NYC

It’s been a year and a half since my feet touched New York City pavement.  When too much time has passed since I’ve been to my city I start to experience withdrawal symptoms.  I find myself daydreaming about New York, running through as many memories of my time there as my mind can conjure.  I hone in with laser like focus on any picture, TV show or movie featuring the big apple, looking past the focal point to the city in the background, aching for its energy and searching for clues as to the specific location.  I experience strong feelings of jealousy and anger towards those lucky individuals living there.  And oh help the poor NYC resident who happens to cross my path during this period of withdrawal.  I will sit them down and force them to tell me all about what they are doing, where they are eating and how much they are loving New York, New York. 

At a wedding this fall I full on embarrassed myself with a couple of my husband’s friends who had flown in from NYC.  I couldn’t stop talking about it, couldn’t stop peppering them with questions trying to see if some of my favorite haunts still existed.  And then the embarrassment continued when I admitted that it had been five years since I’d lived in New York.  And then I hit an all time low when I had to further admit that I’d only lived there for two years.

I talk about New York like I’d lived there a lifetime.  In the grand scheme of my life two years is a remarkably brief period.  College was twice as long for heaven’s sake and I don’t wax on about that in the same way I do about my city.   I mean at what point will it be an unhealthy attachment to a place I once lived?  In ten years?  Five?  Two years ago?

Some of it has to do with all the years leading up to my time living in Manhattan.  I don’t even remember when I decided I wanted to live in New York City, I just always remember wanting to live there.  When I was a little girl New York represented Broadway and all my dreams of becoming an actress.  As I grew older my career ambitions changed, but the dream to live in NYC stayed the same.  The whole of my life leading up to my move at age 22 seemed to be moving towards that moment. 

My embarrassingly intense connection may also have to do with the beautifully intense life I lived there.  They were two very full years.  The first year in New York was the best hardest year of my life.  I don’t mean that it was the best and hardest year of my life but rather that it was the hardest year in the best possible ways.  I had no money, knew no one and was living really far from home with out any real safety nets for the first time.  At first, because I had no one to go out with, I would spend entire weekends watching Law and Order SVU marathons until I was too afraid to leave my house for fear of being attacked, kidnapped and sold on the Russian mafia black market.  (I finally got too scared to even watch SVU when I saw the episode with the woman found in her building’s elevator shaft.  She hadn’t even left the apartment!  I didn’t stand a chance!)  Then, as I finally had a few reasons to leave the house, I was so broke I would nurse one drink all night and walk everywhere.  I remember a night at a bar that was way too artsy and cool for me on the lower east side.  I stayed out too late to walk or take the subway home and I had to find an ATM with only a $2.00 service charge because my bank account was down to $22.50 and I had no other cash for cab fare.  But I lived in New York City and all I had to do was walk a few blocks to remember that this was my happy place.

If the first year was hard in the best way then the second was just best.  I finally hit my stride, made friends that would become lifelong loves, and started making just enough more money to enjoy things every once in a while.  I loved everything about that year and would need much more than a blog post to do it justice.

And then it was over.  At the time it felt right to move, it felt like I was getting out while I still loved New York, before it had a chance to make me jaded or angry.  Now though I wonder if I shouldn’t have stayed another two or three years.  I never expected to be a life long New Yorker.  I love my Midwest family too much to stay away (and I married a country boy).  But a strong part of me wishes I had given myself a few more years and memories with my city love.

Now, two kids later, I still wonder what it would be like to live there now, in this stage of life.  On good, non-withdrawal days I think about the chaos of two kids and all. the. things. that come along with them and I am deeply grateful for my house and car and quiet little life.  But on days like this, when my absence from the city I love has caused me to romanticize it and everything about it, I think about how much better the grass would be on the Central Park side, how much more I would love my life, how much better everything would be.  It’s not true of course.  The rich and beautiful life I’ve built here is such because of the people that exist here, not the geographical location in which I live.  And I wouldn’t trade this life for anything.  Not even a big apartment over looking Central Park West… well, maybe.  How big are we talking? J