I'm currently on an airplane probably flying over Pennsylvania or Michigan or some other state that after a week in my favorite city really seems completely insignificant. So today I left New York City and I'm very upset about it, if you know me then you know I adore that city, but I'm not sure if adore is even the right word. I'm in love with New York City, when I look in the mirror I see someone who belongs there, someone who would thrive there. I'm not really sure when my fascination with nyc began, but I do remember the feeling I had as a junior in high school while sitting on the floor in Grand Central Terminal eating broccoli cheese bread from Zarros, watching the hundreds of people fly past me. Rush hour in NYC was unlike anything I had ever experienced before; cars were plentiful, but the humans that filled the subways were what fascinated me. They moved so quickly, each one with a purpose, each one with somewhere to be, something to do. New York had an energy about it that I had never felt before and I knew instantly I wanted to be a part of it.
As the years passed, I graduated high school and traded my dreams of culinary school in the city for a much more practical degree in business from a much more affordable school in Utah. Approximately ten hours after I graduated high school my mom and I hopped on a plane to jfk and spend the five best days in the city I have ever had. That trip was less about making it to the museums, less about the naked Cowboys in Times Square, and so much more about taking in the whole city. She let me pick local restaurants, visit tiny parks, and just sit on benches and watch people. I fell in love with New York City fully on that trip and when our five days were up and it was time to head home,
That fall I started college and weeks in began my transfer application to NYU, i started a common application time and time again, only to have to come to terms with the fact that all the reasons I couldn't live in NYC six months prior still stood true. It didn't stop me from staying in love with the city though, and I even prioritized it above things that probably should have been more important, things like dating. There was a boy freshman year, he was tall and handsome and took me on a very nice first date. We quickly hit it off and began dating frequently. I remember one night we sat in my hallway glaring at each other because I told him nyc was more important to me than a man and he told me he didn't want to live in a big city. He ended up leaving at three in the morning, angry at me because I didn't have my priorities straight and refused to admit it. He came back the next day and asked if I'd settle for New Jersey, I was stubborn and told him no but for some reason he still decided he wanted to date me. He left on a mission shortly after & is excited to see the city for the first time when he gets home. It's been fun to watch his love for my city grow as we've written. Maybe he's the one, maybe he's not. But for now, New York is my boyfriend and I'm really okay with that.I sometimes think that my love for New York has hurt my dating life, in fact I know it has. The city for most of the world is not an ideal place to have a family, and coming across a girl who feels so emotionally attached to such an unidealistic family raising place is hardly attractive. Sometimes I think boys are silly, because even after our first few dates during which I express my love for New York, my need for New York, they continue to come around, hoping someday I'll change my mind. When they realize how attached I am (to the city, not them) they are not very happy and that is why I'm single.
I understand a lot of people think I don't understand New York and what it's like to live in such an urban city. To an extent, they're right. But I don't think you have to live somewhere to know that you belong. Others will argue that I romanticize city life, and I absolutely do. Rent in Manhattan continues to rise while salaries shrink, there's crime in the city and constant threats or terrorism. The city is dirty, the public education system is terrible, half a million dollars will buy you a studio apartment if you're lucky, the city smells like garbage half the time, people have to work fourteen hour days just to keep their bank accounts from going in the red. All of these problems are real and I know that. But like all things in life, you have to decide to look at the good, and I'm doing that every single day as I work towards calling New York City home.
New York City is the place to be if you want to work in business, people's careers thrive there. When I visit and walk down Lexington avenue and 36th street, I dream about opening my bakery in that white corner shop with the old windows, of living in the tiny apartment above it. I dream of having a few children, of teaching them the wonders of the city, of watching them grow up learning to navigate the subways and ride their scooters down the avenues. I think of the culture, of the diversity, of the exposure to every country, language, and race every day. New Yorkers look exhausted all the time, but I want that look they have in their eyes. They work so hard every day, but they do it because at the end of the day even though New York City takes so much, it gives even more, it makes you more human than you can be anywher else and I want that, I want it more than I've wanted almost anything else in my whole life.
I have to to it, I have to get to New York City. I know that the days will be long, the summers will be hot, the winters will be accompanied by hashtags like "#polarvortex" and my wallet might get lifted on the train. I understand that there will be days when I want to quit, where I'll question my obsession with this city, where I'll yearn for more closet space and a quiet minute. But I can't give up New York to have those things. New York makes me want to be a better person, to work harder, to love more. New York makes me want to think about what's really important in life, and to go after it. I don't ever want to waste a minute and in New York you literally have the whole world at your finger tips. Have a bad day? That's okay, you're in New York. Have a good day? Even better, go celebrate, you're in New York. Want Asian food for dinner? Italian? How about halal at three in the morning? Perfect, you can get it all on your block. Are you frustrated with your high rent and tiny space? Go take a walk through your neighborhood and realize that your rent gets you Central Park, your rent gets you the only good public transportation in the city, your rent gets you the old lady across the hall that smokes too much and the Indian family that cooks too much curry. New York is so much more than a handful of museums and electrifying billboards in Times Square. New York is a place where businesses thrive, and where businesses constantly bite the dust. New York is where eight million people in Manhattan alone call home, and some of them hate it, some of them really want to leave. But most of them wake up every morning ready to face the traffic, the late trains, the six dollar juice, and the long work days, knowing it is all going to be okay because they did it, they made it in New York City.
New York city is for everyone, if you want it and you work hard, you can get there. I want it more than any materialistic thing, more than a nice car or a big house or a fancy job title. If I'm lucky enough to wake up next to someone I love and look out the window and see New York city then I'll have won, I'll have won it all.
So here's to the journey, here's to the triumphs and the failures along the way. Here's to the really really good days and the really really terrible ones. Here's to the happiest visits to New York city and the saddest goodbyes. I'm not the same person I was before, and I owe it to Manhattan.
Here's to New York City and to someday calling it home. I'll be back.
xoxo.
Sarah
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