But I Still Love You, New York

It's amazing how New York can get you down and make you crazy. It's a high maintenance city, always in your face, never leaving you any time for yourself. If San Francisco is your hippie lover, NYC is your stereotypical fishwife. Too haughty to love you, but too self obsessed to let you alone.

It is surprisingly easy, when you live in a dynamic city, to find your personality slowly shifting. I have found, in the last couple of months, myself fighting to keep my free flowing energy that I developed in the city of flowers. I am becoming aggressive, self involved, difficult. In my interactions with friends and lovers, I demand constant attention - I make noise, I invade privacy, I need constant affirmation and activity. It's distracting - I'm distracting - and even my sleep is fitful and active; invaded by light and sound, how could I sleep when there's still so much to do? Get up! Get up!

I find this frustrating. Endlessly, pointlessly frustrating. And the most horrifying part is that still the city won't let me alone. It is the only place I know where you can be surrounded by people and still find yourself hopelessly alone. There's no space to breath and yet no one to turn to. And the judgment, everywhere, from without and within, which comes along with living around people who won't take anything but the best from themselves or anyone else. It can be overwhelming and overstimulating and ultimately terrifying as you stare into the abyss of what you are and wonder "when will I ever be enough?"

Privacy is a precious commodity here. So is real contact. For every stranger I share a moment with, I thank my lucky stars. For every horn that breaks my concentration, I feel like screaming. Fucking horns. Fucking people. Leave me alone! Love me!

And so I become New York.

This little rant, me spewing my New York bile, does not, of course, take into account all the wonderful things that come along with being New York. Like a backbone, a spine. Like the ability to stand up and say "Enough with this passive aggressive bullshit, I don't deserve to be treated this way!" Like the honesty that comes with high maintenance, and the loyalty and the clarity. Like the constant reminder that I have to be the best and most important being in my own life, even when I don't live up to my own expectations, and if I have to yell my way into that spot, then so be it.

So be it. And so it bes. Every noisy second of it.

And So It Begins...

So I moved back.

After seven months in a city that I loved, in a city that drew me to it before I even knew it, in a city where I felt free and easy, I moved back. Why?

Well, there is only one reason. Real Estate. In the end, it was just too good to pass up, this apartment I inherited. Because ultimately, it is more than just a really great apartment on the Upper West for super cheap. It's home. It's my life. (And secretly, I believe that my bohemian artist roommates and I are single-handedly saving the whole neighborhood from a yuppie invasion. It's really not such a secret. Besides, it's true.)

So I moved back.

I fell totally in love with San Francisco. I didn't realize what that meant, to fall in love with a place. It turns out, it is exactly what it sounds like - the city became my lover. I woke up grateful to be there, I spent hours just walking the streets, trying to discover every detail. I picked my favorite coffee shops, my favorite Mexican joints - I became "a regular." I knew which streets were the most beautiful, and how to avoid the hills. I learned this all quickly, voraciously, eagerly. It was head over heels, incomplete-without-you love, the kind where even the shittiest day, or the rainiest week can't make you miss your old lovers. I became quickly and irrevocably fond of the smallest annoyances, and gushingly pathetic over the great triumphs of my adopted city.

But, as with all my great love affairs, this one too came to a close because of distance. I had this lease. And I had to go back. I have tried, in the past, to keep my relationships going, to make the love stretch across all those miles. And I have always ended up missing parts of my life that were happening right in front of me because I was on the phone. Then the love affair ends anyway, and what is left? Nothing but empty lonely months that could have been spent being here now instead of there then.

So, I'm taking a lesson from my beloved city, the city that exists before and after and beyond time. I am learning to "just be" - just be present, just be where I am. And for now, I'm here.

Which is why I'm here, writing this blog.

It is not easy to come home. It is not easy to live in this apartment. Despite my good fortune, I am having trouble finding a reason to be here.

So

I'm keeping this blog to try to find the joy and excitement which came so easily in the sunshine state. I am keeping this blog to encourage myself to explore. I am keeping this blog so I will face New York like I've never been here before. I am lucky to be here, and I'm in, even if I have to force my eyes open in order to see this city.

Wish me luck.