My Love Affair with New York City.

My love affair with New York City. When I was a child I would daydream with my cousin about moving to NYC and being fashion designers and having an apartment together. Then the dream became being an actress in NYC. And then there I was…. doing it. The actress thing didn’t quite jive with me. Beating the pavement and constantly being poor just was not for me. I wanted to be past eating Ramón noodles…those were the college days…I was an adult now, right?!?!
I lived in NYC for 5 years. Fell in love with a writer, married him. Had a beautiful baby boy and promptly left. 6 weeks after he was born. Why?
I don’t know, honestly. I had a million excuses at the time. The top one being “I don’t want to raise kids in this city”. Now after living in the ‘burbs outside of Seattle….I realize that the city life would be better in creating a well-rounded child.
We recently did a 2-week tour of the east coast visiting family and friends. And when I go to visit my parents and family in MD, right outside of DC, which is where I lived for 18 years, I never get that nostalgia feeling of “home”. The feeling where you take a deep breath and think to yourself “I’m home” and exhale with a smile on your face. Nope doesn’t happen for me in Oxon Hill. Instead the entire time I am there that song “which one of these things is not like the other” plays repeatedly in my head. I’ve never felt like I belonged. I’ve always felt like the odd (wo)man out. The black sheep of the family, so to speak. And it’s still this way even as an adult with kids. Sometimes when I’m talking to a family member I look at them and realize they are just nodding their head and acting as if they are interested in what I am talking about…maybe if I watched LOST or CSI or any popular TV program I wouldn’t have this problem. Though I doubt that.
So I’m getting to my love affair. We arrive in NYC and we’re in traffic on the BQE…the kids are so over being in the car….and I actually had that moment…the deep breath and exhale and the smile upon my face and the thought “now this is home”. I kid you not in traffic! And I’m the one driving to boot. After 3 days of bouncing around Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn I regretted ever leaving. I jive with this city. I fit in there. It’s me. I wanted to wrap my arms around NYC and give it a huge “I”VE MISSED YOU SO MUCH” hug! Everything about it, I love. The fast paced world…people walk and talk faster there than anywhere I think. I love that in Queens you can walk 1 block and buy a slice of pizza for your 3 year old, 2 iced coffees and a shirt for your hubby to replace the one the 3 year old yacked all over after being car sick. All in one block! I love that you can walk into a store and no one speaks English. After 5 minutes of being out of your apartment (or your best friend’s in my case) you can pass a black man with dreadlocks, a very old Chinese woman, a middle aged Afghan Woman wearing the full head covering where you only see eyes, a Hispanic 8 year old that promptly says “hola momi” when he passes you and a 30 something white girl walking her 2 kids in the city she loves with all of her heart. Oh yeah..that’s me.
The tricky part is I do remember why I left. It’s hard living there. It’s a constant fight to just walk down the street to get to work. I was done with New York at the time. I didn’t have the fight left in me any longer. More than anything after being pregnant in the summer in that city…I was ready to take it easy a little.
And now here I am. Thankful that we did move cross-country just so we can say we did it. And wishing to be in the place where I call “home”.

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