed to him at the time. Metuchen. Not quite the wasteland of subdivisions and strip malls. There is a Main Street that he finds charming. He’s had ice cream at What’s The Scoop a couple of times last summer and he still visits the liquor store that’s owned by Koreans. He avoids eating out regularly, but did have take-out Chinese a handful of times during the winter when he didn’t want to ride his bike in the cold to get groceries. He’s missed the nightlife of New York less and less and the thought of blowing seventy or eighty dollars on a decadent meal no longer appeals to him. Perhaps it is a sort of subconscious mechanism that makes him feel contempt at what he has escaped — the $12 cocktails, the $30 cab rides, the $90 per person karaoke bill. The train station is close enough that a ride to Penn Station is possible in under an hour, but he’s only gone back twice in the past year and wishes to avoid going back anytime soon. He feels fine where he is. There are trees, old houses, and peace.

He has written stories, essays, and several letters. He’s content with what he’s accomplished in the past year, but he wonders if he’ll feel more rewarded if others could acknowledge his work. He’s picked out the publications where he would be happy to be published, but he’s not confident enough to send anything out yet. He wonders if he should send a letter to Olivia. Explain to her how different he’s become. How he does his own laundry with ease. How clean and dust-free he keeps his apartment. How he values his time differently. How he’s unafraid to keep on changing.