Monday, February 13, 2012

Top 5 Reasons I Miss NYC


 new york city skyline night



1. Friends and Family

Moving is great.  I'm so glad my boyfriend and I had the guts to do it.  But I do miss my hometown, I do.  It just so happens that my hometown is the most famous city in the world.  Although, when I think about it, it's not the city I miss.  It's the people I love there.


2. The Energy

New York City has a pulse of its own.  It's that pulse that people get addicted to.  It's that pulse that people travel from all over the world to.  And it's that pulse that I needed to escape.  It was making me a little crazy, harried and anxious.  Yet, it's that pulse, that rhythm and energy that I miss, because it doesn't exist anywhere else.  It's like a drug.  I know it's not good for me, and I finally kicked the habit but there is still a small craving lingering somewhere inside me.

3. The Familiarity

One of the most difficult things about moving somewhere new is leaving the familiar behind.  I'm a person who likes routine.  I like a stable sense of home and I like belonging.  Well, in my new city here in So-Cal everything is new.  I have a daily routine now (jog, breakfast, write, and maybe a happy hour with a new friend).  But somehow I don't yet feel like I belong.  My life in NYC was who I was, I identified so much of my personality with being from and living in the big apple.  And now that I'm not there, I feel like I lost a huge chunk of myself.  Nothing here feels familiar yet.  Although, that's changing as I meet more people, recognize faces and places.  I am slowly carving out a niche for myself and it feels good.

4. The Crazy

Anything goes in NYC and the raw weirdness of people is what keeps that city moving.  I kind of miss the random screaming on the subway, the street musicians, stumbling on fights, the eye-catching fashion, the weirdos, people doing their own thing without a care in the world.  However, as the world becomes gentrified and NYC becomes more corporate and oppressive, the crazy has been disappearing.  The mom and pop stores being replaced by corporate chains.  The squatters getting kicked out of buildings.  The homeless deported.  The artists too broke to live there.  And luckily for me, my little So-Cal city has its own crazy.  Just toned down to a degree that makes it tolerable and enjoyable.  There are artists here, mom and pop stores, people walking barefoot, hippies, rockabillys, punk rockers -- I love it.  And since the crazy that I miss in New York has changed so much since I was a kid roaming the streets of the west village or taking the subway from Harlem to Brooklyn...I think I'd still miss it even if I were there.


5. The Superiority

So much of being a New Yorker is knowing and believing that you are better than the rest of the world.  Sounds terrible but it's true. Actually, that's part of the reason I left.  I don't want to fight in the rat race, be competitive, or have some pompous attitude simply because I'm from NYC.  As someone who has spent my entire life in the north east of the United States, that high brow intellectual attitude is ingrained in me.  I went to boarding school in Massachusetts, college in Connecticut.  I have been cultured and well educated and my values are that of achievement and ambition.  This is a good thing.  I'm so grateful for the expose me to all life and the world has to offer.  What better place to do that than NYC?  However, the attitude and the angst that comes with that I am now finding in my adult life is too much.  I want a simple life.  I don't want to struggle to be the best.  Not because I can't be the best but because my values have changed.   In the back of my mind however, I wonder if leaving NYC is my way of giving up.  I wonder if my kids will be underachievers.  I wonder if they will have the best the world has to offer here in So-Cal or anywhere else we might end up.  So I miss that sense of superiority a little.  I miss the world literally being at my fingertips.  But then again...that's just mental, just an attitude.  I value happiness over knowledge, money, social status and education any day.

I want to enjoy the moment.  The present.  The leaves on the trees, the sound of the ocean waves, the smell of the roses.  The truth is life is not a struggle, it's not a fight.  Life is to be lived.  Bob Marley said, "Wake up and live" and I don't think he meant jam pack your schedule with activities, work all day long, rush here and there.  It's funny, I used to say that in NYC just making plans to hang out with friends so that you can relax and enjoy yourself is stressful.  Doesn't make sense.  Not for me at least.  I have that energy, that confidence, that hustle already in my blood as a native New Yorker.  Now it's time to chill, to go with the flow.  It's time for me to live quietly.


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