the new york city mystique

It doesn't matter where in America -- or where in the world, for that matter -- you're from. Everyone has some preconceived idea about New York City. Either it's magical and incredible or it's big and too crowded. It's fast paced and exciting, the city that never sleeps, or it's too much, too fast.

It never fails that when I go home, everyone is so impressed with the idea that I live in New York City. Excuse me -- New York City. And I wonder if that awe, that fascination with the New York mystique, if that's not part of the reason I spent my whole life wanting to move here and never really stopped to think about how that would actually work out. It's not that I don't like this city. I do, quite a lot. I know that whenever I leave here there will be innumerable things I will miss about New York.

But when I got ready to leave Nashville on Sunday from my weekend volunteering with Tennessee HOBY, something happened in my lack-of-sleep, over-emotional state and I started sobbing with a force I have not seen unleashed on my body in years. I felt sick. I could barely catch my breath. I was on the verge of having hiccups. It had hit me all at once that not only did I have to leave all these wonderful people who I love so much, yet only see once a year, I also had to go back to my life. To New Jersey. To barely squeaking by paycheck to paycheck. And the reaction was so visceral it was like a transplanted organ my body was firmly and unquestionably rejecting.

This city can seem so glamorous from far away, and almost everyone I talk to about my life here hangs on to some sort of image of New York that is shiny and exciting and sexy and alluring. And I'm sure for some people it is all of those things. But if I have learned one thing as a traveller, it's that you don't have to like everywhere you go. It's okay to be nonplussed. It's okay to be less than impressed. It's okay to not want to live just every old place you go. If I had my druthers, I'd live in London and have a private jet that could fly me home at a moment's notice. But I don't even know what druthers are and I definitely don't have any of them. So if abroad is out of the question, then to me the question only has one answer: the South.

I know what you're thinking. Blah, blah, blah. You've heard this all before. I like the South. WE GET IT. Now shut up. But I want to note the beginning of something important: I am doing everything I can to get my ass back to the right lattitude, and I'll be documenting more about that search here from now on. In the meantime, if you've got any tips on surviving life in the north, please don't be shy.


cheers,
elizabeth