New York Is...

When I first came here I didn’t know what I was doing. Eight months later and who’s to say I’m any further along that path to figuring it all out. Who says I’ll ever get there. I spend too much money on coffee, throwing in cash to keep awake in this life I’m still creating, each day as the sun rises and sets, as I make my way to work and to home, Lower West side to Upper East. And it’s always alone, the daily grind, the coming to terms with change and how this city is constantly moving.

And then one day you wake up and realize things are changing. It’s been happening so gradually you hardly notice it, but then you come home from work and your new roommate, your old friend is marking another birthday and you find yourself surrounded by friends, new friends, people you’ve just met but whose lives you’re suddenly a part of, even if only in the smallest of ways, and you feel you’re making something of yourself. You’re finding a life you never knew existed. You’re starting to make ties to people who will eventually tie you to others, and who knows where that will take you.

In a city where you’re constantly surrounded by people it’s almost impossible for the direction of your life not to be influenced in some way.

And then tomorrow, or today really as it’s rounding one o’clock and people are still filtering out of the apartment, dizzy on Dirty Waters and beer, I’m leaving for Boston to visit my old life for a few days. A night at the Pig, sleeping in my old home in the Back Bay realizing maybe (maybe) that life is where your stuff is, where your new friends are, where your future (no matter how uncertain) rests, waiting for you to come back.

Because there are always certainties, like the life you know and have left behind. But New York Is…the life you’ve yet to experience, where certainties come and go as fast as subways and it’s the idea of the day to day that keeps you moving forward (with coffee).

So tomorrow is Boston (still sad and recovering I’m sure from the five-game sweep), and after that back to the city. Because New York Is…home.