If I Can Make It There!

Some people fall in love with New York. I never did.

But some people can't leave their small towns fast enough, can't wait for the hustle and bustle and glamour and lights.

I never went looking for that.

In thinking about it, why I never made that deep and lasting bond with the city that never sleeps, I've come to look at it through the lens of relationships.

I was already in a committed relationship with Massachusetts. MA has always had my heart, from her brick and cobblestone to her ridiculous accents, from her hometown sports mania to her commitment to superior education. She's liberal, yet she's old-fashioned. She's old blue laws and new progressive laws. Salt water taffy and cranberry juice, Newbury street and chowder and plimoth plantation and I just love her to bits.

Even when it isn't practical. Even when she breaks my heart. Even when sometimes all I want to do is pack up and move somewhere new.

I love MA. I love the turning leaves and the frost and the wet, miserable springs. I love the summers that are far too unreasonable and humid and sticky. I'd miss the potholes and police detail and pedestrians who believe whole heartedly that it is ALWAYS their right of way.

So while I was staying in New York, it felt like I was merely a guest. I never felt truly that I LIVED in Manhattan, that Manhattan was my home, but rather that I was visiting for an extended period of time.

And just as a woman in a committed relationship might respond to an attractive, seductive casanova, a known rake and philanderer, I eyed New York suspiciously, never quite trusting it, never really letting my guard down.

Sure there were lovely days, days that almost made it seem liveable, but I was in a long distance relationship with Massachusetts, so New York and I had to remain JUST FRIENDS.

And sometimes I miss my friend. We lived together for two years and I did alot of growing and changing while I was there. NY will always be important to me, will always have a corner of its own in my heart, but I'm glad I never got drunk one night and did anything I'd regret!

I miss my human friends who still live there, faithful in their romance with the Big Apple (no one really calls it that when you're there, incidentally). I miss how convenient and easy NY could be- the variety of food, the availability of food at all hours, I really miss the ever-ready opportunity to find SOMETHING to do when you wanted to do something.

But while I visited "the park" I never lingered long enough to find favorite nooks or locales. While I browsed the museums they never really felt like 'mine'. I rode the subway but not frequently enough to have a 'my stop'. I don't have a favorite little coffee shop, nor a saturday morning routine. I never let myself fall in love. I kept a chaste and amicable sort of distance from the allure and 'magic' that is NYC.

And sure, sometimes when I'm watching TV or a movie and I spy something very familiar I experience nostalgia, but it's sort of like the nostalgia that urges you to call up that old pal from high school sometime and see how they're doing... or maybe search them out on Facebook... but you never actually act on that impulse. It's a sweet, far-away sort of warmth that makes you smile wistfully, maybe chuckle or sigh, but it certainly isn't "the one that got away".

New York doesn't haunt me or call to me like a siren, the way it does so many of my friends.

But, like an ex, or like an old roomate you sort of had sexual tension with (though never quite acted on it), I haven't really been looking forward to seeing New York again. I'm afraid it might be awkward.