In good times, and in bad.

I was just in the Midwest for a few days where things are slower and people are nicer and lives are lived a little differently than I'm used to. My friend got married, and as Maid of Honor I honored her amazing good luck at having been able to find a perfect match in this less than perfect world for that as-long-as-you-both-shall-live portion of her life.

In the Midwest and at the wedding however, I was a foreigner. At the reception when I told someone I had flown in from Manhattan they said, "Oh, you're one of those," and wrinkled their nose as though they could smell the wide array of unrecognizable scents that hit you on the corner of 42nd street. Yes, I'm one of those, whatever that means. (Funny isn't it, how we can sometimes react to outsiders?) He was so adamant in his judgment that I was tempted to tell him that if he were to come to Manhattan, some of us just might upturn our noses (tourists, le sigh) and suddenly he would become one of those as well.

Maybe we should be more understanding of Geography and recognize that no matter where you're from, in the end, it's all about what you choose to go home to. After being trapped in the airport for five hours last night waiting to get back to New York, I couldn't help but think that maybe marriage and Manhattan aren't so different. Home can just as easily be a person as it can a city or town or house on a street.

When we finally landed (well past midnight) and I had to take an overpriced cab back to my overpriced apartment, I realized how much your life changes after the "Do you take this person?" question presents itself. In New York our vows when standing at the alter of Signing The Lease include (but are not limited to): letting people off the subway first, avoiding Times Square at all costs, standing to the right, capitalizing on anything free, never exceeding our income, promising to leave the moment we let ourselves forget how truly amazing this city really is (because then, what’s the point?).

You can only hate on what you don't know for so long until you realize that we're all after the same thing – something we just can't wait to get back to, and for some of us it just might be a place on a map.

Of course the only thing about New York is that there's certainly no honeymoon period (in this place, everything comes at a cost). But I figure I'm okay with simply leaving that to them.