NYC and Me: A Volatile Affair

There are milestones, and then there are MILESTONES. Next week marks a milestone so freakin crazy I almost don't believe it.

They say that if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. I always laughed at that statement, but looking back on the last 10 YEARS, I can honestly say I wholeheartedly agree. I mean, don't throw me into a prison shower or drop me in a war zone, but I really do think that I could make a home anywhere at this point.

You see, next week I celebrate my ten year mark in NYC. It was ten years ago that my parents said goodbye to me outside the dorms at FIT and I pushed my tongue hard against the roof of my mouth so as not to let tears give away my fear. I waved goodbye as their car disappeared into 7^th ave traffic and I ducked behind the stairwell to cry silently at the terrifying solitude of moving to NY by myself at age 18. If you would have told me then that I would still be here ten years later, I would have laugh/cried right in your grill. But somewhere along the way, the city crawls right into your being. It seeps into your blood and sets up roots in your bones. It takes hold of your heart with a strong grasp, yet does so very gently and imperceptibly so that it's hard to tell when it happened or how.

But inevitably you realize that your stomach aches when you've been away too long. That when the plane loops around to land at La Guardia, the sight of the buildings warms your insides. On a Friday night, you look around at your motley crew of friends and realize that they've become your family. I hate to sound cheesy, but hell, after ten years of hard NY living I deserve a little introspective softness.

I never really considered myself a NYer. I'm a Georgia girl (though with my love of eff bombs and vegetarian tendencies, you'd never know it). But I've become acutely aware in the recent months how accustomed to this town I've become. It's when I realize my body instinctively knows which side of the train platform is closest to my destination, or how to hold my umbrella going under scaffolding so as not to drip on any disgruntled wet city-folk. It's when I catch myself turning my head at juuust the right angle to avoid total hair-style destruction from the approaching train's wind. And it's the moment I bond with a stranger in a single glance over the crazy that's screaming about “God's love” and “the reckoning.” It's when someone asks me directions and I actually know the way.

It's easy to fall in Love with NY for the obvious reasons. The beautiful Christmas season, the park in Springtime, the smell of warm nuts being sold on a cold day, the millions of things to do on a lazy Sunday... But I think it's when you can fall in love with the probable ups and downs that a typical day of pavement pounding brings that confirms NY truly is home.

It's loving its dualities. How it makes one feel both sane and completely insane all at the same time. Full of knowledge and utterly dumbfounded in one breath. Capable and incapable. Sure and unsure. In love and in hate. Grateful and disdainful. Big and yet, ridiculously small. You can be alive, and full and bright and electrified ...and somehow completely beaten to a lifeless lump merely putting one well-shod foot in front of the other... all at the same time. :)

I can thank this town for many things. For crazy experiences (something my friends and I call “NY Nights.” Where else can you find yourself in Wynton Marsalis's living room at 4am in a deep discussion about life, or sailing up and down the Hudson on a friend of a friend of a friend's sailboat...). For life lessons about love and acceptance (of myself and others) and perseverance. For friends that function like Family, and conversely for Family that now also functions like friends. And...Lord knows... above all else, maybe, NY has taught me to laugh. Whatever you do- Just. Keep. Laughing.

I don't know where I'll be ten years from now. And, to be honest, I like it that way. I like knowing that I can adapt to whatever crazy sh*t life seems to think I'm ready for next.

I do know one thing's for sure, though: Whatever it is, I can handle it. I will be okay.

I mean, hell, I'm a NYer for God's sakes.