Over the past several years I have been finally getting to
my bucket list and traveling the United States.
While I have many places still left to see, I have fallen in love with many
different cities along the way. Every
vacation is different, some I stay for a week, others a long weekend, sometimes
I make sure to hit all the tourist sights, and other times I just wander and
see what I can find. The one thing all
these trips have in common, though, is that when I come home, even when I have
an amazing trip, I am overwhelmingly glad to be home.
I have always been a New Yorker, and while I moved around a
bit including a brief stint living in Europe, I have always been a New Yorker
at heart. When I say I am a New Yorker,
I do not mean I talk with an accent, scream at cab drivers and say things like ‘fugghedaboutit,’
because I do not. I mean sure, I
probably emulate a stereotypical New Yorker with my black leather jacket and
oversized sunglasses, but that is just because my style screams BAMF[1]. However, what I mean when I say ‘I am a New
Yorker’ has more to do with my frame of mind and what is in my heart than it does how I speak or what I
look like.
When I went on vacation several weeks ago, I was exploring a
park that had a sculpture of a man playing piano in it. Of course I ran up to take pictures with it,
after all, I never miss a good photo opportunity! After my impromptu photo-shoot
was over, I realized there was a backpack in the sculpture. My first instinct was to call the cops
because ‘if you see something, say
something’, but my Nashville cohorts assured me that this was a common occurrence
of homeless residents hiding their belongings for ‘safe keeping.’ Apparently,
my paranoia was a New York affliction.
I lived in a beach front community for a good portion of my
youth; we were secluded and peaceful, it was all the perks of suburban living,
but we were several minutes away from city exposure. That to me was the best of both worlds. As I am getting older I am constantly
thinking of whether or not I want to stay in New York and where my career/life
opportunities will take me. This is an
internal debate that I have a lot of trouble with; I am drowning in inner
turmoil.
While I would love to move to some of the other cities I
have fallen in love with over the years, I know that I am unfit for anywhere
but New York. New York City is my home,
and while I could live somewhere else, I do not necessarily think I will ever
fit in anywhere else. The skyline is engraved
on my heart, the lights and sounds in my ears, and the beauty and peace I find
in the wild calamity of the city pumps through my veins. Every day when I get a view of the Freedom
Tower behind the Brooklyn Bridge on my way home, I am engulfed by an
overwhelming sense of pride. Knowing my city’s heartache, seeing it’s wounds,
and watching it rise up bigger and better, ready to fight another day; that is why I love New York. That
is the passion and attitude I embody to my very core. For
that reason, I will always be a little piece of New York, everywhere I go.
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