Cause it's not.
When you first come to NYC, you don't realize how much your neck begins to hurt after not being able to stop craning your neck up everywhere you go. You're in awe of everything here, at how the massive skyscrapers stretch for miles, how there is no building shorter than 3 stories, how everything seems like it's been operating for the past hundred years, but is still functional. How there's never a moment at any hour when a street is completely empty or completely dark, how you never have a subway ride in which there isn't someone preaching about religion, singing or playing music for money or just simply begging for it, how there's never a moment when someone isn't speaking a foreign language as you walk past them. At how massive the crowds bumping into you on the sidewalk are, at how the only reason you missed your train is because there were too many people getting off of that same train, at the strangest, oddest, most outlandishly and absolutely ridiculous character of a human being you can imagine doesn't even match up to the kind of people you pass by on the streets here.
But I don't think I need to go on and on about this. Enough has been said and written about NYC that I don't need to re-hash any of it.
Two weeks into living here in the big city, and I already feel like the life I left behind is miles away from me (now figuratively, in addition to already being literally). As you can imagine, the question "So how is NYC" comes up more often than I'd like it to really. My standard answer for those I don't feel like getting into a long and drawn out discussion is "It's hot and humid. But exciting!"
And to be perfectly honest, that does pretty sum up things for me here. It is very hot and humid and it has been a fairly exciting past few weeks for me. It's...different. To say the least. It's the change in my lifestyle I vied for, and now that I'm here, I can't imagine not having made the decision to pick everything up and make my way east. Though I do have some qualms, complaints, and reservations about coming here, I don't think I'd rather be any other place right now. Do I miss home? Of course. Don't I miss my family, friends, steady/decent paycheck, non-cockroach or rat infested transit system? Most definitely. It's comfortable at home. It's familiar.
I won't get into any pseudo-inspirational "you've gotta get out of your comfort zone!!" bs, but hey man, it's true. You learn and gain more from adjusting to new experiences than you would from any reliable paycheck at a stable job.
With that all said, I now want all of you to somehow make your way out here and visit me.
"I was born and raised here. It's both a good and a bad thing. It's a good thing because it's here. It's a bad thing because I never want to leave now."
-DR
No comments:
Post a Comment