It's All So Magical

“Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances.” - Benjamin Franklin

I spent a majority of my life wanting, yearning, dreaming of living in  
New York City.  

When I was 3 years old, I saw The Rockettes on TV performing at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  When I was 4, my mom enrolled me in my first tap class so that I could, one day, become one of those professional long-legged chorus-line kickers.  When I was 5, my parents took me to my very first Broadway show (to be fair, I saw two that year, and I can't remember which one was first - Peter Pan or The Secret Garden - either way, lucky kid, right?).  I very clearly remember that while we were standing in line to get in to the theatre, a homeless man was walking up and down the mass begging for food.  I insisted we give him money, and my father gave me a $5 bill to hand to him, which I did, with the firm grasp of my mothers hand on mine.  I don't remember what we ate for dinner, I don't remember the train ride, and I don't remember much of the shows (except the flying and the garden set and the cast of The Secret Garden saying a teary eyed "farewell since it was their closing performance).  Yet I can still picture the cool breath in the air, the lights of Time Square, and being in awe of the enormity and magnitude that was this giant place, this cement playground, this city of lights.

When I was 6, my mom took me in to the city for a special Mommy-Daughter day.  This may have been around the time she was pregnant with my brother (as I distinctly remember purchasing a pregnant Barbie Doll, where you could take a baby out of her springy-plastic belly - so strange).  We went ice skating at Rockefeller Center, had hot chocolate and soup at the Plaza, then went and played in F.A.O. Schwartz (where knocked-up Barbie was obtained), the coolest toy store at the time.  I remember riding home with my mom on the train, opening some of my new toys, and feeling really lucky to have gotten to spend an entire day with just my mom.  It was one of my favorite days of all time.

When I was 16, my Dad got remarried and moved to New York City - 97th and Broadway, to be exact.  My only thoughts at the time?  How stinkin' cool!  Now, I'd be spending every other weekend in the greatest city in the world.  Every weekend became an adventure.  My Dad and Step mom would take us to museums, parks, restaurants with foods I had never tried, street fairs, shows, and flea markets.  We spent one summer searching for all the NYC Cows (check it out: cowparade), and found most of them.  It was a massive culture shock, and one of the best things to ever happen to me.  It was also when I decided that no matter what, New York was where I needed to be.

It took me until I was 24 to get there - it took college, money, strength, support of my wonderful friends and family, a new job, and finally building up my own courage to pack my life into a U-Haul, cram 8 friends (and one mini Caraline jumping on my mattress) into a minivan, and drive the 60.3 miles to my new home in Brooklyn.  It was probably one of the toughest, greatest things I have ever done, and my life will be forever changed because of it.

("So I crammed my life in a U-Haul, to find my part of it all")

There are moments, late at night (or morning 2am-ers, in this case) that thoughts start racing.  The air is still and calm, my breath slowly releasing in the cool winters night, the bass line blasting through the wall of the apartment next door - it is now that I am able to take a step back and realize:

 I'm here.
Sometimes I simply can't believe it.

I look at my life - at what it is now, and what it was before - and I can't always understand how it came to be - how I got here.  I have grown so much, transitioned so many times, and learned so many lessons, good and bad.  I know I am a constant work in progress, and I am only now becoming the adult I had always envisioned myself being.  I am finally focused on what I am and what I want to be - what I'm capable of - versus what I should be,what I always imagined I was supposed to be, or what people expected of me.  I now understand none of that matters.  Was matters is being me, for better or for worse.  And at the end of the day, I think it's important that I remember this point:

I am really proud of myself.  

I don't say this to toot my own horn.  I don't say this to pat myself on the back, or imply that I've done something no one else has ever done.  I say this to remind myself that I have come a really long way since that scared little 17 year old girl, frightened of leaving home for college, or the teenager, scared to ever speak up for herself or fight for herself, all the way down to the 8 year old, who didn't even want to walk to school alone.  I spent years dreaming of living in what I believed to be the big, scary, magical New York City.  Now that I live here, I can assure you: it is, in fact, magical.  As far as the big and scary part?  Well sure.  That's there too.  But it's a really fun adventure.

Walking Through Memories

I did something today that may be considered, perhaps, slightly unorthodox.

Lately, I have been taking a different train to work - a different station, a different line, and in the completely opposite direction of him.  The fact that it is not a mere 2 blocks away from his apartment just adds to it's already growing appeal of being a little more ideal for work.  Today, however, I had a doctors appointment near that train.  That train that simply reeks with memories of him, completely saturated with a year and a half of wearing my heart on my sleeve for someone who simply couldn't handle it.  It took summoning a great deal of courage (I mean, ridiculous) just to enter that stop.  I even made an active decision to get on the train at the opposite end of where he would normally take it, just for fear of seeing him from a distance, or hearing his voice ringing through the subway cars.  As soon as the train reached my stop, I slipped out, and hurried up the stairs through the opposite entrance amongst rush hour traffic, and arrived safely at my destination, unscathed.

Then a funny thing happened.  I walked out of the office, and instead of taking the slightly longer, completely out-of-my-way, safe route home, I turned directly towards his street and walked.  I walked right down one street, and turned on to another, and found myself directly across from his apartment building.  I had no intention or urge to go near it, but I stood across from it, and I stared.  I stared at the green door and metal buzzer.  I stared at the elevator shaft notices and cracked window bars.  I stared at the crumbling bricks, the dripping water, the beat up air conditioners balancing out dirty windows.  I stared, and I breathed.  And I took it all in.  And then I let it all out.  I saw myself, bouncing towards his building, day after day, so excited to see him and climb the four flights of stairs, only to stop for a moment at the top to catch my breath so as not to seem tired when I finally got to lay eyes on him.  I saw myself, meeting him right outside, hoping he would grab me in a giant embrace, as if he hadn't seen me in weeks, and always being slightly disappointed when I had to ask or lean in for a kiss.  I stared, and I remembered, and then I moved on.  I walked away, feeling as though I had just conquered this tiny step, this little street I had been so scared to walk down.  I was nervous about seeing him and kept my eyes wide and peeled for the short time I stood there, but I knew that I needed to be there, just for that moment.  And then I needed to let that moment go.

I ended up walking home the way we would normally walk to my place together.  I stopped in front of places with our memories - the beer garden I threw his surprise party at and where we had our third date; the bar where we ate Cheese Puffs and Twizzlers, played pool and Risk and drank girly beer; the movie theatre we frequented and tried to go to far more than we ever ended up being able to; the building that was "so far away"; the old flea market-turned-outside-bar that we could never figure out how to enter.  I stopped at all these places for just a few moments to admire, and release.  And after feeling the memories, good and bad, I walked on.  It was painful, yet cleansing - as if I was saying goodbye to these memories for now because, just maybe, they are too painful to carry with me.  This neighborhood, this city, reminds me of him.  Everything screams his name, his voice, his smell, his movements - and it's all a little too much.  And since I can't run or move away from it all, I need to re-learn it.  Without him.  And it's really, really hard.

I'm absolutely still feeling the breakup pains - the "what is he..." thoughts plague me often, though maybe not as frequently as they did the first two weeks.  Not being able to talk to him hurts (my decision), and not seeing him or being held by him are probably some of the worst feelings in the world right now.  I hate missing someone all the time.  I hate feeling sad, ever.  But if I'm ever going to get through this to move past this, I have to.  I have to move on and let go - and I don't want to, but I have to.  Every day, though getting easier, has been a struggle.  Getting out of bed is the worst.  Falling asleep is the worst.  Missing him is the worst.  But it's all I can do.

I spent so much time trying to be enough, trying to be the best girlfriend and person I could be, feeling like I was always inadequate or not good enough, hoping that "maybe today, he'll love me", trying to be worthy enough of him and his ability to fall in love me, when really?  It was he who may not have been worthy of me, and my love.  I wanted so much from the relationship, and from him, and he was not capable of giving it to me.  And instead of taking that on as a fault of mine, I need to realize and truly understand that there was nothing I could do.  You can not draw blood from a stone, and you can not make a man who does not have it in him to love someone love you.  This is the challenge that I need to embrace, and move on, so that the person who can love me, and will love me, can come along.  Because I deserve to be loved.

"The truth is, you can only give a person so much time to realize what's standing right in front of them. You can only let a person chase you for so long before you realize that maybe, just maybe, they never intended to catch you at all.  The right one for you will always handle your heart with care and treasure it for the precious gift that it is" - Mandy Hale

"Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving.  You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing" - Elizabeth Gilbert