A city like New York, where everything's moving all the time at this constant driving place. Its like a live in organism, breathing and changing and over time your relationship to it becomes like this incredible romance. At first its intoxicating then instant and then slowly it becomes comfortable and safe. You have this cellular connection to it as if you've known each other forever like your oldest happiness. And sometimes you're on the outs and sometimes you're makings up and every now and then you catch yourself in this transcendent moment when you think to yourself..... Oh my God I'm madly in love with you.... and I always will be. -------(Dawson's Creek)
There's this episode of Sex and the City ("Anchors Away Season 5 Episode 1), Carrie is single again after her final disaster with Adien, she begins to look for the city for romance. She meets this beautiful sailor and he tells her he doesn't understand what she sees in the city. Though he's beautiful and sweet shes offended because New York has been there for her when no one else has.
I must say that I've been on the both sides of that issue. Growing up, I had this romanticized vision of what NYC was, I was drawn to it and once I got into college there I knew that's where I had to be. Fresh faced and naive, I arrived in the fall of 2008 for my freshman year and my romanticized illusions were immediately popped. I can't blame the city entirely for this, I had personal circumstances to deal with and I had gone to NYC all alone, with no one but myself to lean on. I missed Chicago, so much i could hardly breathe at times. All through my first year of college, I felt that the city, my university and the people surrounding me were surely going to suffocate me. Not one to give up easily, I returned for a second year and because of my incredible roommate and becoming more involved, I slowly let the city in.
My true love affair, didn't begin until last year. My life, though still quite chaotic was slowly giving me a path to navigate through, I surrounded myself with incredible peole and I became intune with the city, slowly embracing what it had to offer. As I return for my final year, I reflect upon those days when I felt lost and sufficated and how I've come so far from that.